D.D.A.A. ‘Concert Plasmatique’

‘Concert Plasmatique’ (41:51)
Live recording, Paris, Maison des Métallos, April 26th, 2008

Sophie Fée: table top guitar & synth
Jean-Philippe Fée: guitar, mbira, loops & drum machine
Jean-Luc André: vocals, keyboard & sampler

The cat supposedly has 7 lives and D.D.A.A. obviously enjoys a similar fate. It seems there have been several periods in the band’s nearly 30 years history. It would be great to be able to point a blue, pink and yellow period, like with Picasso – their last CD is called just like that ‘Blue, Green, Red and Yellow’, IP 045, and contains archival recordings from 1979-1997, including sessions with Craig Burk, Pierre Bastien and Bernard C. Regarding historical periods in D.D.A.A.’s output, I can only conjecture the following:

• Exotic period (1979-1983: Aventures En Afrique, Live in Acapulco, Action and Japanese Demonstration)
• Troubadour period (1984-1990: Ambulants, Saltimbanques, Ronsard)
• Maracayace period (1991-2006: Bruit-Son-Petit Son, Nouveaux Bouinages Sonores, Conference Maracayace)
• Plasmatique period (2007-2008: live Toulouse XI-2007, live Paris IV-2008)

I’m aware this draft lack a pseudo-Deuleuzian, gray period, sort of, when theoretical writings threatened to out-run the band’s music, around 1989-1992. So, 2007 saw the launch of a ‘plasmatic’ era, supposedly based on Willelm Reich’s theories. From what I understand, the ‘concert plasmatique’ is a live show where the band find its way within a pre-set structure and written material. A few samples, specific instruments, Jean-Luc André’s theoretical speech and lyrics. I assume D.D.A.A. disregard improvisation in this context. Anyway, the music was dense and rather wild, despite some technical flaws here and there. Some of JP Fée’s loops were beautiful, some JL André’s readings were hilarious, and Sophie’s accompanyment on guitar and choir was perfect.

Download.

D.D.A.A. ‘La Famille des Saltimbanques’

01 Le Cratère Central (04:30)
02 The R. Standards + Les 25 pièces (10:46)
03 Psychédélic Song (03:17)
04 Courir Vers Le Bois (02:06)
05 Les Yeux Fermés (04:30)
06 Ne Plus Rien Voir (04:52
07 Le Cargo Du Soir (01:11)
08 Loin Dans Le Froid (08:50)
09 Baltique (19:00)
10 La Ferovia (02:47)

Total time: 61:45
Cassette released 1984 on ADN Tapes (ADN 06)

1984 was a time when bass guitar was a prominent feature in D.D.A.A. (for Déficit Des Années Antérieures), and their TV Personnalities/Young Marble Giants influences showed the most. This tape was released the same year as their classic ‘Les Ambulants’ LP, and indeed, tracks like ‘The Riddle’s Standards’ and the monumental ‘Baltique’ are included here as well, the latter in a different, yet still relentlessly shamanistic version. The similarities are obvious: Les Ambulants (The Wanderers) took its name from 19th century russian itinerant painters setting up exhibitions all around the country, while Saltimbanques is based on a Picasso painting [+], the portrait of a group of fairground or circus performers. As if, during the eighties, DDAA view themselves as outsiders, migrant, independent artists. Jean-Phiippe Fee’s guitar is used to good effect on most songs, this definitely being a rock album. Trains and electricity have always been 2 of lead singer Jean-Luc André’s obsessions, and Les Saltimbanques is no exception (eg The R. Standards, La Ferovia). Really great cassette, not to be missed.

Download.

進念‧二十面體 Noise Zuni

1. Earth Quake (6:27)
   [from The Revolutionary Opera]
2. Trance (8:17)
   [from Abolished Memories]
3. Last Chant (5:25)
   [from Chronicle Of Women]
4. Caravan I (8:17)
   [from October-The 4th Year of One Hundred Years of Solitude]
5. Caravan II (4:54)
   [from October-The 4th Year of One Hundred Years of Solitude]
6. Easy Metal (3:42)
   [from Super Metal]
7. Final Count Down (8:43)
   [from The Revolutionary Opera]
8. China Is A Big Garden part II (2:44)
   [from The Square]

Total time: 48:22
Self released CD by Zuni Icosahedron, Hong Kong, 1993

Founded in 1982 by Danny Yung (b. Shanghai, 1943), Zuni Icosahedron 進念‧二十面體 is a Hong Kong art collective working on theater plays and performing festivals, locally or abroad. Over the years, Zuni has become one of the major professional companies in Hong Kong [+]. In the mid 1990’s, they began to work with traditional chinese opera and actors, what they later dubbed ‘experimental tradition’, as exemplified in their 2008 production of Tears of Barren Hill [+]. Their theatrical plays were apparently rather demanding for the actors, asked to cry, laugh, breath heavily, in dramatic, theatrical gestures. ‘Chronicle of Women’ (1991) consisted of ‘12 women robed in china-blue cheong-sam with their backs towards the audience sighing to an empty stage. Only the final sighs grew from weak to strong, breathing, groaning, panting, a mixture of everything.’ (from Danny Yung’s liner notes).

