Where bought? I'm fairly sure I bought this off David, one of the band's label owners, at his flat in Rennes. He tried to give it to me (he is a very generous man) but I insisted on paying the man for once. Like I scrunched fifteen euro into his hands and made him keep it and not secrete it back into my belongings or buy something in kind.
Cougar Discipline are (were?) a trio from Lyon comprised of a drummer, a singer/speaker, and a guitarist. I sort of know the guitarist, Alex, and he's probably one of the best musicians I've ever met.
He plays in a couple of other bands - Tomboctou (kind of frazzled Ponytail style loops and atavistic yelping) and Torticoli (outstanding avant-rock trio, one of the best live bands ever) - and shows a mastery of totally different styles of playing in each. I'm not a bad guitarist if fractured and off-kilter chords are your thing, but this guy has demonstrated how he can do unreal things with and without technology right in front of my astonished face. He's also, the bastard, got a great presence - tall and striking, the guitar as an extension of his body.
Here his role is more spartan, almost jazzy: Cougar Discipline are a mood band, a moody band. Their songs are mostly sparse, slow, and bruised. I've no idea what they're singing about but I generally infer some kind of very French romantic sensibility (sensual and then wounded). The singer haunts the spotlight and the drummer does the right thing nearly all of the time.
There are a couple of sideroads away from the depressed-nuit-of-the-soul - 'Luxe Intérieur' seems to play games with metal, while 'Toujours Nuit' could be a Torticoli tune - savage bent-backwards fingers grasping at a rock song that they keep accidentally kicking down the road.
Some people won't like this because the sparseness of the sound, accented by the production, pushes some ugly and abstruse emotions up to the front. But I dunno - I really like this, and am surprised that they didn't really go beyond being a good Lyon band with some connections around the country to help them get their record out.
I'll definitely be hanging onto this. The good news for you is you can pick this up for cheap as I guess it didn't move as fast as they'd hoped.
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