Etron Fou Leloublan – "Les Poumons Gonflés" (Turbo Music S.A. – TMSA 3301) 1982

Okay, it had to happen,the french drummer bloke who was in Les Batteries,Guigou Chenevier, gained his fame from playing les batteries in the Rock In Opposition monsters, Etron Fou Leloublan......rolls off the tongue doesn't it?

Rock In opposition,or RIO, is really a more marketable title for Prog Rock of the more Avant variety,which became yet another category after Henry Cow's original RIO festival during those crazy punky rock years of 1978 upwards.So an obvious Punky influence was absorbed into these Avant-proggers repertoire.Shorter,opinionated and angrier versions of the progressive type. Quite a few of those post-punk chaps would have fitted in quite well methinks,but the clothes were bad,so they kept away.

Weird time signatures, played by a drummer sight reading music from a lectern positioned visibly by the Hi-Hat to show the dangerously hippified audience that 'we ain't just making this up y'know!'

Etron Fou Leloublan do all this stuff,ticking all the RIO boxes,but bare in mind that these groovy garcons are indeed French, so you should expect some of that 'orrible screechy shouting that their pallets tend to enunciate from time to time through no fault of their own.I blame the parents....who were probably Artists and as a consequence of this delusion,also bastards.

Anyway I chose this album, because it has a song called Nicolas on it, which is my real world given name,and having spent a week in a French hospital once with a collapsed lung,"Les Poumons Gonflés"(the inflated lungs) has a special ring to it.

 

Tracklisting:

1.Nicolas 4:06
2.Mimi 2:58
3.Exposition Universelle 1:41

4.Nicole 5:42
5.La Musique 3:05
6.Christine 6:46
7.Those Distant Waters 3:24
8.Upsalla 2:05
9.Io Prefero 4:29
10.Pas L'sou 3:11

DOWNLOAD without opposition HERE!

Les Batteries – "Noisy Champs" (AYAA – DT 0486) 1986

This Heat's influence,or,connections with the French underground seems to be somewhat larger then expected,as here we find The Heats erstwhile drummer and singer, Mr Charles Hayward, hooking up with another couple of  other drummer boys,....namely French 'rock in opposition' bloke Guigou Chenevier, and some geezer called Rick Brown.....yes THEE Rick Brown.......nah! I haven't heard of him either! But Rick probably hasn't heard of us too so we're quits!?

Three Drummers Drumming,as it doesn't say in the famed Christmas carol, but three,yes,THREE,drummers does indeed apply here! Can you imagine the creative arguments in a band with three drummers? As Gary Glitter and Adam Ant can testify, two drummers max in a band, or there's gonna be trouble. In fact it was Drummer trouble that ended Adam and The Ants and burdened the world with Adam's much maligned Solo career. With Glitter, the obvious problem was,funnily enough, actually Glitter himself(a fine example of a singer that hangs out with musicians).

Drummers are famously the guys who do hang around with musicians.The guys who die mysteriously,choke 'ON' vomit,aren't needed outside of touring, and are forever trying to impose their daft ideas on the rest of the group; like John Bonham's 'Moby Dick', or Rat Scabies' "Stab yor Back", as if trying,accidentally of course, to move that hilarious joke well into the realms of observational comedy.

Y'see, Drummers actually do think they are musicians,and like the stupid son of the family, are always trying to make the audience look at them and see what they're doing.This usually involves hitting the drums as loud as possible,and taking copious amounts of drugs....as in, more than you....look maw I'm Dancin' !

However much the average drummer harbors sparkling  thoughts of their own genius within their considerable ego's ;one has to concede that all this drummer hate certainly does NOT apply to the great Charles Haywood, or his vocal sound-a-like Bobby Wyatt,who are indeed the granddaddies of the Rock In Opposition fad of the late seventies, otherwise known as Prog Rock under any other name.

So, what we expect are three drummers busting their balls trying to Out-paradiddle each other,and to impress each other with their rudimentary talents on 'other' instruments.

It's kinda Punk without the Punk, and This Heat without the Heat, which leaves us with.... 'This'?

Haywoods vocals are as vulnerable and Wyatt-esque as This Heat and Camberwell Now, which adds much needed identity to the dreary Drum-Off. So when Haywood didn't turn up for the follow up albums,they just ended up sounding like Camberwell Now but without the tunes.

An obvious, but bold Idea, balancing precariously on the round shoulders of the limited tonal range of a well tuned drum kit.

Tracklist:

1.Noisy Champs
2.Sunday And Dimanche
3.Identity Parade
4.Polar
5.Post-Polar
6.Dernier Solo Avant L'Autoroute
7.White Elegance
8.The Letter
9.Dernier Rendez-Vous Au Gord
10.Flintstone
11.Maksymenko
12.3 Hommes Et Un Mouchoir

TELECHARGE this assault on les batteries ICI!

Archaïa – "Archaïa" (Choravox – CC 77.976) 1977

Unlike Punk Rock,which was at it's zenith when this Zeuhl homage was released. Zeuhl took its time to have any copycat groops following in Magma's footsteps.Whereas, there were legions of little Sex Pistols cropping up within 48 hours of the pistols first gig propah!...it took a good 5 or 6 years to get any little Magma's.

Incidentally John 'Lie'don of PiL (see what I did?) was a big Magma fan,and attended any London appearance of Christian Vander's outfit with his equally enlightened mate, John Wardle....aka Jah Wobble.

Also a big fan was Pierrick Le Bras and his mate Michel Munier,of Archaïa. Although a pair of Magma nuts ,they admirably tried to play something inspired by Magma's music but via a different path: using only percussion,no drums(great idea),guitar and keyboards.

