BORN BAD RECORDS - Forced Exposure

$28.00 IN STOCK

Double LP version. Includes six-page booklet; includes download code. Delving into the deepest recesses of raï, this compilation serves as a tribute to its roaring years, but also as a rejuvenation of the genre in its sulphureous, subterranean version. It seemed like a good idea to dig into nearly untraceable cassettes, thus confirming it's in the oldest of Oranese pots that the very best of raï is to be found. Just 50 years ago, no one would have believed even a bit in a genre seemingly bound to forever turn round and round in its native Oran, laying low in one of its many coastal road clubs. In these underground venues, singers -- backed up by a minimalist orchestration for lack of space -- would move their audience to laughs and tears, sobbing in a beer or chuckling down (dry) whisky. Through the pre- and post-independence years, from 1950 to 1970, raï urbanized itself, with a generation growing up between asphalt and concrete to the sound of traditional flute, but also and mostly listening to twist, French variété and rock music. Their names were Boutaïba S'ghir, Messaoud Bellemou, Groupe El Azhar, Younès Benfissa, or Zergui, and they passed on their collection of songs to the incoming "Chebs" -- breathing a second youth into them. Oran, the capital of West-Algeria, will be at the heart of this rejuvenation. Overshadowed to the West by the bare mountain of Aïdour, a foot set onto a beautiful bay and the other on a long dried out wadi, covered up with buildings since, Oran must be the most European of Algerian towns -- regardless of its kasbah, its sanctuary built in 1793 under the reign of the Bey Mohammed ben Othman and devoted to Sidi El Houari, the city's patron saint, and praised in many a raï song, and its Pacha 18th century mosque built in memory of the displaced Spaniards of 1492. Oran is blessed with the sea and pine forests all around and above it, towards Sana Cruz. It is rich with Hispanic, Andalusian, Turkish, Arab-Berber and French influences. A cosmopolitanism is very much part of the city's largely jovial nature. Some head for the open-air theater, renamed Cheb Hasni in honor of the creator of love raï, killed on September the 29th, 1994. Others take over restaurants before taking it all out on the dancefloor of one of the many clubs dotted along the coastal road. Features Cheb Hindi, Houari Benchenet, Chab Mohamed Sghir, Chaba Fadila, Cheb Tahar, Cheb Djalal, Benchenet, Cheb Kader, Chab Hamouda, Cheb Khaled "Schir", Nordine Staïfi, Chaba Amel, Chaba Malika Meddah, and Tchier Abdelgani.

$14.50 IN STOCK

Delving into the deepest recesses of raï, this compilation serves as a tribute to its roaring years, but also as a rejuvenation of the genre in its sulphureous, subterranean version. It seemed like a good idea to dig into nearly untraceable cassettes, thus confirming it's in the oldest of Oranese pots that the very best of raï is to be found. Just 50 years ago, no one would have believed even a bit in a genre seemingly bound to forever turn round and round in its native Oran, laying low in one of its many coastal road clubs. In these underground venues, singers -- backed up by a minimalist orchestration for lack of space -- would move their audience to laughs and tears, sobbing in a beer or chuckling down (dry) whisky. Through the pre- and post-independence years, from 1950 to 1970, raï urbanized itself, with a generation growing up between asphalt and concrete to the sound of traditional flute, but also and mostly listening to twist, French variété and rock music. Their names were Boutaïba S'ghir, Messaoud Bellemou, Groupe El Azhar, Younès Benfissa, or Zergui, and they passed on their collection of songs to the incoming "Chebs" -- breathing a second youth into them. Oran, the capital of West-Algeria, will be at the heart of this rejuvenation. Overshadowed to the West by the bare mountain of Aïdour, a foot set onto a beautiful bay and the other on a long dried out wadi, covered up with buildings since, Oran must be the most European of Algerian towns -- regardless of its kasbah, its sanctuary built in 1793 under the reign of the Bey Mohammed ben Othman and devoted to Sidi El Houari, the city's patron saint, and praised in many a raï song, and its Pacha 18th century mosque built in memory of the displaced Spaniards of 1492. Oran is blessed with the sea and pine forests all around and above it, towards Sana Cruz. It is rich with Hispanic, Andalusian, Turkish, Arab-Berber and French influences. A cosmopolitanism is very much part of the city's largely jovial nature. Some head for the open-air theater, renamed Cheb Hasni in honor of the creator of love raï, killed on September the 29th, 1994. Others take over restaurants before taking it all out on the dancefloor of one of the many clubs dotted along the coastal road. Features Cheb Hindi, Houari Benchenet, Chab Mohamed Sghir, Chaba Fadila, Cheb Tahar, Cheb Djalal, Benchenet, Cheb Kader, Chab Hamouda, Cheb Khaled "Schir", Nordine Staïfi, Chaba Amel, Chaba Malika Meddah, and Tchier Abdelgani.

