Coeur Machant



""YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH THIS HEART. WE MAKE OUR OWN LIGHT DOWN HERE.""

Coeur Machant is an American psychedelic band with a relatively rare modus operandi: the two members live in Portland, OR and Olympia, WA respectively, and record all their music remotely, only meeting for the first time before their first gig. Jess Gulbranson came from bands such as Joys of Oil and Numinous Knot, while Shreya Bollock was an accomplished folk singer.

From the band's bio, on the origin of their name:

"The name of the band is perhaps the most persistent puzzle for many. It is taken from an Art Nouveau poster series that Gulbranson started in 2007, the phrases being taken from a book on lexicology, and actually misspelled. As found in the book, the French means “biting heart.” The original phrase coeur mechant has a curious history, according to the Maven’s WOTD on the Random House web site:

“If you look up curmudgeon in Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary of the English Language, you will find the following in parentheses before the definition: “It is a vitious manner of pronouncing coeur mechant, Fr. an unknown correspondent.” Coeur means ‘heart’, and mechant means ‘bad’. Dr. Johnson had apparently lost track of who had given him this etymology, and the “Fr.” stands for ‘from’. However, a man named John Ash published a New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language in 1775 in which he took Dr. Johnson’s “Fr.” to mean ‘French’ and, knowing no French, provided the etymology “from Fr. coeur ‘unknown’, mechant ‘correspondent’.” An embarrassing lexicographical moment.”"

The band's discography is as follows:

 * Shipwrecked In Delight (2008)
 * Magenein, House of Enchantment (2009)
 * Soundtrack from 10 A BOOT STOMPING 20 A HUMAN FACE 30 GOTO 10 (2010)
 * ''Untitled album to be released in 2011

Coeur Machant provides examples of:

 * Album Title Drop- for Shipwrecked on the song "Anselm"
 * Concept Album- Magenein, somewhere between The Lost Room and Dungeon Punk
 * Creator Couple- Averted and lampshaded.
 * Echoing Acoustics- Reverb and weird delay up the wazoo. Gulbranson's then infant daughter's crying is captured in the reverb tail on one of the songs.
 * Fake Radio Show Track- "In The Future, Throat Slits You"
 * Gratuitous Panning
 * Grief Song- "Rubies, Diamonds, and Sapphires", "She's Someone's Daughter", and potentially others
 * Hell Is That Noise- Some of Bollock's vocalisations certainly qualify, as well as the band's more ambient pieces
 * Murder Ballad- "Anselm"
 * Neoclassical Ambient Psychedelic Folk Hauntology
 * One-Woman Wail- Though often expanded by overdubs and effects to make A Bunch Of Chicks Wailings.
 * Sampling- Especially prominent on the STOMPING soundtrack- every track, in fact, making it a mass Shout-Out to various movies. A porn sample is also used to great effect on the Gender Flip song "I've Been Your Dog".
 * Word Salad Lyrics- All over the place, as both members are poets/artists as well.