Entries categorized as ‘french’
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
Categories: french · sound art
Didier Blanchard:
01 Composition n°20 – Un corps sonore (34:44)
Georges Bloch: ‘Fragments Corbuséens Palmés’
02 Vocalise (1:57)
03 Antécédant-conséquent (0:48)
04 Hystérie 1 (2:42)
05 Valse ? (4:45)
06 Interaction 1 (10:23)
07 Hystérie 2 (8:17)
08 Interaction 2 (6:24)
09 Totale (2:09)
10 Tango (2:15)
11 Ganz zum ûberfluss (1:47)
Total time 76:10
CD privately released by ‘Groupe des 5′, France, 1996
Le Corbusier’s relation to music is tangible, if infrequent. He took care of his cousin Louis Soutter, a former professional violinist, inpatient in a Swiss psychiatric hospital for 20 years until his death in 1942. In 1958, he build the Monastery of Sainte Marie de La Tourette complete with a large acoustic conch on the church roof to transmit liturgical chants, “a sonorous machine producing a new style of electronic broadcast”, he said. The same year, assisted by Iannis Xenakis, he famously designed the Philips Pavillon in Brussels, using Edgard Varèse’s Poème Electronique as musical score.
Le Corbusier (1887-1965) build the water tower pictured above in Podensac, near Bordeaux, in 1918, aged 21, when he was still called “Charles Edouard Jeanneret”, his real name. It is said to be his first professional release and of course makes extensive use of concrete (what else?). Back in 1986, it was in a state of dereliction when an association called ‘Groupe des 5′ decided to save the building from collapsing. Part of their plan was to use the disused water tower for cultural events, including these specially comissionned electroacoustic compositions in 1995, whose title translates ‘The sound of a Le Corbusier water tower’. Didier Blanchard (b.1967) is an acoustics engineer interested by architecture’s relation to music. He sat up a microphone inside the water tower to record all the latter’s vibrations. The signal is then fed to a computer for further electronic processing and feedback monitoring, and then send to a large metallic plate whose vibrations produces the music (see picture above). The vibrations are of course re-injected in the process via the microphone. Any sound inside or outside the building (visitors’ voices, steps on the stairs, cars, rain, wind) can activate the resonances. The recording on this CD probably can’t do justice to the sound installation itself, but the feedback sounds are really gorgeous, if a bit monochromatic, close to Harry Bertoia’s steel sculptures recordings, for instance.
‘Fragments Corbuséens Palmés’ is an electroacoustic suite composed by IRCAM associate Georges Bloch (b.1956) for resonating steel plate, voice and readings from Le Corbusier. Mezzo-soprano Sylvie Deguy is slowly climbing the water tower’s stairs while vocalizing and hitting the stairs railing with a stick. The work is a dialog between controlled feedback and singer, making full use of the water tower’s acoustic properties.
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Categories: french · sound sculpture
38 tracks (including twelve 10-seconds silent tracks)
To play on shuffle mode.
Total time 66mn
Free CD published by pedagogical network Erasme and Rhône area, France, 2007
Lionel Marchetti is a French electroacoustic music composer (b1967) who started releasing discs in 1993 under the influence of Michel Chion. Since then he released highly original discs like ‘Portrait d’un glacier’(2001), ‘Noord Five Atlantica’ (2006) and my favorite ‘Train de Nuit’ (2002). The Musique.laclasse.com CD is the result of numerous workshops he conducted in schools with children from 12 to 16 years old. The composer helps the kids record source material then process it themselves with effects and montage. This CD is a selection of some of these musique concrète tracks and is meant to be played on shuffle mode with the silent tracks popping up here and there. Some of Marchetti’s own technique springs up here and there but with a fresh and naive take on musique concrète. The Musique.laclasse.com is also a cute website with updated soundfiles.
