Dive into sin, let's plug the synth: here comes an infinite subject for astonishment, one of the most outsider items dedicated to modular synths. It is beautiful. The woman is happy. The sounds are brilliant. Ravel would have been proud.
The complete identity of credited composer Fred Miller never got revealed.
Another 7" in the infinite serie of obscure french grooves from the seventies, layering its twister beat on epic melodic surf elements: as the title says, quite a tribute in itself to the Space echo effect.
Michel Cenni remains quite a mystery. Was he maybe related to the Pop concerto orchestra ? His second (and only?) solo appearance consists in a great and praised space disco maxi by Optik 5, "official music for the 10th festival of fantastic and science fiction cinema".
An perfectly magical sega 7inch produced again by a mysterious singer that nobody seems to be able to portray outside of La Réunion island: if any maloya specialist can provide some sort of informations about the mysterious Moan Thermogène, his orchestra "Mento Latene", or their thrilling taste for synths and disco laser toms, he will be more than welcome.
As far as we know, one of the strangest thing recorded at Studio Issa / Saint-Denis de la Réunion.
Tracklist:
Raoûl Duguay - Alllô
Aut'chose - Le freak de Montréal
Michel Madore - Bâli
Bernard Bonnier - Métaphores pour un nouveau monde
Claude Péloquin - Mama Vagina
Le vieux show son sale - Le tango des concaves
Pollen - Vieux corps de vie d'ange
Caramel mou - Caramel mou (stéréologue)
Aut'chose - Pousse pas ta luck ok bébé
Claude Péloquin - Il y a juste assez de monde
Intended to celebrate and draw our french's audience attention on the quebecan freak wave from the 70's, this highly subjective podcast purposefully skips many of the progressive classics (Les champignons or L'infonie) as well as the earlier garage / freak / funk ones that were already reissued to focus more on songs that appear sometimes to be more suprising interludes or UFO side-dishes. Excerpts from albums that are not necessarely fantastic all way long, they often drown poetry into lsd, blending cheesy aspects with wild electroacoustic and studio experimentation.
I couldn't resist in including the classic Mama Vagina that quite started it all since the canadian label Mucho Gusto digitally reissued it. Second track by Claude Peloquin comes from the less celebrated l'Ouverture du Paradis, while the one by Michel Madore (taken from le Komuso à cordes) is actually also a product from Jean Sauvageau's studio.
On the more classic chanson side, le Tango des concaves is taken from the cult Le vieux show son sale, written and sang by Plume Latraverse, while the two track by the band Aut'chose (leaded by the poet Lucien Francoeur playing with various session musicians) are from Prends une chance avec moé.
And last but not least, take a bit of your time to visit the reference blog Psyquebelique, from whom I borrowed the fantastic track of Bernard Bonnier.
As this post wouldn't be complete without putting a face on these voices, here comes a selection of the national treasures at their best. Specialists will notice that Raoûl Duguay's glorious appearance at la Nuit de la Poésie was part of an edit in french tv program l'Oeil du cyclone ("Poésie mon amie"): one of the many reasons why I allow myself to conclude on a warm tribute to Claude Gauvreau.
There was a high range of probability for obscure composer Dominique Laurent to be somewhere responsible for some kind of unheeded masterpiece. Following our first detailed post dedicated to this vein of french records "for the physical expression", here comes the missing item, yet the most striking and diversified: blending electronics, organ, bossa or collage elements, it is rich enough so you can even hear a drumtrick that would be popularised 10 years after by something named ... "jungle" ?
Initially created as a soundtrack for the show Abracadabracula by french
Mimes Pinok & Matho, this release from 1983 strangely echoes the recent wave of
interest for some of the Jean Rollin's most psychedelic soundtracks: playing with old-time fantasy clichés, it remains sometimes in a very close way genuinely mentally disturbed.
Partly mellowed with time passing by, Dominique Laurent is still active as a composer and interpreter for various theater, ballet and commercial works. Apart
from the Plume d'Elan 80's TV anthem previously mentionned (also check on your way Les Viratatoums), a few extra infos that appeared online recently lead us to discover how he actually also
composed children song for the holy Garcimore.
Bocquet isn't exactly what you would call hidden treasure now that he already resurfaced on several blogs, mainly with his double Robot bleu / Robot rose. But I already noticed how much some of our followers occasionally don't mind a subsequent post overviewing or summarizing one of their heroes' course. And the comeback of the mighty Henriette Coulouvrat on stage, thanks to the blatant monastical efforts of Musikmekanikcircus, gives me a good opportunity to talk a bit about the one she describes as her favorite composer.