$19.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Two social media posts out of three are about losing his phone, the last one is about him swearing he saw a dog making himself a sandwich. Paul Ramon (Bryan's Magic Tears, la Secte du Futur) has managed to finish his second solo album, Buvez le poison (Drink the Poison). Preceded by a reputation for being Defcon 1 -- level unmanageable on tour, while obviously being able to hold his own, it's no surprise to find the paradox in his music. Body search the record and you'll find chemical faves of the last forty years. Paul Ramon is doing 20 on the highway ("Hacienda", downhill dub with over-the-top bass), and 60 in the city ("Les victimes du roi", arpeggiated medieval-fantasy trip). Pleasure Principle obviously decided that traffic regulations just didn't apply to his vehicle. Sung in French (neither bellowed nor whispered, thanks), highlife guitars travelling light via the Caribbeans, '90s synths stabs, calculated MTV moments -- traces of everything, traces everywhere. A singer by obligation, by his own admission, he performs with a cheeky Madchester University alumni attitude. Happy to be there, but wishes nobody knew. Paul Ramon stuck his tongue out to write -- he deals generously in one-liners, as sharp as disposable razors. Can't wait to see him pull those out of his pockets, struggling to bleed everyone. Marc Portheau saves the day in his mix; "Heliopolis", psych-pop jam lost in heavy delay, could have gone astray but suddenly gets all sophisticated with winds and chorus -- as much appreciated as they never RSVP'd (Olivier Demeaux, Romain Vasset). This is a bear trap of an album. "La punition commence" (the punishment begins) and you'd expect a synth-wave dungeon moist with whispered confessions, when in fact it's more about wiggling arms in the air, and trampling the corpse of dance-pop to the sound of brain-dead synth, circa 1995. "Frappe le cuir" pays homage to the Happy Mondays, which you'd expect given the drummer's pedigree. "Buvez le poison" and "La sieste", a barely legal promotional campaign for narcotics, contain more than you asked for, if you can only listen. And "Rêves", chord-driven summer track gets turned over by the effects-laden guitar solo. Traps, again. So. when you get to "Plein de rancoeur je vis mon meilleur moment", successful attempt to remake "Loser" in 2022, you'll know that Pleasure Principle knows his business in a rather endearing way. This is not a collage, but tie and dye colors spread to be looked at, rubbing each other lewdly.

