Quogne: Doux – Album Review

Quogne: Doux

(Union Finale)

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Canadian duo Quogne present Doux, their second album of strange and experimental synthwave. Andy Brown reviews the album for Louder Than War.

Quogne are composed of long-time collaborators Chanoine and S. Lamoth, the latter of whom is perhaps best known as one half of Canadian drone-folk duo Menace Ruine. The two projects share little in the way of sonic similarities; arguably, exploring two ends of the experimental spectrum. While the better-known of the two explores apocalyptic dronescapes, Quogne offer a more wilfully eccentric – and largely instrumental – take on electronic experimentation. Doux stands as the band’s second outing, and it finds the duo’s musical musings as uncharacterisable as ever.

The band’s process is one of creation and reconstruction, Chanoine creating the music via vintage electronics, before Lamoth edits, moulds, and reconfigures the material into new idiosyncratic arrangements. This approach goes some way to explaining the unpredictable and satisfyingly unconventional sounds on Doux. Interestingly, the album’s name comes from a French term used to describe something soft, gentle or mild. The music adopts numerous forms throughout its 27-minute runtime, yet it would be a push to describe any of it as ‘mild’.

Doux is stuffed to the gills with dark, electronic oddities that steadfastly refuse to settle into anything comfortable or overly familiar. Rather than opening things up with an earworm, Au Matin creates an atmosphere of mystery and uncertainty. It’s the kind of opener that tells the listener to expect the unexpected. The duo utilise distinctly retro synth sounds that feel like they’ve crawled from the depths of a dusty, unmarked VHS and placed us in the midst of a long-lost horror film. Fans of acts like The Night Monitor and Ye Gods will certainly find plenty to love.

It’s impressive to hear what otherworldly magick this pair can conjure. The synths on Avec Style feel like they’re melting; like they’re seeping through the very cracks of reality and creating some kind of psychedelic portal in the process. Honestly, the album has me convinced that Chanoine and S. Lamoth have inadvertently created a ritual to access another realm. A secret formula only they can repeat. I mean, how else do you explain a track like Devenir that sounds like a piece of esoteric electro-pop beamed in from the far side of the multiverse.

There’s a beautiful marriage of abrasive and gentle textures throughout the album that confronts us with rumbling walls of noise one minute and gorgeous mellotron-style vibraphone the next. It is an unambiguously experimental experience yet never one that feels austere or joyless. The sense of invention and adventure that propelled their 2020 debut – Quorbeaux – is still very much intact. It all ends with the brain-shaking buzz of Une fin en soi; the nosiest track on the entire album and a bit of an industrial-strength banger. Just feel the bass on this thing!

I’m on my umpteenth listen and I still feel like I’ve not really got my head around all the dark and disorientating delights that this album has to offer. There’s a sense of movement, change and transformation here that keeps pulling me back for more. Despite a feeling that nothing has been mapped out yet, all the pieces somehow fit together. If you fancy straying from the well-trodden path for some superbly strange synthwave, then Doux is the album for you.

You can find Quogne on Bandcamp | S. Lamoth is on Instagram.

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All words by Andy Brown. You can visit his author profile and read more of his reviews for Louder Than War HERE