Starting as a decisive member of the french prog band Catharsis, Bocquet's career firstly follows the band's impressive discography. Keyboardist, he brings a highly specific Farfisa touch that made the band's sound distinctive, as you can notice on that b-side packed under a delicate artwork. Following the Catharsis' cessation of activity, he released the Paradia solo LP, followed by Robot rose (including songs from Paradia) and the brand new Robot bleu on the library label RCA media. His perreyesque Marche des canards as well as songs Le flipper amoureux and Le repondeur automatique rightly titillated the label enough to give him a 7" exposure outside of the library field.
Across the 80's, he cumulated commercial works, layering his arpegiators on a massive amount of highly dispensable french tv anthems (X-or, Mask, les Petites canailles) or soundtracks (La Balance). Even a single for Marie Dauphin (Y'en a qui).
Now get ready and spread the word: the syldavesque madame Henriette, for whom Bocquet composed killer hits, is back. And her last month's live appearance in Paris announces more events to come. We all know how much this kind of comeback on stage is risky and rarely works for people with such a fabled profile: this is why we got struck to almost surprisingly shiver and dance on a performance that brilliantly honoured all together the sound (no shitty remixes but pure vintage backing tracks), the voice and the crazyness. We clapped, she laughed. Ha ha ha hi hi.
Comparing to the big names who got recently rediscovered by westerners interested in japanese new wave titillating archives (think Uchôten, P-model, Plastics, or Hikashu), Jinseiremains so far outrageously confidential outside of its own country.
Also spelled Zin-say or 人生, this former project involving future members of techno unit Denki Groove started circa 1985 while its protagonists were still young male students. Thanks to its wild homemade first recordings, it quickly caught the attention of Uchôten leader Kera and his label Nagomu. A catalytic connexion, propeling the band who managed to build a substential aura with its blend of sonic insanity, cracked up electronics, gross stage costumes and occasionally poetical lyrics like "there is something rotten in the asshole".
Each one of these fellow bands from the 80's experienced a different destiny: some like Uchôten ended up signing on major labels, others like, Picky Picnic, managed to release some of their records in Europe ... Despite a reissue as part of the Nagomu collection, a decent thread on Mutant Sounds, and the efforts of a few hardcore fans like femaletrouble, Zin-say's mutation into Denki Groove might partly explain why its cult got less maintained outside of Japan than others. Like Karate Bakabon, its irrecoverable amount of oddness maybe did hold off the most conservative listeners. Scared pussies ...
While this opus by polish director Andrzej Zulawski is still in the memories (wether to acclaim Kaprisky's naked dances and borderline actor's performances or to bitch on the overall general hysteria), its soundtrack didn't draw the appropriate attention, if you consider the killer qualities of some of its synthetic elements.
As a fundamental disco producer, Wisniak is especially known as Cerrone's sidekick (a collaboration that would later become seriously conflictual due to alleged Cerrone's wish to exclude him from credits). But he's also representative of those ghost producers responsible for countless interesting productions, in his case from Chi-Chi Favelas and the black & white band to Régine's incursions in the genre. His works for soundtracks include l'Année des méduses, the second major success Kaprisky got recognized for. Possibly could we also mention his work on the score of "Joy" (sounding sometimes so much like Quincy Jones is both embarassing and impressive at the same time).
Rest in piece, Rosy Varte, who just passed away while this post was about to be written. None of us will ever be able to get out of his head this Wisniak opening theme for your TV show that grandma used to love so much.
Nothing is better than a little jingle to break an embarassing silence and get off on the right foot.
Would you mention the recent lack of activity obeserved here that we would incriminate various elements: not only that the next Cartilage records release is on its way, but also that we've been asked for a few huge time-eaters written contributions by some french magazines, among various other things. Meanwhile, a few of our guest contributors moved to more specialised realms, but our root team is back on the tracks, with enough fuel in the tank to gently warm up those january days of domestic hibernation.
Although Albatros' discography is full of mellow disco-funk nuggets such as Ha-Ri-Ha or Gran Premio, here comes an especially surprising morodeiconnesque acid disco classic from that italian band involving the million seller Toto Cutugno. Probably one of their most unusual and titilating compositions, alongside the slightly more classic bassline of Santamaria de Portugal...
Singer of L'Italiano, Cutugno is also the kind of man who allowed so many french artists to make a hit by covering one of his melodies that you would barely believe it: from l'Eté indien to Laissez-moi danser, he also composed with Albatros the best thing Ringo probably ever sang, Les oiseaux de Thaïlande (aka Vuelo AZ 504) and its grandiosa synthetic orchestral arrangement.
