On 30th October, French duo Housse de Racket unleash their third album, The Tourist, through !K7 Records. The LP consolidates the band’s dense sound and vast influences into something unique. Coming back from their world tour that took them from Tokyo to Coachella, work began on The Tourist in 2013. It was entirely recorded into guitarist/vocalist Pierre Leroux’s new apartment, romantically located in Paris landmark: Montmartre. As the band themselves put it, “How could we resist the Sacré-Coeur’s magnetic and hypnotic force?”. The band’s previous album, Alesia (Kitsuné) was produced by Philippe Zdar, who had previously worked with the likes of The Rapture, Phoenix and The Beastie Boys and was critically acclaimed from all around the globe.Housse de Racket describes their new effort as “a state of mind, a motionless journey,” and cites a wide range of inspirations for its songs: “We listened to Fleetwood Mac, Spacemen 3, XTC, Steel Pulse, Alan Vega, Ravel, Laurie Anderson, Miles Davis, Television…Everything we could get our hands on!”
When the slinky title track quotes Depeche Mode and The Beatles, before swerving into full-on arms-aloft rave territory, the mesmerising track ‘Turquoise’ is an expansive tour de force. The
Brian Eno-referencing, four-to-the-floor stomper ‘Encore’ asks the listener “What happens when music’s over?” while the brilliantly brooding ‘Interiors’ showcases the band’s softer side. The LP never sounds like an iPod playlist; Housse de Racket combines the sounds and locations that have affected them into a forty-minute masterclass in Gallic pop. The Tourist is the sound of a group returning home, having seen the world, and trying to make sense of it all.