“Karaoke A Capella” is Parisian Hypo’s second album; a falsely heterogeneous collection of tracks recorded from 2000 to 2002, with the help Michiko Kusaki aka Anne La Plantine, O.Lamm, Ddamage, Sawako, Reiko Underwater and Sonia Cordier. Hypo follows his own playful-electro peregrinations and twists and strangles pop music: but you hurt those you love and pop therefore gets the best treatment. Hypo's songs are a blend of bubble-gum pop bits, messy glicks'n'cuts, noisy pop overtones, synthetic new wave waste, plunderphonic hijacking in the great tradition of John Oswald and VV/M and fainting woman singer melodies. The whole is telescoped amidst minute and inventive arrangements into a playful chaos. No need to scratch Karaoke A Cappella's slacker varnish for too long, however, to realise that, behind these potential hits, hides an authentic songwriter of touching gravity: when HYPO masters self-derision, he can also overcome it with it.