$12.00 IN STOCK

Two social media posts out of three are about losing his phone, the last one is about him swearing he saw a dog making himself a sandwich. Paul Ramon (Bryan's Magic Tears, la Secte du Futur) has managed to finish his second solo album, Buvez le poison (Drink the Poison). Preceded by a reputation for being Defcon 1 -- level unmanageable on tour, while obviously being able to hold his own, it's no surprise to find the paradox in his music. Body search the record and you'll find chemical faves of the last forty years. Paul Ramon is doing 20 on the highway ("Hacienda", downhill dub with over-the-top bass), and 60 in the city ("Les victimes du roi", arpeggiated medieval-fantasy trip). Pleasure Principle obviously decided that traffic regulations just didn't apply to his vehicle. Sung in French (neither bellowed nor whispered, thanks), highlife guitars travelling light via the Caribbeans, '90s synths stabs, calculated MTV moments -- traces of everything, traces everywhere. A singer by obligation, by his own admission, he performs with a cheeky Madchester University alumni attitude. Happy to be there, but wishes nobody knew. Paul Ramon stuck his tongue out to write -- he deals generously in one-liners, as sharp as disposable razors. Can't wait to see him pull those out of his pockets, struggling to bleed everyone. Marc Portheau saves the day in his mix; "Heliopolis", psych-pop jam lost in heavy delay, could have gone astray but suddenly gets all sophisticated with winds and chorus -- as much appreciated as they never RSVP'd (Olivier Demeaux, Romain Vasset). This is a bear trap of an album. "La punition commence" (the punishment begins) and you'd expect a synth-wave dungeon moist with whispered confessions, when in fact it's more about wiggling arms in the air, and trampling the corpse of dance-pop to the sound of brain-dead synth, circa 1995. "Frappe le cuir" pays homage to the Happy Mondays, which you'd expect given the drummer's pedigree. "Buvez le poison" and "La sieste", a barely legal promotional campaign for narcotics, contain more than you asked for, if you can only listen. And "Rêves", chord-driven summer track gets turned over by the effects-laden guitar solo. Traps, again. So. when you get to "Plein de rancoeur je vis mon meilleur moment", successful attempt to remake "Loser" in 2022, you'll know that Pleasure Principle knows his business in a rather endearing way. This is not a collage, but tie and dye colors spread to be looked at, rubbing each other lewdly.

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes printed under sleeve and download code. As soon as the pilots of the Space Oddities endeavor decided to tackle Yan Tregger's oeuvre, a major problem surfaced: where to begin? And where to end? Upon which side should one launch into the ascension of this body of work? It will have taken Alexis Le-Tan and Jess years to put up this selection, capturing the profusion and eclecticism of Tregger who, at 81 years old, has yet to lay down the arms and still defines himself as a "jack of all trades". Symphonies, library music, movie soundtracks, TV credits, advertisement, French variété, pop, disco, electronic, experimental, or relaxation music, Yan Tregger (born Edouard Scotto di Suoccio) took up all genres, styles, and formats through a career spanning from the end of the '50s to this day. How the Stakhanovist successfully went down so many different routes can be explained by his innate talent for composing melodies; they are the very basis on which his iconoclastic production was built. Ten years ago already, Yan Tregger had welcomed Born Bad in the studio of his Parisian suburb pavilion. There, sat in front of his machines and albums framed on the wall, he had delved into the midst of a life writing itself like would a rather unusual musical score. "I was born in Algeria in 1940, in a coastal town -- Algeria's Nice, Philippeville, (today Skikda -- author's note), to parents of Italian descent. People were unhappy in Italy and did as migrants do today. Still, there was some tendering. When France started colonizing Algeria, the government brought in people to constitute a work force: many Italians, but also some Maltese and Jews who were already established there. My father managed a balancelle, a dinghy which would deliver materials along the coast. My mother was a housewife, just like any Italian back then. I am an only child." LP version includes printed under sleeve and download code.

