From the Desk of Mr. Lady

AMG Review of From the Desk of Mr. Lady

MacKenzie Wilson
All Music Guide

Kathleen Hanna is an individualist refraining from anything catchy. However, she and her outfit, Le Tigre, draw outside the lines on their seven-song EP From the Desk of Mr. Lady. They don't shy away from electronic samples, making for a delightfully quirky indie rock appeal. Of course the iot grrl attitude is still apparent, but it's not so in-your-face. Songs such as "Get Off the Internet" and "Bang Bang" are brilliantly amusing, poking fun at corporate society and its obsession with right-wing norms, especially the power of technology. New wave synth beats are lackluster, but that's also part of the attraction. They are a little generic, reminiscent of a Casio. "Gone B4 Yr Home" is frisky; Erasure-esque club/dance aesthetics make this one of the more jaunty tracks on the album. Le Tigre frolics with ambient pop, and the intense punk rock snarls that made Hanna a critic's target in the early '90s is still seeping through, but this time the effort is much more attainable. Le Tigre's musical art is certainly a sign of the times, and is unafraid to move in the direction embracing the rising force of new millennium electronica. [In 2004, Touch & Go reissued From the Desk of Mr. Lady with a remix of "All That Glitters" by Rachael Kozak and footage of the group's performance at the Trocadero.]