Pitchfork

My slow crawl around the world in search of new music from the past-- a crawl that finds me falling further behind with each passing minute, as thousands of records in an uncountable number of styles continue to find their way in and out of record bins-- has not yet taken me to the French punk/new-wave scene of the late 70s. And there's a good chance I'll never get there, since punk was never something I identified with much, and I've even been sluggish about hearing all the important stuff released by countries that speak my own language. Given my slight background in the Continental new-wave of the late 70s, I can't tell you exactly where Frenchman Eric Debris, who was a member of Metal Urbain before he started recording solo as Dr. Mix and the Remix in 1979, fits in. But listening to this compilation of his complete works under this alias, I can tell you he was onto something pretty great.

Debris' M.O. as Dr. Mix and the Remix was to record covers of late 60s/early 70s rock 'n' roll and avant-garage classics on which he'd overdrive the guitars to ridiculously trebly lengths, and then sing a bit like Ian Curtis, in a clunky French accent, through a pitifully cheap reverb unit while letting a rudimentary drum machine handle the beats. During Dr. Mix's short run from '79 to '82, Debris released a handful of singles and one full-length album (also called Wall of Noise), mostly on Rough Trade. In the 1995 Spin Alternative Record Guide, The Jesus & Mary Chain's Jim Reid pegged that album his third favorite record of all time-- which says something for Reid's courage, since the distinctive sound of Psychocandy appears to have been lifted wholesale from select Wall of Noise cuts.

The Stooges' standard "No Fun" appears in three different versions: The single, which leads off this disc, was a full-band leftover from a Metal Urbain session; the original album version included later is cheaper and noisier (and better); and then there's a great instrumental "version" (also recorded solo), which served as the B-side of the single. The Dr. Mix treatment of "No Fun" finds Debris sounding like a dork and yet managing a certain cool, democratizing Iggy Pop's sexuality by making it available to anyone with the energy that a few meager tools creatively deployed.

Even more exciting, the insistent and stiff 4/4 kickdrum on a 10-minute version of The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" could become proper dance music with the right EQ settings, and Debris' slurred and drooling vocals lead one to believe he did, in fact, hit the mainline-- possibly sideways. The Troggs' "I Can't Control Myself" finds Debris turning down the guitar a bit to focus on his vocals, the barking cadence of which suggest that Wolfman Jack might have done a radio tour of France at some point.

Not all the old chestnuts fare so well ("You Really Got Me" is dinky synth-pop, and its clean recording makes it seem amateurish rather than inspired) and the Dr. Mix originals are generally pretty bad, mostly warmed-over rockabilly forms without the wit and energy Debris brings to the covers. Despite these serious dull patches, when Dr. Mix is good, he is very good. Most of all, Wall of Noise gets to the heart of why American rock music became a worldwide phenomenon: The format is supple and can be endlessly shaped and re-imagined without losing its essential identity.