$13.50 IN STOCK

As soon as the pilots of the Space Oddities endeavor decided to tackle Yan Tregger's oeuvre, a major problem surfaced: where to begin? And where to end? Upon which side should one launch into the ascension of this body of work? It will have taken Alexis Le-Tan and Jess years to put up this selection, capturing the profusion and eclecticism of Tregger who, at 81 years old, has yet to lay down the arms and still defines himself as a "jack of all trades". Symphonies, library music, movie soundtracks, TV credits, advertisement, French variété, pop, disco, electronic, experimental, or relaxation music, Yan Tregger (born Edouard Scotto di Suoccio) took up all genres, styles, and formats through a career spanning from the end of the '50s to this day. How the Stakhanovist successfully went down so many different routes can be explained by his innate talent for composing melodies; they are the very basis on which his iconoclastic production was built. Ten years ago already, Yan Tregger had welcomed Born Bad in the studio of his Parisian suburb pavilion. There, sat in front of his machines and albums framed on the wall, he had delved into the midst of a life writing itself like would a rather unusual musical score. "I was born in Algeria in 1940, in a coastal town -- Algeria's Nice, Philippeville, (today Skikda -- author's note), to parents of Italian descent. People were unhappy in Italy and did as migrants do today. Still, there was some tendering. When France started colonizing Algeria, the government brought in people to constitute a work force: many Italians, but also some Maltese and Jews who were already established there. My father managed a balancelle, a dinghy which would deliver materials along the coast. My mother was a housewife, just like any Italian back then. I am an only child." CD version comes in digipack; includes 20-page booklet.

$19.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Gatefold sleeve; includes download code. Self-proclaimed studio rat, Forever Pavot knows exactly how to teleport elsewhere in a few chords. In L'Idiophone ("The Idiophone"), the art of storytelling takes about only three minutes to unfold. Each composition features the full soundtrack of a carefully dehydrated movie, restored to its initial volume in our stereo. The album opens with a car chase, starring a scholarly gangster, and indulging in some engineering eccentricities, such as keeping a cop's siren in harmony throughout the song -- despite the Doppler effect. Perhaps it's the bad lockdown speaking, but Emile Sornin's place is a battlefield: he's having a go at every object like family members. A clock is seemingly taking the piss at him, and it becomes the pretext for a fast-paced lesson in music theory and the effects of time on people. The album was produced in close collaboration with Vincent Taeger (drums), Maxime Daoud (bass), and Sami Osta (production and mixing), who miraculously found room for every keyboard, and then some more, for a brass and string section. Arnaud Sèche came to lay down some flutes. Voices have been mixed forward, signing the end of the mutation of Forever Pavot. Since Rhapsode (BORNBAD 066CD/LP 2014) and La Pantoufle (BB 099CD/LP, 2017), his fling with the song format has become a rather serious relationship. One after the other, Emile Sornin is writing all the volumes of his ideal library music, and it appears he's reaching the oddities section. "La main dans le sac" starts with a weird trash-metal drum burst, then sets up a slimy upside-down world climate. Cue-in the cavalry: staccato strings reveal a harmonic canvas of the purest pop, then a brass squad comes to finish the job, recalling the best moments of Bernard Estardy, baron of all sound wizards. "Au Diable" stages him playing the piano on his knees, ripped off by bailiffs. Two verses in, and the lawmen turn to demons straight out of a giallo, and burn. Nestled in a few crafty instrumentals, "Les informations", clueless vocoded banger written like TV news credits, haïku-sized showcase for Emile's taste for the daft. From the bottom of the ocean, "La mer à boire" makes him drinking buddies with François De Roubaix, national treasure that Forever Pavot comes to visit regularly to borrow gear. Notably idiophones, these humble percussion instruments whose sound is produced only by their material -- triangle, claves, bells. Emile Sornin, like these self-sufficient instruments, manages very well to produce an idiosyncratic but familiar music, colored by his proverbial spring reverb. No need to source his music in his elders': like them, Forever Pavot can write, full stop.