This self-released CD documents the stage music used in some of their performances from 1987-1991, by composer PUN Tak-Shu 潘德恕. At the time, PUN Tak-Shu was creating soundtracks for independent local films, but I understand he also took part in some of Zuni productions as a stage performer. He is reknowned today for his 2000 video Bombastic Verses. The ambient, incidental music on the CD is based on synth, drum machine and vocals, and include some lovely ambient music with a chinese emphasis, along more rhythmic numbers. Some tracks have barely noticeable ambient sounds, like the mysterious, subdued opener ‘Earth Quake’ – a silent earth quake, sort of. Track #2 is based on hushed female voice and cantonese vocalizations, slowly building up to a more dramatic ambient climax with bell sounds. #3 is the soundtrack to ‘Chronicle of Women’ quoted above, composed for electronic percussion and mournful sighs and moans. Some tracks use traditional string instruments synth sounds, like #4 & 5. Overall, there is a chinese movie soundtrack mood on this delightful CD, with the typical chinese theater influence. A few tracks display a barrage of drum machine and ambient synthesizer, the most oppressive one being #7 – interestingly intented for a rendition of The Revolutionary Opera, one of many classical maoist stage plays, which include The Red Detachment of Women [+] and Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy [+] – sounds familiar, eh?

Download.

Steve Moore ‘A Quiet Gathering’

01 A Quiet Gathering (20:40)

02 Eight Openings onto a Vermilion Sky (21:08)

• I/ Opening of Visions
• II/ Opening of Origins
• III/ Diptych
• IV/ Opening of the Sculptor
• V/ Opening of Ancient Wisdom
• VI/ A Ladder for the Child
• VII/ Mechanical Opening
• VIII/ Opening of Liberation

03 Somnambule (03:49)
[from 'A Quiet Gathering', RēR 30, 1988]
+
04 The Treshold of Liberty (09:33)
[from RēR Quarterly Vol. 1 No. 1, 1985]
+
05 Hermetic Discourse (06:45)
[from RēRQuarterly Vol. 1 No. 4, 1986]

Total time: 61:53

After the inclusion of Steve Moore’s ‘The Threshold of Liberty’ on RēR Quarterly vol 1 in 1985, Chris Cutler suggested the idea of a field recording album, the future ‘Quiet Gathering’ LP. Little is known of Steve Moore’s biography, though I guess some of it is similar to that of french composer Luc Marianni, who quit music to become a psychologist and expert in esoteric theories. Here’s a Chris Cutler end note to a Moore’s article: ‘Steve Moore is an autodidact psychology graduate dropout from Durham. He first used a recording studio, in a rock context, in 1980 and as an instrument in 1982’. Moore obviously had access to a studio allowing tape splicing and editing.

Side one, ‘A Quiet Gathering’, is based on 3 years spent collecting location recordings. Sounds were later juxtaposed and organized, without much further sound processing, as Moore prefered un-treated sounds. What is rare in this music is the way Moore is taking into account the psychological aspects of sounds, chosen for their power of evocation, their suggestive possibilities in the listener’s mind. Moore uses stressful/tense sounds along relaxing/reassuring ones, to make us aware of their ability to evoke feelings. The music features un-realistic acoustics disorienting the listener, like wide reverberant spaces contrasting with more focused recordings. During ‘A Quiet Gathering’, we will hear various foreign languages, chosen for their sound properties rather than meaning. As we recognize familiar sounds – flys, seagulls, engines, children, grandmother chatter, bells, grinding noises… –, we associate them with personnal memories, the music building up on our own reminiscences. Some of the techniques used reminds Trevor Wishart’s Red Bird (and Hitchcok The Birds), like the birds sounds at 3:00 morphing into bells ringing. But on a psychological level, this is only comparable to some of Francis Dhomont’s own researches, like ‘Sous le regard d’un soleil noir’ (1981), based on Ronald Laing’s anti-psychiatrist theories.

‘Eight Openings onto a Vermilion Sky’ applies the same process to samples and loops from dozen LPs including many classical music and ethnic recordings. Speed change, reversal and key-shifts are the main studio treatments in this non-dogmatic concrete music. Sounds include acoustic and electronic samples, found sounds, field recordings, concrete music, various noises and objects. ‘Vermillion Sky’ is a suite of 8 short concrete/electroacoustic vignettes, of which only ‘Opening of the Sculpture’ is played on a synth, namely a VCS3. On first hearing, some of the juxtapositions might seam surrealist, though Moore is not interested in the extremes of collage music. Anyway, ‘Vermillion Sky’ is a brilliant and much-varied composition.

Thanks to Vespucci who kindly offered the material for this post. The LP was posted a while back on a discontinued blog, Mended Records.

Discography

• Return Of The Poet cassette, Mirage 1984.
• A Quiet Gathering LP, ReR 1988
• The Threshold of Liberty cassette, Inner Ear (Scotland) 1990
• The Way In cassette, Inner Ear (Scotland) 1990
• Various tracks on Recommended Records Quarterly samplers

Download.