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Categories: electronic · field recording · french
01 Table pour quatre tenores d’Orune (:57)
02 Siège de musique pour deux sonneurs de Launedas et Madonna Ciccone (:54)
03 La pyramide du dollar soumise aux lois des sons (:55)
04 Table pour la conversation avec Giuliana I (:44)
05 Table pour la conversation avec Giuliana II (:49)
06 Table pour la conversation avec Giuliana III (:46)
07 Siège pour la chambre de Madonna (:45)
08 Coiffeuse (1:23)
09 Psyché (:52)
10 Téléviseur (:53)
11 Les cannes dans la forme du tempérament égal (2:30)
12 Grande table en suite régulière (1:06)
13 Table en suite régulière (:35)
14 Petite table en suite régulière (1:07)
15 Etude pour le serment (:58)
16 Gamme protégée – strakasciu (:59)
17 Marqueterie – les instruments sardes I (:52)
18 La pyramide du dollar permettant le son (:52)
19 Marqueterie – les instruments sardes II (:41)
20 Triangle (:49)
21 Gamme protégée – strakasciu (:34)
22 Cires gravées – les instruments sardes (:38)
23 Cires gravées – l’ensemble de Cadillac (2:15)
24 [unidentified] (:38)
Total time 23:20
Cassette released by L’Oreille Est Hardie, Poitiers, France, 1988
Michel Aubry is a French contemporary artist, born 1959, who studied furniture designing before starting creating sound sculptures with bare reeds from wind instruments like bagpipes or sardinian clarinets (launedas) installed on reed or cane wood. His sculptures includes one or more vibrating reeds arranged in neatly designed installations also including leather, bee’s wax, wood, etc. Sculptures come in various forms including furniture (tables, chairs) or symbolic arrangement (like the dollar pyramid with its 7 angles mirroring the 7 notes of the diatonic octave ; US singer Madonna had a jacket with such a pyramid on the back in a famous movie, so she’s one of Aubry’s heroes). All sculptures+reeds are playable and Aubry often records their sound with assistants. Their sound is rather basic as no modulation is allowed, but reeds from each sculptures have different pitches creating special chords when blowed together. Aubry plays massive drones only that could go on for ever though he chooses short excerpts. The sound quality is close to that of Yoshi Wada’s Earth Horns With Electronic Drones CD on EM Records. See Michel Aubry english biography here. Thanks to reader Rain for the music.
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Categories: french · sound sculpture
01 Self-System (5:20)
02 Trabla-Air (4:29)
03 Techouba (7:23)
04 Szerzeket – Allegro Vivo (6:00)
05 Szerzeket – Cadence (6:30)
06 Szerzeket – Largo and Presto (6:41)
Total time 36:30
Self released LP, France, 1988
Alain Bouhey: all saxophones
Yochk’o Seffer: piano, b-clarinet
Carol Lipkind: piano (#4+6)
Alain Bouhey is a pedagogist, author of several books on saxophone techniques. He was teacher in Senegal during the 1970s and is teaching saxophone in Rennes and Paris since the 1980s. This vinyl oddity is dedicated to Leopold Sédar Senghor, the poet and Senegal’s president from [1966 to 198?], himself a music lover and organizer of the 1st Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (Black Arts Festival) in Dakar, 1966 (the LP from this festival is itself a strange thing). On ‘La Voie Scriptorale’, Alain Bouhey’s saxophone playing is highly enjoyable, without the shrieking sounds or violent demonstration from other free jazz horn blowers. Magma’s pianist Yochk’o Seffer shows muscular abilities in his keyboard ostinatos and arpegiatos, but he’s mixed a little behind Bouhey so that the music is allowed to breathe. The A side has 3 delightful duets with written sax parts and piano improvisation, except Techouba, a saxophone+bass clarinet duet. The B-side is a piano+saxophone sonata with Bartok and atonal reminiscences courtesy of Seffer himself, though it is probably partly improvised rather than written down. The LP comes with a 16-pp LP-sized booklet of writings and technical diagrams by Alain Bouhey – not included in the zip file.
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Categories: french · jazz
01 Petit r’d'roll de siamois au Tonkin (3:20)
02 Les Tristes Aventures d’un Gros Bonnet (3:40)
03 Première Cordée (3:29)
04 L’Automne A Béguin (3:37)
05 De La Guerre Froide (2:40)
06 Le Sens Du Poêle (3:52)
07 Päte A Modeler (2:38)
08 Il Se Sent Sonné ? (2:04)
Total time 25:18
Self released cassette, France, 1986
This was Bruno Chapoutot’s first release as Brodé Tango, after his duo Germain Hubert Ales (mini-LP on AAA, 1982), the Rock Feller trio (mini-LP on AAA, 1983) and the Look De Bouk band (‘Lacrimae Rerum’ LP, AYAA, 1985). Note: AAA stands for ‘A l’Autome Allité’ – as for AYAA, I don’t know. A gifted guitar player, Chapoutot is also a poetic composer who put Satie back into rock’n'roll, in a way comparable to what like-minded maverick Pascal Comelade was doing at the time. Brodé Tango is part of a parallel universe where asteroids are nammed ‘An Der Schönen Blauen Donau’ [>] or ‘Trois Lapins’ [>]. This cassette has been a favorite since I got it in the late 1980s and time did not erode Brodé Tango’s music singularities, merely amplifying the uniqueness of its ingredients: naive, tender and handsome.