Mystery remains: as all of these tunes seem to be avalaible only as second hand 7 inches, someone will have to explain to me why the hell is the only "Il meglio" cd fairly avalaible made of awfully sounding cover versions ...
Another french synthpop one shot from the band Journal Intime, which drum machine and mono bassline reminds us of other typical tunes such as Bisou's one. One of the band members, Dominique Rousseau, can be tracked down as a producer of either Michel Legrand's Disco Magic Concorde or the furry hit single Kiki Spatial. Moreover, he was also the one in charge of the 1979 disco-funk soundtrack of Les Givrés, one of these comedies that cement our national pride, challenger of the other classic reference in the field of winter sports' gag released exactly the same year: Les Bronzés font du ski.
Pure product from the 80s in France, the ambitiousness that you can feel in the few words spread across press reviews by these five french boys from Lyon attests that they had moving dreams, huge ones. Just born and already overtaken by some tragic circumstances (death of one of its members), Banann Panthair had enough time to prove to Paris that they were worth it (live at Gibus), but despite all their efforts didn't manage to give a little brother to their only 7" and its typically misty hit: a sour item that now belongs to the archives of french coldwave.
Another example of mink-lined 7inch: frustrated by the chamber orchestra main theme ? Turn it to get a surprisingly synthetic B-side that will cuddle your ears. From polish director Walerian Borowczyk, these Immoral Women belong to the list of now classic erotic french oddities.
A few names from the casting might sound more or less familiar to you: on the woman's side Gaëlle Legrand and Pascale Christophe, on the men's one Jean-Claude "What a flash" Dreyfus or the institutionnal Henri Piegay (a name we met a few days ago here regarding another 7")
Real life being sometimes more crazily creative and unexpectable than fiction, you'll find as co-composer the now right-wing deputee, air pilot, photograph and musician Olivier Dassault: a surrealistic profile that makes him the most unexpectable member of a Dassault lineage I will let to your appreciation ... You might also note that he's actually responsible for a countless amount of sonic signatures he composed across the years for clients such as Le Futuroscope, Institut du Monde Arabe, Tati or Vulcania, among many others ...
Besides, the movie also involves some people related to Jean Rollin, like actress Marina Pierro (La Morte Vivante) and soundtrack composer Philippe D'Aram, in charge of the score for Les deux orphelines vampires, Fascination, La Morte Vivante and Perdues dans New York, all recently reissued by Crippled Dick Hot Wax and Lucertola media.
Back to our movie director, Borowczyk in his early years also acquired recognition with his experimental animation movies: here an interesting example alongside Chris Marker, which soundtrack by polish contemporary composer Andrzej Markowski challenges many experiments of the french GRM at the time.
From 1985 and still fresh as a watermelon, a discreet yet cheerful EP from the mysterious Lula on Zero records . Moreover, a good opportunity to talk a bit about this label which catalogue seemed to contain all the roots of a music tree that would later become fundamental in the field of japanese independant music. While many of the musicians who happened to release their early recordings on Zero are still active, they furthermore developped a decisive influence through the years on a younger generation, wether you consider the now classic Shonen Knife or the less highlighted Luna Park Ensemble (which member Hiro Nakazaki now belongs to Maher Shalal Hash Baz), among many others.
This label's releases, now belonging to the tough world of collectors, start to resurface from time to time on various blogs: check Stalking Duppi for the highly recommended Kumiko Suyama's haunted vocals layered on filtered noises, or Mutant Sounds for the delicately detuned works of Che Shizu:
The rich Aura Music compilation, featuring various artists from the team, also offers an interesting panorama, including incursions into more synth oddities with such a kind of electronic tune:
It's not a surprise to learn that this label happened to release the japanese edition of After dinner's Paradise of replicaand Souvenir Cassette (compilating live recordings from european and japanese tours): its whole catalogue seems to be cemented with a deep coherence, a (sub?)conscious trademark that will allow you to find connexions between many of the artists, projects and specific musical aspects they developped.
Among the members of that not-so-usual french synth-pop band, you will find Daniel Chevenez, future half of Niagara (who also produced les Calamités, among various other things), for what happens to be their only 7"release from 1981.
Infos are scarce on the band and its other mysterious members so we'll simply extract here the sweet mesmerizing B-side and also will notice that Pierre-René Worms, in charge of the cover portrait, is well-known for his experience as a photographer who shot the eclosion of new wave in France at the time.
