Reviews

Feu Therese

Feu Therese

Digg this review.
Add to del.ico.us.

Review Date: 2006-05-13

See, you’d think that any album that starts out with an eerily-reminiscent-of-a-dentist’s-drill-synth-sweep is going to eventually just drive you insane and so you’d probably turn it off. I’ve got to say, that if I were in the music store, and I was looking through albums to buy, and I decided to put on Feu Therese’s new one in the listening booth, that the decision would have been made quite quickly into the session. This might be the most un-commercially acceptable way to start an album ever. I do understand that it’s meant to be the sound of an engine revving. Perhaps even a Ferrari, since the first track is called “Ferrari en feu.” The album itself is dedicated to Luc Ferrari.

After the opening, we are treated to a much more analogue sound, and it is welcome. I will warn you though, from one music-lover to another. Expect no melody here. Objectively, I respect all music that is made. Subjectively, I’m not sure that even I get this. It’s not that it’s bad... I’m just having a tough time trying to imagine the motivation behind this track. It’s not like a jazz track where you’re constantly treated to a renewal of melodic and rhythmic ideas. It’s not like an ambient track where you are treated to sonic feelings and atmosphere. It simply seems to be a rhythm track that repeats and repeats. Okay, cool. So it’s tight, and well produced. I just can’t seem to answer the question, “why?”

This is especially the case on “Mademoiselle Gentleman” which lasts for 6:05, and never really does anything different than what it first establishes. This is all I’m going to say about this track.

“Tu N’Avais Qu’une Oreille” is the third track, and we finally have singing. Though it is minimal, and as far as melodies go, this is as far from a melody as you can possibly get. The bass player largely plays 2 notes on this track. Though that’s sort of misleading because it’s actually just the one note, with a drone at the octave.

Intermission- you know? I really like ambient music. I am a big fan of the meditation process, and sometimes you just have to listen to something that you can tune in and out of at will. In fact, most of the albums I’ve been buying by new artists fall into this category, because, well, it tends to be the only genre in which I can consistently hear something I haven’t heard before. It’s hard to call this ambient music, though it’s absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to call it anything else, because it doesn’t really move.

Okay. “L’homme Avec Couer Avec Elle” continues on this path, which isn’t really surprising to me at this point. Though, there is some melody here... it largely involves two chords, arpeggiated. Which means, there really isn’t a melody. It’s just two chords broken, and played in pieces rather than all at once. Actually? There’s a band that plays a couple doors down from the jam space I have with my band right now that kind of sounds like this. So it has to appeal to someone. I feel bad, I’m sorry Feu Therese, I just don’t get it. I’m lost. And it’s hard to lose me. I have no idea what the point is, or why your album is dedicated to the designer of my favorite unaffordable weapon of mass destruction. Though, I do like the Sax player. If indeed it is a performed track, and not a sample(unlikely, based on the band lineup alone-though it could be a hired gun, for sure.), you should really bring this back more often. It dispenses the only real melody so far, and the only real tell-tale sign of musicianship.

The first track I get, and the last track on the album is called “C’est n’est pas les jardins du,” which actually starts to sound like art. We actually have changes here. We actually have movement. We actually start somewhere, go somewhere else, and actually come back to something. Not to say that I believe music should return anywhere... I admit it is an effective tool, and sometimes very powerful, depending on how the repetition is ... repeated. In anycase, if you never go anywhere, you can’t really return, can you? But yes, I like this track. I think if the arrangements of all of the tracks were as sparse as this one, it might be a more interesting album altogether. The dynamic is really what hinders this effort because there’s really nothing glaringly wrong otherwise. And that’s interesting, in itself, because the band obviously has the sensibility as musicians to be able to produce this track, and yet avoids it on other tracks.

Score: 5.5

For one captivating track, and the potential for future greatness... though this one is going to be largely a miss for most listeners, there is at least energy and passion behind every note played.

- Bobwell Gaines