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Categories: avant rock · french
01 3000 Miles Away (9:07)
02 Naïvetés (2:40)
03 Réflexions à propos d’un miroir (2:59)
04 Flip-Flop (10:00)
05 Birds, Birds (6:14)
Philippe Grancher: piano and electric keyboards
Jean-Louis Rizet: synthesizers
Gerard Bouquin: bass
Arnaud Chevalier: electric guitar
Marc Abela: acoustic guitar
Pascal X: drums
Total time 31:00
LP released on Pôle Records, ref#0014, France, 1976
Thanks to Julian Cope’s articles on prog rock, the world is familiar with Parisian anarchists Pôle Records, created by Paul and Evelyne Putti. The label was active for 3 years only (1975-1977) but managed to release essential albums of radical synth music and free rock by French musicians. Their catalogue was taken-up and reissued by Tapioca label from 1977 on (see discog here and photo gallery here). This album by Philippe Grancher (b1956) includes Jean-Louis Rizet, a member of the legendary radical synth duo Pôle and is produced by Philippe Besombes, a Pôle Records stalwart. The music on ‘3000 Miles Away’ is based on piano compositions with Moog, Mellotron or other vintage keyboards accompanyment. The composing method is close to that of Roedelius or Heldon. The B side includes guest musicians, adding an almost prog-rock touch to well-crafted, naive melodies. The title track’s piano sonata displays Grancher’s piano skills and classical influences. Obviously, the album sounds less freak than other Pôle Records releases, which is all the more welcome.
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Categories: avant rock · french
01 Lo Fringaire (1:20)
02 Regret De Maidon (2:10)
03 A Minjat Mon Blat (2:15)
04 Regret Cabreta + Goanhadas (5:48)
05 O, Es Aici Lo Mes De Mai (1:30)
06 Canta, Canta Caramel (0:30)
07 Tè L’ can Tè (0:30)
08 Lo Pastor (5:10)
09 Rigaudon (0:30)
10 Papa Luna (0:20)
11 Granda (2:40)
12 Charivaris I (3:10)
13 Charivaris II (2:25)
14 Improvisacion Rebuta (2:25)
15 Sava, Sava (0:15)
Total time 32:00
LP released by Edicions Revolum [+], Toulouse, France, 1979
The Riga Raga project was launched by writer, poet and musician Claude Sicre and ethnomusicologist Luc Charles-Dominique in Toulouse in 1977. Their music blends 13th century Troubadours’s songwriting style named Tenson (a poetic duet with Question and Answer parts), with Occitan language and folk instruments. Claude Sicre’s originality was to add Brazilian percussion style from the Nordeste area and radical use of traditional instruments from the South of France. A strategy perfectly exemplified in his duo with Ange B. (aka Jean-Marc Enjalbert) called The Fabulous Trobadors (first CD: Èra pas de faire, in 1992). The Riga Raga other members were ethno-musicologists, revivalists and local musicians from the Toulouse area. There is a political message in their refusal of traditional folk music, as they consider the latter a downgraded version of grass root traditions. The music on this LP is quite radical in its use of the folk music idiom, in the variety of instrumentation (jew’s harp solos, weird percussion instruments, small bagpipes, whistles, etc). Sounds at times like pygmy chanting, later like a Biota unplugged improvisation session. Vocal acrobatics include: singing with one’s nose pinched, singing while playing the jew’s harp, dialogue with a barking dog, to name but a few. ‘Riga Raga’ is the Occitan word for wooden rattle. Other instruments include: 2 flutes played simultaneously ; brau (or pignato), a percussion instrument ; cabrette (small bagpipes) ; rebuta, a jew’s harp ; stones used as percussion instruments ; ferrat, a water bucket played with a bow ; wooden whistle, etc. Expect weird sounds, hardly sounding like folk music at all.
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Categories: french · incredibly strange music