$12.50 IN STOCK

Self-proclaimed studio rat, Forever Pavot knows exactly how to teleport elsewhere in a few chords. In L'Idiophone ("The Idiophone"), the art of storytelling takes about only three minutes to unfold. Each composition features the full soundtrack of a carefully dehydrated movie, restored to its initial volume in our stereo. The album opens with a car chase, starring a scholarly gangster, and indulging in some engineering eccentricities, such as keeping a cop's siren in harmony throughout the song -- despite the Doppler effect. Perhaps it's the bad lockdown speaking, but Emile Sornin's place is a battlefield: he's having a go at every object like family members. A clock is seemingly taking the piss at him, and it becomes the pretext for a fast-paced lesson in music theory and the effects of time on people. The album was produced in close collaboration with Vincent Taeger (drums), Maxime Daoud (bass), and Sami Osta (production and mixing), who miraculously found room for every keyboard, and then some more, for a brass and string section. Arnaud Sèche came to lay down some flutes. Voices have been mixed forward, signing the end of the mutation of Forever Pavot. Since Rhapsode (BORNBAD 066CD/LP 2014) and La Pantoufle (BB 099CD/LP, 2017), his fling with the song format has become a rather serious relationship. One after the other, Emile Sornin is writing all the volumes of his ideal library music, and it appears he's reaching the oddities section. "La main dans le sac" starts with a weird trash-metal drum burst, then sets up a slimy upside-down world climate. Cue-in the cavalry: staccato strings reveal a harmonic canvas of the purest pop, then a brass squad comes to finish the job, recalling the best moments of Bernard Estardy, baron of all sound wizards. "Au Diable" stages him playing the piano on his knees, ripped off by bailiffs. Two verses in, and the lawmen turn to demons straight out of a giallo, and burn. Nestled in a few crafty instrumentals, "Les informations", clueless vocoded banger written like TV news credits, haïku-sized showcase for Emile's taste for the daft. From the bottom of the ocean, "La mer à boire" makes him drinking buddies with François De Roubaix, national treasure that Forever Pavot comes to visit regularly to borrow gear. Notably idiophones, these humble percussion instruments whose sound is produced only by their material -- triangle, claves, bells. Emile Sornin, like these self-sufficient instruments, manages very well to produce an idiosyncratic but familiar music, colored by his proverbial spring reverb. No need to source his music in his elders': like them, Forever Pavot can write, full stop. CD version includes 12-page poster booklet.

$12.50 IN STOCK

A record: what is it good for? Remembering the gig. Convincing a significant other to come. Helping musicians ruin their health preserving our own. Most of all: a record is a great companion to a concert. You can extrapolate all kinds of things from it. With memories from every angle you witnessed live. A record contains all that, you just need to let it unfold. Dromonia, second album after Grave, is one of those small papers folded with insistence until they become harder than wood. The ones on which you wrote the most important of things. Death, confessions, mistakes. Bracco, on stage: Loren, drumsticks in hand, busy working machines and synths. And Baptiste, guitar-strapped, singing with the mic close to disappear in his throat, to make words come out right (those Cramps' VHS tapes have left their mark). Built in a garage band (Los VV's), the guitar sound is harsh and precise. Baptiste deals with verticality, Loren with space: building fast with crappy materials but high hopes. Bracco has the kind of smooth and wet skin labels can't stick to. Still, they let their music be haunted by ghosts of the dark wave family. They fancy Psychic TV, DAF, Suicide, Throbbing Gristle. Music veterans will note that Bracco has that distinctive sound of pivotal periods when everything gets dicey (the day guitar made its way into techno, that moment when punks learned a fourth chord, the night the Happy Mondays entrusted Bez with maracas). That path is paved with brave records. "Sunshine" and "Secretly Dancing" are good examples of that stateless crossover where the guitar/drums treatment is a success. The clinical and efficient mix of producer Marc Portheau incites to play the record harder than the current shitty atmosphere. Together, they gave the tracks the industrial treatment. Lauriane, from shoegazers Bryan's Magic Tears, joined them for a vocal featuring. "Cobra Music", the first single, is one of those marathon tracks built to be played to exhaustion. Be there at the end.

