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QuintetAvant, "Floppy Nails"
Mego
While not ground-breaking, this certainly is a fun LP. A decentlyturned out LP is always fun. There's something generous and luxuriousabout them and all the more so in these times of miserable little"jewel cases," measly graphics and microscopic text. The cover of thisLP is satisfyingly nostalgic, looking like a French fusion record fromthe early eighties with, for some reason, a picture of the Osmondfamilly. The inner sleeve is simply delightful - you really have to seeit. If this had been put out on a CD it would seem a scam since it'sonly about 31 minutes long. As for the music, nearly all the elementswe have learned to dread in French music, avant-garde or otherwise,are, if not exactly absent, adequately restrained. Of the star-studdedline up, Jerome Noetinger, Lionel Marchetti and Jean Pallandre arenoted as playing magnétophone à bandes while Marc Pichelin plays synthé analogique and Laurent Sassi handles the enregistrement/mixage (live). It is a fairly chaotic collage of material, sounding sort of like improvised musique concrèteand it's the surprise and contrast of the different material that isthe primary technique. While things eventually get excited enough to benoise art, the starting point is a rather self-concious sound art.There are many references to European music of the 50s and 60s, inparticular the Schaeffer and Henri and the electronic music of Cologneand specifically Kotakte, though I don't think it uses direct quotes.It isn't in bad taste but, frankly, the fashion for this materialbecame tiresome years ago. The sound of variable-speed tape machinesdominate with tapes starting and stopping, rewinding, slowing andaccelerating and the sound of tape being manually yanked through theplayer. In many aspects the music is very familiar but the overallcombination of elements is not and is actually quite fresh and, whilethere's nothing that's truly remarkable or of dazzling brilliance, itis indeed fun.
While not ground-breaking, this certainly is a fun LP. A decentlyturned out LP is always fun. There's something generous and luxuriousabout them and all the more so in these times of miserable little"jewel cases," measly graphics and microscopic text. The cover of thisLP is satisfyingly nostalgic, looking like a French fusion record fromthe early eighties with, for some reason, a picture of the Osmondfamilly. The inner sleeve is simply delightful - you really have to seeit. If this had been put out on a CD it would seem a scam since it'sonly about 31 minutes long. As for the music, nearly all the elementswe have learned to dread in French music, avant-garde or otherwise,are, if not exactly absent, adequately restrained. Of the star-studdedline up, Jerome Noetinger, Lionel Marchetti and Jean Pallandre arenoted as playing magnétophone à bandes while Marc Pichelin plays synthé analogique and Laurent Sassi handles the enregistrement/mixage (live). It is a fairly chaotic collage of material, sounding sort of like improvised musique concrèteand it's the surprise and contrast of the different material that isthe primary technique. While things eventually get excited enough to benoise art, the starting point is a rather self-concious sound art.There are many references to European music of the 50s and 60s, inparticular the Schaeffer and Henri and the electronic music of Cologneand specifically Kotakte, though I don't think it uses direct quotes.It isn't in bad taste but, frankly, the fashion for this materialbecame tiresome years ago. The sound of variable-speed tape machinesdominate with tapes starting and stopping, rewinding, slowing andaccelerating and the sound of tape being manually yanked through theplayer. In many aspects the music is very familiar but the overallcombination of elements is not and is actually quite fresh and, whilethere's nothing that's truly remarkable or of dazzling brilliance, itis indeed fun.