The result is a less oppressive form of Zeuhl...if this is Zeuhl at all(?),,,or maybe its because they couldn't play their instruments,leaving,in my opinion, more space in the music,and less chance of smothering the listener. A bit like the difference between The Sex Pistols and PiL in fact;who also couldn't play, so they say.Daring to be minimal.leaving room to breath and grow,the art of subtlety free from the oppression of Vander's attempts to be Wagner's most favourite Rock band.Thankfully also absent are Vander's Brünnhilde substitutes,who do tend to get on one's fucking Titz!

Today I think that this is better than Magma, but tomorrow I may think the opposite,it depends on how pissed off I am.....or,for those superior purveyors of the noble mother tongue of ye olde Albion.....in English, how Pissed I am. That means 'Drunk' to those from the colony where we exported all our religious nutters to...sorry about that,but it had to be done.We,the English. also exported our criminals to Australia.which is probably why they always beat us at sport.That suggests a strange correlation between crime and sporting prowess? Hummmm? ...either that or Stupidity? So, as an tenuous attempt to provide some evidence,i can only point to the fact that my Aussie relatives are mostly stupid,and my american family are mostly MAGAphiles.....or worse....if that's possible?

Just one final topical observation from leftfield to close....PUTIN IS A TOTAL FUCKING CUNT OR WHAT?!...and any of you conspiracy twats who wanna argue the toss about how this prick is a dove of peace...please come forward!

Tracklisting:

A1 Soleil Noir 4:31
A2 L'arche Des Mutations 9:29
A3 Sur Les Traces Du Vieux Roy 5:00
B1 La Roue 2:31
B2 Le Festin Du Lion Vert 4:42
B3 Massa Confusa 3:18
B4 Le Grand Secret 4:18
B5 Vol Du Phenix 3:50

DOWNLOAD the alternative 1977 HERE!

Weidorje – "Weidorje" (Cobra – COB 37014)1978

The envious ears of a bunch of over-paid Parisian session men vibrated to the sound of Magma and they thought that they could do the same...but,as musicians are prone to think, they were better at it and could do better.

They managed to release just three tracks in their lifetime,which made up their sole album,here beefed up with a couple of live outings
They were of course very Magma styled,even nicking their Kobaian name from a Magma track,blending in elements of systemic music, and some saxophone.An element long ago dropped in early Magma giving it a distinctive sound of its own(it says here!).Yep....more Zeuhl-lite for potential chart action.The ill-advised use of Brass steers proceedings firmly towards the Fusion-end of Zeuhl,but at least those Wagnerian Brunhilde vocalists don't make an appearance.

The session men involved soon realised that there was no money in having their own Zeuhl band,and soon melted away back into playing guitar solo's for Johnny Hallyday or arranging romantic string sections for Sacha Distel.

They did however leave us one of the most listenable French Prog records,that may even attract people into the room rather than drive them away from it....dunno if that's a good thing, but sometimes its useful.Even if it's just to avoid the noise of the unenlightened majority demanding that this racket be turned off.

Tracklisting:

1.Elohims Voyage 16:33
2.Vilna 12:20
3.Booldemug 7:10

Bonus Tracks:
4.Rondeau 8:49
5.Kolinda 12:28

DOWNLOAD this wee orgy or for the benfit of Donald Trump that's kobaian for pee pee party HERE!

Eskaton – "4 Visions" (Eurock – EC 81002) 1981

Fun to see that this cassette was released on the Eurock label,which not only draws a clear demarcation line between continental europe and the anglo-saxon music empire,but reflects the section in the record store of my youth,which was called Euro Rock;where i first gained access to the unfathomable world of what those european types did for entertainment when they weren't churning out toe-curlingly bad cheesy disco hits ,tooth-grinding ABBA-fuelled Schlager anthems and truly horrible wrist slashing Euro Metal like "The Final Countdown". 

Yes there was indeed unmistakably modern,continental music, that,unless you saw the band pictures,didn't first invoke laughter on behalf of the willfully ignorant average Anglo-Saxon pop picker.

These Euro-rockers looked like clowns,but free from the shackles of having to gain a 'hit' in the UK or USA,they could spend a longer time actually making the music that they wanted to. This was especially evident in West Germany,who had that great burden of post-war German Sartorial ineptitude to grapple with,as well as a dumpster full of Holocaust guilt to assuage. The french didn't have that burden of Holocaust guilt to attend to;although not squeaky clean in that department,they did largely get away with it.Sartorially, marginally better dressed than the average modern Bosch gentleman,musically they came up with the very Wagnerian concept of Zeuhl.....I say 'They'....it was more or less invented by Magma,or to narrow it down some more, Christian Vander done it guv'r sir so he did......said the Hollywood Pearly King.

And it is Magma that immediately comes to mind when listening to Eskaton. The only difference i can detect are the vocals, which are in French rather than Kobaian.....which,for the few of us who don't know, is the made up alien language that literates the parole of Magma's operatic female singers.

Like Magma, Eskaton also have a pair of operatic hippyfied Brunhilde's at the fore,who adequately up the aural oppression stakes like a less Nazi-fied version of ABBA,but somehow seem more accessible than Christian Vander's Wagnerian rockers. I dunno weather Zeuhl-lite is appropriate here, but they are as Zeuhl-lite as that particular format goes.......i may have to post a Magma Album I suppose?

DOWNLOAD something to like the french for HERE!

XAAL – "XAAL" (Xaal Self-released – Xaal 01) 1990

More lo-fi cassette culture Zeuhl in classically fuzzy chrom-dioxide quality,enhanced by a lo-bitrate to make it an even better smothering experience.

