Jean-Marc Foussat ‘Abattage’

01 Grillage (1:13)
02 Images & Jalousies (9:26)
03 Ruines (4:17)
04 Petit Paysage (1:33)
05 Petit Paysage (0:09)
06 Hontes, Inquiétude & Quevœjotto (2:40)
07 Abattage (13:49)

Total time 33:00
LP released by Pyjama, France, 1983

Jean-Marc Foussat (b.1955) is a French guitar player, VCS synth player, label founder and recording engineer. He played with a band called Mandragore in the 1970s, as wel as collaborating with Jean-François Pauvros, Jac Berrocal, Roger Turner, Raymond Boni and Claude Parle. In the 1980s he worked as a recording engineer for Incus, Hat Hut, Po Torch, Rec Rec, Celluloid, etc. He founded Potlatch Records along Jacques Oger in 1997.  On ‘Abattage’ (1983), he self released his studio experiments under his own Pyjama imprint. The tracks were apparently recorded between 1975 and 1981 and feature extensive use of field recordings from out of the window (see cover), as well as piano, guitar, VCS III synth and found vocals. The main instrument has to be the recording studio, though, with obsessive care in balance, transitions and dynamic, that is: much definition in the very low sounds and lots of details in the loudest sounds. #3 Ruines is a solo piano (played by Jean-François Ballèvre); #4 Petit Paysage is a street cleaner engine recording; #5 Petit Paysage is someone lighting a cigarette; #6 includes people laughing and coughing, electric guitar; and then monumental #7 starts as a jackhammer+piano duo, before morphing into a fierce VCS solo. Noise art of the highest caliber!

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Discography:
1983 Abattage, LP, Pyjama records
1992 Nouvelles, cassette release
2001 Nouvelles, Potlatch CD reissue
2001 Abattage, CD-r reissue

References:
Interview with Foussat in The Sound Projector #12, 2004, UK.
Dominique Grimaud ‘L’underground musical en France’, Le Mot et le Reste publisher, 2008, France