Soviet Soviet - BulgaryI was on the Paris metro when the pickpocket took my wallet, and I think it happened while I was considering the necessary and sufficient conditions of frottage.The train had arrived at Gare du Nord—where I boarded—packed. Every car contained a solid block of people, and I had forced myself onto one by shouldering aside an old woman who glared and said, “Pardon” when I displaced her. Over the course of a few hot minutes, I had worked my way to the middle of the car, where I wrapped one hand loosely around a metal support pole slick with the oils and germs of who knows how many hands.Let me tell you though that I am not an expert when it comes to frottage. I have only a rudimentary grasp of the concept. I’m ignorant of the nuances. But even to my untrained eye, I spotted, on that train, several instances of public rubbing—the kind of person-on-person friction that, if human flesh were combustible, might have resulted in that Metro car’s perfect immolation. But I wondered, on the Metro, whether or not frottage can be accidentally committed? Can one enter into the world of frotteurism unintentionally? If the small Indian man next to me, holding what appeared to be a petrified alligator in the manner of a surfer propping up a surfboard in the sand, rubbed against the tail of his reptile and became aroused, does that count? If the hemispheres of one’s ass come into contact, at a tangent point, with another’s, as mine was with a girl’s in back of me, where does that fall on the scale? Am I a demi-frotteur?The feeling was not unpleasant. The image in my head, of my ass and the girl’s ass embracing, suggested the two ellipsoids of a Transverse Mercator projection, or two vinyl kickballs tenderly pressed together in tight quarters.{Soviet Soviet remind me a lot of "Shot by Both Sides"-era Magazine, and their (Soviet Soviet's) energy is immediately apparent on this track. Who doesn't love classic-sounding post-punk?}[BUY the Soviet Soviet/Frank (Just Frank) Split EP from Mannequin]Full preview of the split EP on Mannequin's Soundcloud page.