XAAL sound very 1990's......there's damming evidence of Fretless bass use,probably with seven strings and a lovingly looked after varnished wooden body.I strongly suspect that all of XAAL's instruments are shiny and well looked after. It's a phenomenon that began in the 90's,shiny chrome mike stands, tidy amplifiers,as new guitars, and tasteless natural wood bass guitar bodies.

One thing I noticed during the recent co-vid hysteria was that the number two item to be seen in the background of Zoom calls,after full bookshelves, is an brand name electric guitar sitting on a stand in the corner .All shiny and new,in barely used condition,to show that the caller is literate, but, cool.

Every fucker has an electric guitar and vast digital multi-tracking facilities these days....even those despicable Politician bastards.All that shite started with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair thinking,mistakenly, that liking Pop music would magically transform them from the awful grinning fools that we know they are, into something cool for Generation X to take seriously.Fool not Cool! Why would anyone want to know that David Cameron's favourite band is Radiohead for fucks sake? Dick'ead would be more appropriate one should suggest,especially as he is officially the second worst British prime minister of alll time,just behind his Eton educated chum/rival Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.....who to my knowledge doesn't own any musical instruments,but cringingly expresses a liking for The Clash,led.of course, by fellow posh boy,but in this case a dead one,Joe Mellor.....Boris obviously was not listening when he heard their punk socialism by numbers recordings.

Just as refusing to have a Tattoo or any piercings,was an almost subversive stance a few years back,now is the time to throw all those home studio's and guitars onto a large bonfire in the Rock'n'Roll hall of shame. Silence is the new route to self-expression through self censorship...stop repeating this mantra of terminal boredom.  Turns out that the great unwashed took this DIY thang far too seriously. There's too much fucking music now,made by people who don't know any better.STOP IT!.....I crave the return of untouchable rock stars, exclusivity and cliques .The moment the moronic majority like the same things as you ,you know that the games up and its time to give it up.An If they're 'Punk' I definitely fucking ain't!...kinda thing.

XAAL are one of those groups who not only have sparkling equipment, but have that deadly disability of just playing the notes,and forgetting the rest.Like an exercise in theoretical music.

But i'm sure there'll be plenty out there who will delight in their shifting time signatures, and accurate playing.....i know I do.

But that don't mean it's Gud bud.

 

DOWNLOAD boris johnson's new favourite band HERE!

Shub Niggurath – "Shub Niggurath" (Self-Released) 1984

If ever there was a recorded medium made for a Zeuhl group it was the Compact Disc.It's crisp soul-less click free reproduction qualities marry up cosily with the icy pseudo intellectual soul-free exactitude of this obscure branch of the progressive rock joshua tree.So naturally we will opt for Zeuhl, as recorded on the always humble never grumble, compact cassette.

The music,judging by the standard made up language type Zeuhl moniker ,Shub Niggurath, is,like the name,fairly typical french progressive rock of that word that I'm using too much that begins with 'Z' variety.It's Jazzy,proggy,metally,full of funny time signatures and starts to suffocate the casual listener half-way through the first track.There are better examples,but this one began to get on my proverbials by the end of side one;but one persevered and ultimately found it rewarding thanks to the silence that was regained by its ending.

On another day I could easily praise this as one of the best things I've ever heard.But today it felt like being slowly asphyxiated by a large square of roof insulation.

Also, of course, they sound somewhat like a Magma tribute band....don't we all? 

Tracklist:

1 Yog-Sothoth 11:36
2 Entresol 6:53
3 Introduction 3:19
4 Barback 14:49
5 In Memoriam 5:23

DOWNLOAD run shub niggurath run HERE!

Happy Family – "Happy Family" (Cuneiform Records – rune 73) 1995

In this crazy,or do I mean Ker-aaaazzzzzy(?), mixed up muddled up old world that we tragically find ourselves imprisoned in, with no means of escape other than Death itself?....... I would have said Death Himself, but I'm flirting with being cancelled if I tread on the squeaky floorboards of sexual politics. So i'll leave the pronoun simply,as 'IT', or "ça" ,as they apparently say in France.Which is strange because I thought "ça" meant "That",until i saw the title on a French copy of Stephen King's "It!" was translated as "ça"......y'know, I think i would have read that schlock nonsense tome if it was called Stephen King's "That!"...a far better title.

Aha! France got mentioned again i noticed! As i've loosely been meandering through the murky ox-bow lakes of French Prog,in it's many mimicking forms,and brings us swiftly to the one form of musique moderne that is firmly rooted in that unfathomable land of Basque beret's, stripey shirts ,onions on strings,apalling body odeur parfum and cassoulet (which is basically bangers and beans for those lucky enough never to have had this reputation busting  crime against basic culinary standards).....where were we again?....ah yes...Zeuhl!

Basically Zeuhl is French Prog disguised as Frank Zappa's smarter brothers more intricately scored works as played by a heavy metal band of Jazzers.....and it ALL sounds the same. Usually they have very impressively crisp Jean Jacques Burnel Bass sounds, heavily miked up,and, massive,Drum Kits;as normally played by the band leader,who will come down hard on anyone a nano-beat out of time. The time signatures are strictly anything but 4/4,and they sing in made up languages. Sounds fun huh?

And this time claiming to be Belgian will not help your inevitable fate.

