I guess Feu Thérèse's debut album is supposed to pacify militant fans of Fly Pan Am, but one wonders how many Francophone enthusiasts are willing to devote time and money to an ensemble that feels more like the side-project of a side-project than a coherent band. Feu Thérèse's formula seems both familiar and over-ambitious: The scraping guitar of Pan Am's Jonathan Parant joins the psych electronics of Shalabi Effect's Alexandre St-Onge for a project commemorating Luc Ferrari, a French composer known for textured tape works. The dedication may be pretentious, but it's also a bit confusing since Thérèse has more of an affinity for wild improvisation than Ferrari's clinical precision. But the concept is clear: to enhance Constellation Records' usual art-punk doldrums with even more unsettling sound effects and tape manipulations.
The results are happily varied, though they also feel somewhat formless. The most experimental pieces are also the most gratuitous and exhausting. Not that this is an outright criticism. There are scattered moments of insight everywhere. The most interesting (and infuriating) feature of the album is its rapid-fire transitions from musique concrete to 4/4 indie pop. Like Pan Am, Feu Thérèse take a perverse pleasure in turning aneurismal synthesizers into upbeat garage tunes and orchestral jingles. These look-what-we-did! antics are especially grating considering Thérèse's best tunes are just extended psych drills, particularly "Mademoiselle Gentleman", a feedback seizure of robot bleeps and dub-soaked static. The vocal track sounds like a pigeon infestation in the best possible way.
Nonetheless, the remainder of the album is merely competent and mostly dull. Witness "Tu n'avais qu'une oreille", a 10-minute slog through dour whispers and funereal chants. I think I know what Thérèse is trying to evoke-- Arctic landscapes, spiritual ethereality-- but after a decade of Quebecois post-rock records, it just reminds me of software ads and après-ski bars. By the time the band gets to "L'homme avec coeur avec elle", Parant is unabashedly referring to mid-1970s Pink Floyd. Sure, there are some fascinating effects: ornithological recordings, leaky pipes, parliamentary speeches. But they often seem like superficial adornments, not structural necessities. At this point, Thérèse have not yet reconciled the mystery of their experimentalism with the bluster of their guitars. The frustration arises from the fact that Thérèse are clearly capable of better material, as group members have demonstrated in the past. As for the present, it's a promising-- yet somehow unfulfilling-- debut from a group with limitless talent and leaden songs.