A short video footage of the south-african Shangaan electro team, currently on tour in Europe, who stopped in Paris thanks to Etienne Tron's Secousse for a night at Point Ephémère: successfull night for these inventors of modern Shangaan and their trademark sound, sometimes slightly repetitive and a bit hard to follow for lazy euro dancers but 100% exciting all way long, with the demonstration that nobody really cares about violent start/stops and fadeouts when it's all about managing to let something happen in da place.
For those who might have miss it, the complete story as told by producer Nozinja here describes everything you need to know. A very good article also to check here, while it's still time to catch on and follow the rest of the tour:
June 28th: Brussel - Les Ateliers Claus June 29th: Rotterdam - Worm @ Heidegger June 30th: Berlin - Berghain July 1st: Roskilde fest. July 3rd: Lisbon - Gulbenkian foundation
Buy their merch ! Brought to you from South Africa, tones of fantastic bonus tracks on Cd and K7 from the various bands produced by Nozinjaand Mackzella (Tiyiselani Vomaseve, B.B.C. ...) completing your overview from the initial LP released by Honest Jon Rds.
As you already heard the speedup tracks when the record got out, here comes an interesting slower and mellow one, with a very specific disco-funk use of the marimba bass.
Following our first post on the now classic E pak sa hero of the genre, finally come a bunch of digitalized tunes directly rippped from original korean ponchak tapes: strictly instrumentals, these are structured by groups of 3-4 songs played with same beat and autobass, while the whole tape is recorded using the same synth or group of synths and drum machine, covering what sounds like traditionnal themes and not necessarely representative of the usual techno-trot beat trademark.
Ponchak is often said to be music for truckdrivers, but the artwork suggests they're here probably more intended to be background music for circumstance events like dinners or celebrations, although such a level of cheesiness reveals these oddities' specific psychedelic power. With my apologies for the lack of artist's names in this post, I'd be happy if anyone could help on that side.
While trying to dig for infos that are scarce online, I discovered that a recent band is actually trusting the ponchak tags under the mysterious name of Bolbbalgan for what looks like a super appealing 2001 upgrade of the Ponchak idiom.
Researches in progress, more posts on the topic to follow soon here ...
Coming out from mp3 crds I got offered from friends, hours of intensive donwloading on some peer to peer softwares and few song trades with other colombians djs are selected tracks of what I presume could be described as modern champeta sounds (which DJ Champeta Man from Palenque Rds once confirmed me).
Sampling madness for what could sound like some answer to brazilian funk music. Vids on youtube are better than any attempt to describ for those champeta mezclas...
Also, regarding the quality for the uploaded song I don't know if those are live recording or studio ones but I'd say most of them seem to be total live improvisation.
Kodiak Bachine is an organic and electronic progressive one-man band from the great country of Amazon river, Iguazu falls and kings toucans.
He played during the 80's an electronic avant-garde music with some productions references to the incredible extravagance of brazilian vegetation and the mystic of life, instead of mechanicals thematics and electronics first semblances. A kind of mix bettween A. Jodorowsky, Kraftwerk and François de Roubaix. Before his solo carreer, he played solicitating in a band called Agentss, in the same axis, but with a bit less of flamboyance (for me).
His great hit is called "Electicidade" 1982, and the video won lots of awards :
Let's simply forward the historical yet always too confidential announcement: Goodiepal is speading the word about a free download new album release under the alias Sygnok here:
Those who might have fail in tracking down his recent numerous activities, now either slightly more scarce or dematerialized than the well-covered 2003 Nag Nag Bacon release, might refer to the impressively complete biography here detailing his projects through the years. Including the mechanical bird construction, the bunch of Mort aux vaches music objects distribution plan, as well as the various kinds of lectures he gave completed by the Radical computer musicbook, it constantly highlights the striking and singular care of an anti-authority craftsman for both concepts and objects.
Such a detailed wikipedia overview, as well as his talkative nature and specific taste for classy theory quickly pull the rug from under our feet in these fanbase attempts to add a few words to the character depiction: both intellectual and wild, possibly fluxus if not terrorist in a V/Vm way, he's modestly in charge of an ambitious anti-ideology danish gentleman's life project that encompasses way more than the music shapes produced, and should not be simply reduced to it.
This is why we highly recommend that you, the most attentive of you readers, take a bit of time to refer directly to the Radical computer music theory elements avalaible in english here or there, waiting for the day when some french institution might luckily find the balls to invite him for one of those smart lectures with the appropriate hi-tech translation system he deserves.