So here's one of the very best ever Zeuhl records,and ironically, as we've just had a French band playing Canterbury Scene Prog,as well as several French Krautrockers, here we have some Zeuhl as played by a bunch of Japaneses.Just as Japan is the only other country dumb enough to play baseball outside of the USA,they seem to be the only country outside of France to play Zeuhl. Infuriatingly, as normal, our Japanese brothers.....ok,and sisters(!), have a enviable talent of taking western musical forms and cranking them up a notch,from 10 to 11, to repeat that rock satire cliché one more time.They're better at Punk,better at Metal, better at Psych, better at Free Jazz, better at Harsh Noise, and they're better at Zeuhl as well. I suppose Japs are like fat girls in bed....they have to try harder or be binned off and ignored,bless 'em?

Maybe I exaggerate? Not like me I know,but in this case I definitely........am? 

Naah! Jap music rules dude...as some awful fucking yank skate-punk kid would say....but allow me to over-emphasise at will ,will ya.......duuuuude? I think i'm gonna be sick......it's that fucking 'orrible Cassoulet I ate for lunch coming back up to say sorry.

Sadly this fine CD album,is/was not available on Vinyl,which was the fate for countless numbers of poor lickle artists in the mid-nineties.If you see a vinyl album by a half-decent group from between 1990 and 2005 at a reasonable price, buy it,cus they are worth an eyewatering amount of your stolen crypto-currency. I sold all my Shoegaze collection for so much I nearly had to move to the British Virgin Islands and pass myself off as a British Virgin. That Ride album with the ocean on the cover (Nowhere?) paid my mortgage for a month!? I also found out that My Bloody Valentine's "Isn't Anything" was ironically worth quite a lot of something after all.

And No, Sonic Youth are NOT Shoegaze!

Tracklist:

1 Rock & Young 6:39
2 Shige Et Osanna 4:51
3 Partei 7:05
4 Rolling The Law Court 4:53
5 Kaiten (Ningen Gyorai) 8:22
6 Naked King 19:03
7 Drums Whisper Spacy 1:33

DOWNLOAD some japanese whale blubber cassoulet HERE!

Moving Gelatine Plates – "Moving Gelatine Plates" (CBS – S 64399) 1971

CBS (Can Be Shit), not very DIY (Do It Yourself) I know, but however misguided the corporate interest,these evil organisations can sometimes do world culture a favour and provide for us monkeys something worthwhile.Yep, it's the Moving Gelatine Plates' debut album, which,despite an inferior cover to its successor is,probably,slightly, better? Yes dey waz a gallic Canterbury scene Soft Machine tribute band in essence,but if you close your eyes it could actually be our heroes reformed and back on Soft Machine's Third form?...well almost.

Inevitably,the corporate interest waned when the dumb bastards(CBS) realised they weren't gonna get a number one hit on the Billboard top 200, and sadly had to cease spinning the plates and let them crash to the floor.As was the destiny of 99.999994% of all pop groups (figures taken from the national office of Statistics).It's dog eat dog out there,but you might get laid for your troubles,which is basically all a young male human wants out of life anyway so who's complaining?Money and fame you will NOT get......especially in the present.

Without randy dick-led show-offs there would have been no new inventions,new discoveries,No Art,and forever relevant to this blog, FUCK ALL MUSIC!

As your author's labido is currently winding down,this blog's continuation is in the greasy hands of mother nature;although I have yet to get laid because of my wordy internet activities,at least not to my knowledge.I did wake up in a post alcohol stuper  a few times with a sore arsehole.....but the doctor assures me that was just hemorrhoids or a Freudian Adjective about myself?  

Shit! That means the only reason for making music theses days is "Art for Arts Sake" for Fucks Sake!....hey,wasn't that a song by 10cc?

Tracklist:

1 London Cab 8:30
2 X-25 2:00
3 Gelatine 8:10
4 Last Song 15:20
5 Memories 3:15
6 Destruction 2:47
7 Tout Autour De Toi 4:13
8 Fréquence Nocturne 4:22
9 Solaria 3:45

DOWNLOAD the very moving gelatine plates HERE!

Moving Gelatine Plates – "The World Of Genius Hans" (CBS – CBS 64146) 1972

Prog died the day the Moving Gelatine Plates signed to CBS.

Not really, but it sounds good dunnit?

Often compared to Caravan and other Canterbury scene proggers, MGP sound most like jazzy era Soft Machine,who are also lumped in with the Canterbury lot themselves;mainly because some of the members came from that sleepy tourist hotspot and UNESCO world heritage site in Kent,known as Canterbury.The one which gave us,not only The Soft Machine,Caravan and Egg,but Geoffrey Chaucer as well.

Luckily for the  bands who sprung up in small numbers in Saint Thomas a Becket's old stamping ground,where Tom took one for the team; with almost saintly impeccable timing,the M2 had just been finished by the end of 1965,coinciding with the beginning of the UK Psych era. So Soft Machine and buddies had plenty of gigs at UFO and Middle Earth awaiting them in swinging London,just at the other end of the motorway.

Sadly for the Gelatine Plates, they were stuck on the pop music desert island of France,where Soft Machine were becoming rather popular too.So there was plenty of work awaiting any Soft Machine tribute bands who turned up,when the real thing weren't off partying in London.

Despite that Ker-razzy name,and the bizarre cover art,the band don't really live up to their promise.Its all fairly standard Canterbury style jazz prog,nothing wrong with that,but, that was being done elsewhere,dare I say better? There were dozens of petit Soft Machines everywhere in Europe,especially in Germany,where it now gets called 'Krautrock'......but,you silly hipsters, its obviously Canterbury rock innit?

I ain't got two or three hundred quid at hand to buy a copy of this on vinyl,but the CD is reasonably priced,but not as reasonably priced as it is on here.

The bonus tracks are shite from 1980,but they are included just in case you're bothered?

