Feu Thérèse 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 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 instrumental 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 Thérèse aimed 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 Thérèse  embraced 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.