$12.50 IN STOCK

Couleur Brique, third album released by Born Bad Records for one-man-operation Usé, opens with a coughing fit spurting on a piano, while a guitar gently dies in the back of a hangar. The connoisseur will rekindle fond memories of his underground hit "ampheta-amphéta- amphétamine", this time to warn you about the "chef d'é, chef d'é, chef d'é-tat". You won't know what he had to spit about to the president, but he's got some left on his trousers. Usé literally punches songs, beating the snare drum to celebrate a lover that bites and claws. It's mostly about boy-meets-girl and tough love in these seven romances that taste like beer chasing uppers, and end up in the back of a van. Praise be, to the melodic effort, supported by layers of sharp and bitter synths, and a straightforward vocal performance. It's a ride in forsaken land, beer in hand, documenting horny guys at the fun fair, late evenings in a shabby pub, and dirty sheets. Here and there, when least expected, flashes of unpretentious drunken wisdom hit the spot. The record is fueled by the broken drummer's energy, but also a verified writing effort. Those songs will be sung, bonded in the wastelands, to fight against buzzkill. Once active in local politics, Nicolas Belvalette settled down for acting, recently starring in "Tout fout le camp" where he plays his own role. But he's at his best on his turf, small rooms and scroungy festivals, where the great romantic weirdo spits on his tits, crawling under a raving audience. You'll have to buy the record if you want to get the lyrics, because at a gig, it's hard to follow when you're busy figuring out whether it's sweat, piss or beer that's connecting you to your neighbor. A fine collection of autumn tunes to get wasted, start a bar fight with new friends, and fall asleep on the counter with no shame.

$19.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Solo album by Le Villejuif Underground lead singer. It's September 3, 2014, a 24-year-old Australian arrives in Paris, accompanying a punk band on a European tour. He decides not to go home. Since then, everyone knows Nathan Roche. If you haven't seen him haranguing the crowd on a festival stage with Le Villejuif Underground, then you've come across one of his hallucinated noise performances within CIA Debutante in a squat in Poland. Like Kevin Ayers in Montolieu or Robert Crumb in Sauve, Nathan has chosen the heart of the Roya Valley. Thus, he perpetuates this tradition of the uprooted freak that you sometimes come across on the terraces of cafes in the South of France which, like a storyteller, make you escape with crazy stories. Judge for yourself: The Sahara Desert? He got stuck there for lack of a visa! Italy? He cycled Marseille -- San Remo by 40°C last summer! China? He has already played in front of 15,000 people at a festival in Wuhan! It's therefore easy to understand that A Break Away, this new solo album, is a journey disc in the form of a breakaway (literally A Breakaway, for those who haven't followed, be it from society, taking holiday, or a strategy in competitive cycling), the album recorded during a return to Australian soil during the March of 2022. In eleven titles, Nathan brings together the great story ("Grounds Zero") and his most personal memories, mourning his dear collection of records, sold in order to survive on his arrival in France ("Recollection") and suffering memory loss because of it, narrating his successive encounters with his idols David Berman (Silver Jews) and Daevid Allen (Two Davids House) in his youth. This naturalistic writing, which can evoke Jonathan Richman, is combined with an encyclopedic knowledge of guitar music, forged while he was a record store in Australia. Thus, he delivers songs evoking both the greatest hours of Fire Records (The Stevens) and the Lou Reed of the mid-70s (Tristan Winston Price, and his Hunter/Wagner style solos on R&R Animal).

