Released in 1980 ‘X-traordinaire’ was the second album by art house electro-disco outfit GINA X PERFORMANCE. Formed in Cologne in 1978 the group was built around the core song-writing partnership of singer/lyricist Gina Kikoine and writer-producer-musician Zeus B. Held, who went on to work with Fashion, Dead or Alive as well as producing Pete Wylie’s ‘Sinful’ album. In 1979 GINA X PERFORMANCE enjoyed instant club success on both sides of the Atlantic with their ‘No G.D.M’ single. Follow up 7” ‘Nice Mover’ (also the name of their debut album) had its cult classic status more recently re-affirmed by an appearance on Andrew Weatherall’s 2000 compilation ‘Nine O’Clock Drop’.
The album ‘X-traordinaire’ is a beautifully sleek and feline creature that retains a clear relevance to today through acts like Goldfrapp, Ladytron and more mainstream ‘pop’ artists such as Scissor Sisters, with whom GXP share a common flirtation with provocatively sexual lyrics and gay/androgynous imagery. Musically we’re in Berlin Bowie meets Chic meets Giorgio Moroder territory and it’s a heady and provocative mix, particularly on the opening triptych of ‘Striptease’, ‘Do It Yourself’ and ‘Opposite Numbers’. All three tracks sound fresh and wonderfully hedonistic with their evocative suggestion of fetishist decadence and liberated carnality in some dark underground Cologne club.
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Unmistakably Germanic in voice and manner the ice-cool Gina Kikoine recalls performers as diverse as Eartha Kitt, Siouxsie and Propaganda’s Claudia Brucken but also possesses some of the cosmopolitan other worldliness of Grace Jones.
Further in the album moves away from its addictive club template and offers up other styles. ‘Weekend Twist’ detracts from the trash glamour with its simplistic post-punk beat while ‘Nowhere Wolf’ sounds like a curious Eno/Roxy relic from the pre-punk seventies. The ten-minute closer ‘Ciao Caruso’ opens like a Jarre/Vangelis ambient soundscape before segueing into a synthesiser driven prog-cinematic work-out with an extended sample of the Italian tenor.
‘X-traordinaire’ holds interest far beyond being merely a curio from the dawn of electronica, mainly thanks to its rich and glossy production and the sophisticated multi-layering of electro-beats and melodic rhythms. If at times the album loses its heady charisma the opening trio of high quality Euro-funk and electro-disco are more than worth the asking price on their own.
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