Tracklist:

1 The World Of Genius Hans 14:00
2 Funny Doll 4:25
3 Astromonster 6:15
4 Moving Theme 3:46
5 Cauchemar 3:46
6 We Were Lovin' Her 3:28
7 Un Jour... 1:25
8 Syntheme 3:28
9 L'Alchimiste 3:20
10 Les Êtres D'Or 5:50
11 Ombres 3:30
12 Rire De Peine 7:07

DOWNLOAD this machine molleux HERE!

Mahogany Brain – "With (Junk-Saucepan) When (Spoon-Trigger)" (Futura Records – RED 02) 1971

 

Mahogany Brain ARE,and this statement could be controversial, the Best band ever to come out of France. This I truly believe,and would arm wrestle,or play a winner takes all game of Casdon Soccer with anyone who disagrees.

I probably said the same about Helden and Magma,but this time I mean it maaaaan.

What's more is that I think they are genuinely French and not Belgian,as is usually the case.

Like a Red Krayola from french-rock hell,they deconstruct the 15 years pre-Mahogany era of the evolving Rock'n'Roll cliché and spit it back out in the eye of the discerning pop consumer.Slipping from the womb fully formed, and fully dee-formed enough to put 99% of the fuckers off music,..... forever!

If this fact doesn't even make you fantasize about leaving the room in faux-disgust and slamming the door in a pique of crypto-anger, then you're already dead,or,a bastard,or, a musician,or, all three.

Epic,Absurd,Pretentious,Unsane;i'm running out of adjectives here!

If your significant 'Other' doesn't hate this record's gutz within the first 5 minutes of your stylus making contact with these grooves,then i will send you a ten shilling postal order made payable to myself and me mam.All entries to be written on the back of a Casdon Soccer's wildly undulating pitch and sent to BBC Television Centre, Teddington Lock, NE3 from 4, Milton Keynes.

I'll Repeat that!.......alright,is it that obvious? I'm getting ready to write about The Moving Gelatin Plates,aka,The French "Caravan" innit? This could be my Waterloo,who knows?

Tracklist:

1.Bloody Hide And Seek In The Rain 0:30
2.Wrong Reincarnation 5:15
3.Hot Milk Elbow (Part I) 3:15
4.Sky-Fish 2:30
5.Unbottoned Eyes 2:30
6.Screaming Zenith 2:40
7.The Child With The Wind, The Snow, And The Yellow Top Waiting For The Magical Toy 4:47 
8.Universe (Naked Speed) 0:25
9.The Secret Body Of Wind 3:10
10.Hot Milk Elbow (Part II) 2:53
11.Head Of Night 2:50
12.Zevagho Chzechago 3:35

DOWNLOAD this rare wood as rare organ HERE!

Besombes - Rizet – "Pôle" (Pôle Records – PÔLE 0006/0007)1975

Another French electronic duo,but this time without disguises,and looking at them maybe they should have? Dunno which is which, but one of them, be it Bescombes or Rizet smokes a pipe.Not enough pipe smokers in progressive rock for my money.

They also had a remortgaged house worth of keyboards: VCS 3 AKS, ARP 2600, Electrocomp 101 and 500, Farfisa Synthorchestra , YamahaF Y 1, Oberheim Expander , Solina Stringensemble , Crumor electric piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano, Hammond Organ and,last but not least,a Mellotron 400.

All that and a pipe too!On paper this sounds perfect.

They didn't waste time on creating a trademark sound.There's nothing here that, if you didn't know better,you could sit back and say, "Ahhh, that's Bescombes and Rizat that is".Bouncing between Cluster duetting with Rick Wakeman after his fingers were amputated, to Robert Rental before he was Robert Rental,but spacey enough to be Robert Rental after his death. It's as if they,shockingly, had never heard of Mozart,which was an obligatory influence for all progressive rockers in 1975,alongside numerous versions of 'Lick My Love Pump'by many a proto-nwobhm band in Birmingham or Essex; Not for Bescombes and Rizet was the electrification of the usual suspect suspects from the sleep inducing classical era; they wanted to experiment!?

There's also not many albums that are named after their record label either......how cool is that? As Captain Oates said on the now speedily melting Ross Ice Shelf, "I'm going outside, i may be some time".....when in fact he was checking out this immortal French Prog double album on the hotter part of the Pôle,to be thawed out approximately fifty years later at the most southerly record fayre held in the spritual wreckage of Shackleton's Discovery. Now everyone wants a piece of this Discovery,so here's your chance to step outside and stay there for the duration of the four splendid sides of this electronic prog miesterwerk.

Just a small francophobic  aspersion to come, as i've been quite nice to them recently. If Scott's crew had been French, they would have pushed Captain Oates out of the tent to certain death to save themselves rather than rely on his noble deed of self-sacrifice.

Bescombes and Rizet got to the Pôle lomg before Amundsen,and they didn't even have to leave the warmth of the studio....all likely paid for by the French Government's vast Art Grant's department;to the astonishment of the UK Tax Payer,and beyond.Bloody Socialists!

Tracklist:

A1 Haute Pression 10:56
A2 Evelyse 7:17
B Armature Double 18:00
C1 Lundi Matin 5:41
C2 Montélimar 7:37
C3 Rock À Montauban 3:30
D Synthi Soit-Il 21:42

DOWNLOAD the first men to reach the Pôle HERE!

Philippe Grancher – "3000 Miles Away" (Pôle Records – PÔLE 0014) 1975

About the same time Throbbing Gristle were glamorizing serial killers and feeling too clever by 'arf, a forward looking French guitarist was predicting future serial killing by assuming the form of Cromwell Street child killer Rose West 20 years before she got her dog collar felt by PC Plod. 