$19.00 IN STOCK

LP version. A record: what is it good for? Remembering the gig. Convincing a significant other to come. Helping musicians ruin their health preserving our own. Most of all: a record is a great companion to a concert. You can extrapolate all kinds of things from it. With memories from every angle you witnessed live. A record contains all that, you just need to let it unfold. Dromonia, second album after Grave, is one of those small papers folded with insistence until they become harder than wood. The ones on which you wrote the most important of things. Death, confessions, mistakes. Bracco, on stage: Loren, drumsticks in hand, busy working machines and synths. And Baptiste, guitar-strapped, singing with the mic close to disappear in his throat, to make words come out right (those Cramps' VHS tapes have left their mark). Built in a garage band (Los VV's), the guitar sound is harsh and precise. Baptiste deals with verticality, Loren with space: building fast with crappy materials but high hopes. Bracco has the kind of smooth and wet skin labels can't stick to. Still, they let their music be haunted by ghosts of the dark wave family. They fancy Psychic TV, DAF, Suicide, Throbbing Gristle. Music veterans will note that Bracco has that distinctive sound of pivotal periods when everything gets dicey (the day guitar made its way into techno, that moment when punks learned a fourth chord, the night the Happy Mondays entrusted Bez with maracas). That path is paved with brave records. "Sunshine" and "Secretly Dancing" are good examples of that stateless crossover where the guitar/drums treatment is a success. The clinical and efficient mix of producer Marc Portheau incites to play the record harder than the current shitty atmosphere. Together, they gave the tracks the industrial treatment. Lauriane, from shoegazers Bryan's Magic Tears, joined them for a vocal featuring. "Cobra Music", the first single, is one of those marathon tracks built to be played to exhaustion. Be there at the end.

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download code. Couleur Brique, third album released by Born Bad Records for one-man-operation Usé, opens with a coughing fit spurting on a piano, while a guitar gently dies in the back of a hangar. The connoisseur will rekindle fond memories of his underground hit "ampheta-amphéta- amphétamine", this time to warn you about the "chef d'é, chef d'é, chef d'é-tat". You won't know what he had to spit about to the president, but he's got some left on his trousers. Usé literally punches songs, beating the snare drum to celebrate a lover that bites and claws. It's mostly about boy-meets-girl and tough love in these seven romances that taste like beer chasing uppers, and end up in the back of a van. Praise be, to the melodic effort, supported by layers of sharp and bitter synths, and a straightforward vocal performance. It's a ride in forsaken land, beer in hand, documenting horny guys at the fun fair, late evenings in a shabby pub, and dirty sheets. Here and there, when least expected, flashes of unpretentious drunken wisdom hit the spot. The record is fueled by the broken drummer's energy, but also a verified writing effort. Those songs will be sung, bonded in the wastelands, to fight against buzzkill. Once active in local politics, Nicolas Belvalette settled down for acting, recently starring in "Tout fout le camp" where he plays his own role. But he's at his best on his turf, small rooms and scroungy festivals, where the great romantic weirdo spits on his tits, crawling under a raving audience. You'll have to buy the record if you want to get the lyrics, because at a gig, it's hard to follow when you're busy figuring out whether it's sweat, piss or beer that's connecting you to your neighbor. A fine collection of autumn tunes to get wasted, start a bar fight with new friends, and fall asleep on the counter with no shame.

$12.50 IN STOCK

Solo album by Le Villejuif Underground lead singer. It's September 3, 2014, a 24-year-old Australian arrives in Paris, accompanying a punk band on a European tour. He decides not to go home. Since then, everyone knows Nathan Roche. If you haven't seen him haranguing the crowd on a festival stage with Le Villejuif Underground, then you've come across one of his hallucinated noise performances within CIA Debutante in a squat in Poland. Like Kevin Ayers in Montolieu or Robert Crumb in Sauve, Nathan has chosen the heart of the Roya Valley. Thus, he perpetuates this tradition of the uprooted freak that you sometimes come across on the terraces of cafes in the South of France which, like a storyteller, make you escape with crazy stories. Judge for yourself: The Sahara Desert? He got stuck there for lack of a visa! Italy? He cycled Marseille -- San Remo by 40°C last summer! China? He has already played in front of 15,000 people at a festival in Wuhan! It's therefore easy to understand that A Break Away, this new solo album, is a journey disc in the form of a breakaway (literally A Breakaway, for those who haven't followed, be it from society, taking holiday, or a strategy in competitive cycling), the album recorded during a return to Australian soil during the March of 2022. In eleven titles, Nathan brings together the great story ("Grounds Zero") and his most personal memories, mourning his dear collection of records, sold in order to survive on his arrival in France ("Recollection") and suffering memory loss because of it, narrating his successive encounters with his idols David Berman (Silver Jews) and Daevid Allen (Two Davids House) in his youth. This naturalistic writing, which can evoke Jonathan Richman, is combined with an encyclopedic knowledge of guitar music, forged while he was a record store in Australia. Thus, he delivers songs evoking both the greatest hours of Fire Records (The Stevens) and the Lou Reed of the mid-70s (Tristan Winston Price, and his Hunter/Wagner style solos on R&R Animal).

