MUSIQUE NOISE-FULMINES REGULARIS, LP, 1988, FRANCE

Like Pseu, Uppsala and Eskaton, Musique Noise were part of a later wave of French Zeuhl outfits with no formal connection to the Magma mothership. Though more overtly avant garde-ish manifestations of the Zeuhl spirit like like Art Zoyd and Shub Niggurath would continue to carry the torch for this stylistic trope through the later half of the 80's, this 1988 debut of Musique Noise's arrived at a time well past any presumed sell-by date for the sort of overtly Magma-derived choral avant fusion gestures found here. And yet, aside from some dubiously dainty digital key voicings, there's no denying that a lot of what's going down here simply smokes. 

As was the case with Eskaton before them, a lot of the action on the front line on these tracks is dominated by insistently intoned choral female vocals stitched into and cross-hatching rhythmic tattoos, though unlike the majority of bands that arrived in Magma's wake and took their pointers from the more feverishly martial dimensions of their musical template, Musique Noise, while fully capable of fusion fireworks, spend as much time extending their line of inquiry out from the most mellifluous and dreamy bits of their Magma muse. Surely, they're the only exponent of this style I've heard thats seen fit to use Magma's much derided 80's release "Merci" as a template for some of their tunes; no mark against 'em in my book as I'm perfectly happy to ride that particular train right off into its sappiest sunset, but it's doubtless to be a deal-breaker for some. Their loss.