Phil Niblock ‘Nataliawork’

01 Nataliawork (21:05)
For bass flute and live processing
Live recording, Maison de Radio France, Paris, March 30, 2008

Natalia Pschenitschnikova: bass flute and vocals
Phil Niblock: laptop, ProTools

A piece specially composed for the russian flutist, taking full advantage of her ability to sustain long notes on her instrument while singing. Quite different from classic Niblock for flutes – think ‘Four Full Flutes’ , 1990 – ‘Nataliawork’ is dense and richely textured. The electronic treatment add depth and density to the droning sound. The wordless vocals introduces a human factor in Niblock’s music, as well as a russian element: I was reminded of Valentina Ponomareva’s vocals in Sergeï Kuryokhin’s Popular Mechanics during the 1980s, and this feeling of ‘divine madness’ was fascinating.

Download.

Riccardo Sinigaglia ‘Riflessi’

01 Riflessi (09:30)
02 Sezioni (08:25)
03 Silab (01:20)
04 Attraverso (18:50)
Total time:
LP released 1985 on Auf Dem Nil (ADN Tapes)

An album of electroacoustic music by italian composer Riccardo Sinigaglia, whose take on the genre was more open to extra european influences than contemporaries, and prone to include natural sounds, African elements, or even plain ambient music in his compositions. A composer in the middle of many crossroads, not easily pigeonholed, hence not easily marketable. It takes several listenings to fully appreciate the subtlety and refinement of the mix. The album has a fine balance between field recordings, acoustic instruments and electronics sounds from a DX7 and drum machine. Some ethnic synth percussion reminds John Hassell’s Fourth World music or even Lou Harrisson-like microtonal chord progressions. I guess Sinigaglia was trying to let some un-dogmatic fresh air in the electroacoustic studio – like Luc Ferrari did at the same time. Don’t miss the last 10 mns of ‘Attraverso’ on side B, the most enchanting and refined music I have heard in a long time. More info on Sinigaglia can be found in a previous post. More pictures here.

Download.

Etienne Brunet Trio ‘Boubou-Smoking’

01 Sans Arrêt, Même (3:37)
02 Va-Et-Vient (2:25)
03 Boubou-Smoking (6:43)
04 Néon Jungle, Dénudée (4:42)
05 Un Dimanche Bleu (3:45)
06 Rue Nationale, Vite (2:46)
07 Divertissement (1:30)
Total time: 25:25
Cassette released 1985 on french label Tago Mago

Etienne Brunet: saxophones
Pierre Bastien: bass & guitar
Jean-Pierre Bedoyan: drums & guitar

Etienne Brunet was a founding member of legendary french free jazz band Axolotl in 1979 (with Marc Dufourd and Jacques Oger). After the trio parted in 1984, he started a carreer as leader of various groups, including the delicious Etienne Brunet Trio with Pierre Bastien and Jean-Pierre Bedoyan. Their sound is totally mid-1980s, dry, cold, robotic. Bastien is controlling his mecaniums playing various basses and guitars, producing a unique sound for a jazz trio. Some of the guitars must have rubber bands, I guess, from the weird sounds they produce. Plus he gets totally funky on the last track with a deep bass pounding. The music is very lively, a collection of gentle jazz miniatures (art brut?). The drummer is versatile enough, sometimes leaving his drum kit for table top guitar or assorted percussion. An exquisite addition to the Pierre Bastien discography.

Download.

Yoshitaka Azuma ‘Far From Asia’

01 Toki (26:58)
02 Muratake (16:19)
03 Far From Asia (10:26)
Total time: 53:42
LP released 1982 on Nippon Columbia Ltd.

Long electronic soundscapes by Yoshitaka Azuma, who was to become one of the foremost video games incidental music composer in the 1990s and is famous today for his contribution to Panzer Dragoon Ein (see video below). His first LPs were influenced by european prog and kraut rock. 1982’s ‘Far From Asia’ uses electronic sounds familiar from Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze albums, though with a tenseness and uneasy feeling unique to Azuma. The genre is definitely german ambient but the style is very personal and unusual, anti-relaxing new-age, sort of. The first track ‘Toki’ is build on unsettling minimal electronic loops using mostly basic sounds – presets, so to speak. Music is sparse overall, with a few tutti moments were the music gets really loud. Sounds are half sci-fi movie style, half relaxation music, with truckloads of reverb throughout. Track #2 is a welcome follow-up, being an almost straight new-age number with beautiful melodies. The title track almost sound like film music, the major thirds reminiscent of Joe Hisaichi for instance, just a bit more weird. Very strange LP, anyway.

Discography

• Moon Light Of Asia (1981)
• Asian Wind (1981)
• Far From Asia (1982)
• Mysterious Asian Roads (1983)
• Azuma (1987)
• NHK (1989)
• + music for video games Panzer Dragoon Ein, Tokyo Dungeon, Virus

. . . . . . . . . .

Download.