Never ones to put style ahead of tucking a sweater into some high waisted slacks, the French guitarist doesn't understand why image should come before musical proficiency;and Philippe certainly seems to have image pretty low on his list of priorities......and why not?

Rose

 

Philippe

Although Philippe's career path was registered as "Guitarist" (they do this kind of thing in France,even i'm registered there as an 'Artist' ffs!),he seems to have forgone the requirement to flesh that out by actually playing one.He instead has opted for the banks of keyboards and synthesiser option that was so fashionable in 1975.The few guitary parts were actually played by someone else........Noooooo....not Fred West...someone called Arnaud Chevalier. The lead instrument seems to be a Piano,with  bits of Mellotron,and lots of effects.

Despite looking like a serial killer from 20 years into the future,our Phil doesn't let that hinder his creativity,and keeps his pullover firmly tucked into his waistband to make one of thee better French prog Space rock albums of all time. Another Pole Records classic,but I doubt if Phil was kept on as a model for the Porn Mag that the company became after 1977,even though the pervy glasses are a good look for rude magazines in the seventies.If worn by the unfortunate young lady involved,glasses can be a convenient place to deposit the money-shot.

He can still be seen ,however, playing the blues (zer bloose) in French bars for a living....and he still looks like Rose West......poor sod!

So if you can stand sitting in a café full of swarthy Frenchmen with B.O. wildly applauding that Muddy Waters cover at one of his engagements ,shout out for "3000 Miles" as an encore,and see the room empty as they wheel the piano out.

Tracklist:

A1 3000 Miles Away 10:00
A2 Naïvetés 2:50
A3 Réflexions À Propos D'un Miroir 3:00
B1 Flip-Flop 10:00
B2 Birds, Birds 6:10

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Pôle – "Inside The Dream" (Pôle Records – PÔLE 0002) 1975

Just a reminder that we got in this mess because I got distracted by the rare phenomenon of faux-kraut music.That's Frenchmen who wanted to be musically German,like an Alsatian plebiscite of music.

Ahhh,The "Plebiscite".....otherwise know as a Referendum, is that olde skool dictator's  trick  from days of yaw when the "people"......,you know, that visibly invisible thronging mass of silly fools, led by a small room full of sinister bastards.......get to vote on something ridiculous or give away their meager freedoms in the name of fake democracy.The most recent attempts being Brexit, the Annexation of the Crimea,and the next one in Donetsk taking place in a few short weeks time backed up by Sleepy Joe.All following strictly the path taken for the Anschluss, and the,for want of a better word, 'Referendum' in Alsace Lorraine in the thirties,which,if you didn't know,as is the case with an increasing number of the Silly,had something to do with a sinister chap with a Charlie Chaplin mustache with the initials A,and H.Not necessarily in that order.

Back in the 70's,a few Frenchmen wanted to be musically German,and maybe more if they were based in Strasbourg,once officially part of the Third Reich thanks to the famous "Plebiscite" voted for by....let's face it...a bunch of 'Plebs'who didn't know any better.They still exist today,backed up by an angry legion of Bigots or Gammon's.Boy are they Fuuuuuming!

Pôle, and Pôle records wanted to be a Gallic Cluster,or Cerveau (French for Brain) Records.

It's a brave attempt to achieve what every Frenchy wants deep down, a Gaulish Cosmos,and this is the music to make it a reality,well, at least for forty minutes or so.Somewhere between Asterix the Gaulish,Charles De Gaulish and Gall Stones. Nurse with Wound likes it anyway,which is normally enough to send any sane record nerd scrambling through the Krautrock crates at the nearest record Fayre.

Pôle records released a few good albums,and then ,typical for France, the boss man Paul Putti,sold it and used the proceeds to start a rather popular Mucky Magazine for a less sophisticated form of wanker than Record Nerds. If only Putti had combined the two he would have cleaned up; and no need for a handy box of kleenex or a dirty old sock either. Its well known that Prog Rock fans never have girlfriends,so he missed out on that one.

It's a good album anyway....now where's that old sock!?

DOWNLOAD your pole HERE!
 

J.P.M. And Co – "Phantasmes" (Crypto – ZAL 6420) 1977

Some people take all kinds of class A drugs to try and make music that is unfathomable and "Out There",but end up making such unquantifiable rubbish as "We Built This City On Rock'n'Roll" by Starship, featuring members of trippy hippy psychedelic purveyors of silliness,the Jefferson Starship. Drugs make shit art,fact, and coloured alcohol leads to cutting your ear off and posting it to a young lady who hates your fucking guts because you ain't rich.

Now Jean-Pierre and his crazy prog Disco mates, namely himself, don't need nothing but their twisted perceptions of what music in 1977 means,and that rarely used Class Z drug, imagination......oh and probably normal illegal substances too I guess.....nobody's perfect.

Not many musicians are alone in a ghetto of their own making, but Jean-Pierre Massiera has voluntarily imprisoned himself in a progressive Disco hinterland,rarely repeated elsewhere.

France is never slow to tell everyone how many types of cheese they have (in fact far less than the UK...check it out),but one French cheese that rarely gets mentioned is French music.This particular variety sounds not unlike a two side long love making scene from a James Bond movie,dubbed into French.

There are those who would say this recording is a bucket of Merde.Maybe so,but feel rest-assured that there isn't another record out there,or "Out There",that sounds like this one.....not even the United Kingdom can say that......but they do have shit loads more cheese types and varieties that the self-crowned kings of Cheese;and more types of quality pop music that the king of progressive cheese, Jean-Pierre Massiera, could ever possibly throw into the rock'n'roll fondue.

