CST049 180gLP / CD
FEU THERESE
Ça Va Cogner
Feu Therese caught spark from the embers of Fly Pan Am’s break-up in 2005, when FPA guitarist Jonathan Parant joined forces with longtime collaborators Alex St-Onge (bass, electronics) and Stephen de Oliveira (synths, voice) to form the new group. Painter turned drummer Luc Paradis completed the new line-up. Their debut self-titled album, released on Constellation in spring 2006, expanded on FPA’s sonic agenda, while relying more on instumental juxtapositions – rather than electronic interventions or intentional sabotage at the mixing desk – to hijack the music. The Feu Thérèse mandate of knitting critical and non-conformist elements right into their song structures, instead of having these ‘collide’ with the music as if from outside, has reached a new level of bizarre sublimation on their new record.
Ça Va Cogner sticks to these conceptual guns, as Feu Therese aims to recuperate and re-cast a ‘synthetic’ music that intentionally eschews the codified elements of 21st-century electro nostalgia: the ‘cool’ analogue keys, the heavy bass & drum mix, the overwrought faux-primitivism. Feu Therese embrace unfashionable synth stabs and arpeggiators, riding them high in the mix, along with the vocals, delivered with unapologetically forward, spoken-sung deliberateness by de Oliveira (in a clear nod to the poetics and production values of 1970s/80s French chansonniers). The overt suppression of ‘rockist’ production values – values that the band would maintain now condition every corner of DIY popular music – places this record strangely outside its times. With lyrics entirely in french, some will no doubt find the whole package impenetrable, while others will wonder what brilliant alternative reality (Cannes ca. 1985 in a parallel universe?) they somehow missed.
St-Onge writes: “La musique sur Ça va cogner ne cogne pas mais tente plutot d’adoucir les moeurs. Cet ensemble de chansons et de pieces ambigues est, tel le cri d’une sirene, une invitation au voyage. D’Haiti a Palerme en passant par le triangle des Bermudes ce periple initiatique trace le cheminement de quatre entites (et peut-etre meme plus) qui cherchent l’ouverture qui leur permettra de sortir d’eux-memes pour affronter le dehors insaisissable. Visage (s) sous nylons, les monstres affrontent la nuit qui est une femme sans trop savoir pourquoi. Toutefois, une chose est certaine : s’ils ne savent pas ou ils vont, ils y vont tout de meme.”
Our literal translation: “The music on Ça Va Cogner (”It’s Gonna Hit") does not ‘hit’ but hopes rather to soften prevailing values. This collection of songs and ambiguous pieces is, like the siren’s cry, an invitation to a voyage. From Haiti to Palermo by way of the Bermuda Triangle, this initiation trip traces the development of four entities (and maybe more) who seek the opening that will permit an escape from themselves, to confront the elusive outdoors. Faces masked by nylon, monsters confront the night that is woman, without quite knowing why. One thing is certain: even if they don’t know where they’re going, they go all the same."
Our non-literal translation: Music de-natured, the face of desire disguised and distorted, love gendered and engendered; a little crisis of modernity in this all-too-modern age, where creating true aberrations, actual detournements, is perhaps fated to be – forever more – but a matter of style. We no longer have any idea what Feu Therese are about, but their controlled (repressed?) psychotics/erotics make for an utterly stange, disturbingly ‘normal’ sound. We invite you to hear this paradox for yourself. One thing is certain: these are, without a doubt, songs.
Ça Va Cogner is available on CD and 180gLP, with artwork by Luc Paradis and photography by Vincent Lafrance.