Tourette — Brûle mon Âme, Broie mon Corps ; Remodèle-moi à l'

‘Brûle mon Âme’ is French harsh noise unit Tourette’s second proper release following on the heels of the particularly well-received ‘Jardin du Sommeil’ CD on Troniks/Iatrogenesis/Antropofago Ateao back in 2009. This two-song, half-hour-long affair is actually the re-issue on compact disc of material available on the now out-of-print Tourette/PCRV split tape and the long deleted album ‘L’Aube’, albeit in reworked form. Released jointly by Minneapolis non-profit tape freaks Phage Tapes and Skeleton Dust Recordings, it also contains new material recorded in 2010.

Paris-based Benjamin Clement (as his mother knows him) likes his titles long and this new release is no exception. This one, which translates as ‘Burn my Soul, Crush my Body; Re-shape me as a Dog’ is actually a pretty apt description of what the casual listener is being subjected to over the course of its two tracks. Come the end, most of you will no doubt wish they’d been turned into the aforementioned dog, if only to escape the most extreme frequencies the Frenchman pulls out of his keyboards.

By its very definition, the appeal of noise remains somewhat limited among the broad music-listening public. This can of course been seen as an advantage giving musicians active in the field a certain creative liberty which vain attempts at fame and glory (albeit of the kvlt-ish sort) would certainly deprive them of. From stating this to asserting that most of what the scene produces is audio gold, though, represents a quantum leap which I for one am not ready to make.

‘Brûle mon Âme’, as it were, sits somewhere between the two. Its sound palette is interesting enough and the noise and ambient passages prevalent throughout both have their sonic appeal but the way they both mix into each other never quite screams quality, a worrying state of affair considering we’re talking re-arranged material here.

The first track starts off with suitably ominous-sounding choral music before waves of restructured noise creep up of nowhere to weave their way into the sonic fabric and steal the show like some frightful bad dream which you suddenly awake from, panting and trying to shake off the effect. Ambient passages do manage to find their way to the top from time to time but offer a decidedly brief respite and before you know it, it’s back to the scrap yard.

The second track is basically more of the same and, for lack of a better description, sounds very much like some bloke working in a pre-1989 Ukrainian foundry getting off to eerie orthodox chants. The sound range can prove painfully punishing at times (which is good) but again any sense of purpose tying it all together is sorely lacking (which is not) and the press-knob-at-random feeling is brought home once more.

I am sure I am not offending anyone by saying this is not exactly the most original music ever committed to digital format as that is hardly the point here. And I am positive there are at least 500 noise addicts out there ready to shelve out some of their hard-earned cash to give ‘Brûle mon Âme’ the sold-out status they no doubt believe it rightfully deserves. If anything, they’ll be contributing to supporting underground music, always a good thing in this reviewer’s eyes.