Tracklist:

A1 Baby Topless (Poupée Gonflable) 2:50
A2 Les Moulins De Mon Coeur 6:00
A3 Mama Ecoute 2:50
A4 Adieu L'ami 3:15
A5 Plus Jamais Ça 3:12
A6 Poet's-Poet's And C- 0:35
B1 C'est Show Bizz 3:25
B2 El Lidiador 3:50
B3 Ces Mots 2:43
B4 Dali Court 2:52
B5 Je Ne Pense Qu'à Ça 2:23
B6 J'habite 4:10

DOWNLOAD from a world of cheese HERE!

Horrific Child – "L'Etrange Mr Whinster" (Eurodisc – 913063) 1976

 

Whilst on the subject of France and things French,it is inevitable that something, or things,by probably the best french musician in this world ,and maybe the next, Jean-Pierre Massiera, would show it's horrific head.One of,but likely The best among Jean-Pierre's vast catalog of one off faux-group projects has to be Horrific Child.The cover says 'Buy Me' the music says 'try me',as it most certainly is an acquired taste,or lack of therein. Marmite, Brussel Sprouts, and Jean-Pierre Massiera,you either love 'em or hate 'em....me?....I like Brussel Sprouts but hate Marmite,however,I think he's somewhat alright.....for a frenchy.

Track one,starts off as a Lark's Tongues In Aspic part one ethnological forgery,leading into a lot of proggery pokery,and sounds like several random albums,field recordings and sound effects  records playing at the same time.Then it gets stranger from there.This chap is either completely Nuts,or he's trying too hard.If one chopped up a load of tapes and sellotaped them back together randomly,it would sound not unlike this.

Track two, is a spooky whispering Frenchman version of those Kluster records from five years earlier......is he nicking his ideas from previous prog projects of other persons,or just recycling them to make them better,or just different;if so the latter certainly applies.

Side two brings much of the same sound effects and moaning ladies,with some proggy string arrangements,bits of busy drumming,and ending with a nice tune played on an acoustic as if it was a Yes album after all?

This could cause complaints in an empty room!

The Strange Mr Whinster indeed.

Tracklist:

A1 Frayeur 8:30
A2 Angoisse 8:22
B H.I.A. 16:00

DOWNLOAD this horrifically nuts album HERE!

Heldon – "Third : It's Always Rock'n'Roll" (Disjuncta – 000006/7) 1975

Did they mean to say 'It's Only Rock'n'Roll' but it got lost in translation,or is this the correct title?

It is however,Heldon's final appearance on Pinhas's own label, Disjuncta,and its a goody....it's always Rock'n'Roll and I like it,like it,yes I doooo!

But this is,thankfully as far away from the Rolling Stones as you can get and still call it Rock'n'Roll. Rather too many Drug references going on for my liking,but at least there ain't no lyrics to further compound my disapproval. Nice hair,effing gr8 guitar virtuosity ,and effect laden,electronic ear abuse from some Frenchmen who dig Fripp and Eno....don't get to say that very often. They ALL (the Frogs) like Zer Rollin stonsss without exception,but they so make good unadventurous food,so we'll forgive them that faux pas.Stone the bleedin'crows guv'nr, even i like that Emotional Rescue album.....weird shit going on there.There isn't a French person who doesn't worship Zer Doorsss either,and more bizarrely Superrrtromp. Ask a Frenchman what they think of Heldon,and they wouldn't be able to place the name,incredulously wondering why an Anglo-Saxon would want to listen to a French group rather than Led Zeppelin(they can pronounce that one) or Leonard Sky-nard!? Its like that moment when Bowie was on German TV,and the interviewer asked the David what German music he liked as he had heard that he was heavily influenced by new German music.His Bowieness asked the audience if they had heard of Neu and one voice shouted "Ja!".(its on YouTube somewhere)

There are indeed other French groups that are worth listening to,and we shall discover them over the coming weeks, said Humpty;or if you're american...so said The Cookie Monster.

Tracklist:

A1 Ics Machinique
A2 Cotes De Cachalot À La Psylocybine
A3 Mechamment Rock
A4 Cocaine Blues
B Aurore
C1 Virgin Swedish Blues
C2 Ocean Boogi
C3 Zind Destruction (Bouillie Blues)
D Doctor Bloodmoney

DOWNLOAD as you're always downloading HERE!

Heldon – "Heldon II : Allez-Téia " (Disjuncta – 000002) 1975

Never before has one witnessed such on record arse-licking than one has witnessed on Richard Pinhas' albums. He likes Robert Fripp apparently?

Eno never gets a mention one notices, which after inventing Frippertronics for Robert to play his sustaining pick-ups through,is a bit rich.

So, yes, you get plenty of short Fripp and Eno facsimiles,but even better lots,and lots, of Mellotron.

All this from a slimmed down version of Heldon, now briefly,a duo for Heldon 2, a mellow, melodic,mellotronic and very drumless experience to burn a scented candle to in your virtual flotation tank.There's even an acoustic guitar track to remind oneself of the riverbank on a sunny day to further relax the reluctant Space Rocker yearning for a Dave Gilmour solo.

I think Fripp should dedicate an album to Ricky Pinhas on the evidence of this. From Bobby to Ricky with love.XX

Tracklist:

1 In The Wake Of King Fripp 6:36
2 Aphanisis 2:20
3 Omar Diop Blondin 7:20
4 Moebius 1:49
5 Fluence (Continuum Mobile) 1:56
6 Fluence (Disjonction Inclusive) 10:17
7 St-Mikael Samstag Am Abends 6:18
8 Michel Ettori 4:17

DOWNLOAD this capsized tribute to bobby fripp HERE!

Ose – "Adonia" (Egg – 90 277) 1978

French Prog Kosmiche Project enacted by music journalist and multi-instrumentalist Hervé Picart, joined by two members of Heldon(Richard Pinhas & Francois Augar).Which in other words means Journalist makes Heldon album and claims it for himself!?

There's only one idea worse than music projects by music journalists,that's music projects by actors, both superseded by musicians who act in movies,the list of shame being too endless to mention here.

Picart thought he could sidestep these commandments carved in volcanic stone from the do's and don'ts of Rock,and given to Moses,

who,must have forgot to bring them down from the mountain.Instead bringing stone tablets obviously donated by Satan that banged on about such rubbish as not coveting your mate's missus, honoring your idiotic parents,worshiping your false rock gods and making Graven Images of your favourite pop stars.What a bunch of crap was that shit!? Add to that "Thou Shalt Not kill thyself", and Strictly "No Wanking",then you've got yourself one heap of unsustainable bollocks that is sure to plunge the planet into the long cycle of endless war and self-destructive madness that we are witnessing today.It's all your fault you see,says the Big Bad Daddy in the sky.

The tablets for Rock music were left at the summit,so no-one got to hear such home truths as No Keyboards....ever,No Backing Singers,all Brass Sections are pure EVIL,Never...Repeat NEVER let your Drummer write any songs, split up if you get to Stadium Level,and if you have to take class A drugs,make sure you overdose halfway through making the second album.Not forgetting that Reforming is a capital offence punishable by a fatal stoning from a drunken mob of adulterers.

All those may seem like quoting the bleeding obvious,but you'd be surprised how stupid Human Musicians can be.

Hervé here, conveniently forgot the hardened rule,as composed by Satan himself, that should any actors, Journalists,or classically trained pop musicians venture into the no man's land of having a go themselves,that they should be sentenced to an eternity in Heaven with Jesus and dozens of other goody goody's telling you that you can't kill yourself because you're already Dead! No Escape.

As it 'appens, if I had a mind to blow,it would have been by this soaring piece of Heldon plus,electronic space rock. Cultivated by racks of Oberheim Expanders, Moog's and ARP's of all descriptions,glued together by Pinhas's trademark frippery with the old six string.

Yeah, Picart plays his version of Heldon guitar too,but the album wouldn't have missed him even if Satan had banished him to Heaven for Breaking several of the 11 commandments of Rock'n'Roll.Serves him right for having two jobs....another rule sitting on the subs bench of rock rights and wrongs.

Tracklist:

A1 Approche Sur A 16:00
A2 Orgasmachine 3:45
B1 29 h 08 mn 6:55
B2 L'Aube Jumelle 9:48
B3 Retour Sur Adonia 3:34

DOWNLOAD this blatant challenge to a higher power HERE!

Hydravion – "Hydravion" (Cobra – COB 37012) 1977

 

Let's start off with a review i saw of this on Discogs:

"Terrible dull, empty and meaningless album. No real melody, there's not a single musical moment. All is more like rudimentary experimentation in "progressive" style. No instrumental, nor "song" writing abilities are shown despite of being progressive music. Compared to any other similar spacey contemporaries (as to a similar empty Heldon) it's absolutely a wasting of time. Go and find houndreds better in the genre."

After reading that, you just know that this album has to be brilliant?

I like my music empty and meaningless, so what? After all doesn't that describe existence itself? There's a meaning to the meaninglessness....ness. More than there is to existence at least.

There's something of the 'La Dusseldorf' about this French Krautband. I thought La Dusseldorf were joking when I first heard them, and Hydravion most certainly are NOT joking.It also reminds one of those Soviet Union official disco bands that cropped up on state label Melodija from time to time....and I certainly know they weren't joking either.Joking could get you into serious trouble in the Communist Bloc.

Of course the French notoriously cannot laugh at themselves,they can laugh at disableds or Belgians,but NEVER, at themselves; so it figures that this electro-prog trio mean every dull swirling note and therefore is,predictably french,and more than a noggin pretentiously, 'ART'.

Yes, it's empty,there's no melody, no songs, but it's space rock made for surfing the event horizon of the super massive black hole in the centre of the music industry.

Wanna piss of that aging Punk with the Joy Division T-Shirt next door?....then play this at toe curling volume,followed by La Dusseldorf and then Argo's "Discophonia". Guaranteed to push the aging Punk neighbour over the edge, and totally fuck off the poor chap who wrote that dreadfully conservative review above.

I guess Hydravion is French for a Flying Boat,which,if there was to be another great flood sent down by our loving creator,then a flying Ark would be a great way to get around and rescue all the species left on the planet while we waited for the water to drain away.Luckily no need to save two of every fish,and controversially, no gays allowed! Even no Gay Chimps allowed,unless a third chimp is recruited as a surrogate chimp for future births to repopulate the devastated planet.I suppose the sea level would have to exceed the top of Mount Everest,so that would make the oceans at lease 29000 feet deeper than it was before we were all taught a lesson.I assume we would all starve to death after the water levels somehow drained away,so what was the point in creating us anyway....more meaningless...ness? No-one will be volunteering to be the new Noah either in the "Me Too" era, as he's usually biblically required to have sex with his daughters.....unless God hasn't kept up with the times....Again!?

That, essentially is what this album almost certainly Isn't about;but, as it's meaningless one can always insert any meaning you can feel comfortable with,and that takes imagination.A quality few human beings possess in these daft ol' days innit?

Tracklist

A1 Metropolitain 3:36
A2 Triste Fin 10:24
B1 L'Hydravion D'Argent 6:36
B2 Etude En Do 4:45
B3 J'ai Pas Le Temps 7:05

DOWNLOAD the flying boat of doom HERE!