$13.50 IN STOCK

To produce a record can be quite an adventure -- to do so with young girls from Northwest Benin is one tall order. Though not exactly a world music label, Born Bad Records took up the challenge and released Star Féminine Band's first album in late 2020 (BORNBAD 128CD/LP). Heaps of acclaims and praise and the whole shebang, then boom: the tour that was to materialize, live, all of the band and its entourage's hopes got cancelled due to Covid. The pandemic didn't get the better of them, though; with their desire to go up on European stages still very much alive, the combo reappeared on the Transmusicales festival's line-up just one year later -- a highlight of their first tour, regardless of all the hurdles and hiccups. "The procedure wasn't as simple as the first time around." That's how self-appointed "band dad" (two of his daughters are part of the formation, which he initiated in 2016) and songwriter André Balaguemon euphemistically describes the obstacles he had to go through in order to go to France. Inviting over minor African girls is a long shot, not to mention in full Covid season. A first in this tour of all of the first times: leaving Benin, taking the plane, discovering Paris... "Everything intrigued them!", JB adds, never out of flowery anecdotes. National newspapers, specialized magazines, radios and TV stations, Arte and TV5, then the BBC had interest. They left convinced, just like the audience, enthralled by the direct, live formula. All the same when they had to record in the studio -- a whole new thing too, like a final challenge they rose to with youth's talent, thanks to the listening skills of Laurent Boisgisson from One Two Pass It studio. A feverish and energetic soundtrack in which nabo, peulh and waama are enlivened with drum lines and spiced up with more "modern" sounds, spreading words of tolerance and kindness. Simple and direct, they speak of their reality, of the ills of young women who don't always have a choice. JB welcomed them in a record studio, and allowed for the formula to be sharpened into a sort of garage band with an Afro twist. Thanks to the English lessons that their manager Jérémie Verdier has been providing every Sunday night for two years over video conference, the girls even experimented with English lyrics in "We Are Star Feminine Band" and "Woman Stand Up". In Paris is the happy outcome of that challenge. Liner notes in English and French. CD version includes 12-page booklet.

$19.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes printed under sleeve; includes download code. To produce a record can be quite an adventure -- to do so with young girls from Northwest Benin is one tall order. Though not exactly a world music label, Born Bad Records took up the challenge and released Star Féminine Band's first album in late 2020 (BORNBAD 128CD/LP). Heaps of acclaims and praise and the whole shebang, then boom: the tour that was to materialize, live, all of the band and its entourage's hopes got cancelled due to Covid. The pandemic didn't get the better of them, though; with their desire to go up on European stages still very much alive, the combo reappeared on the Transmusicales festival's line-up just one year later -- a highlight of their first tour, regardless of all the hurdles and hiccups. "The procedure wasn't as simple as the first time around." That's how self-appointed "band dad" (two of his daughters are part of the formation, which he initiated in 2016) and songwriter André Balaguemon euphemistically describes the obstacles he had to go through in order to go to France. Inviting over minor African girls is a long shot, not to mention in full Covid season. A first in this tour of all of the first times: leaving Benin, taking the plane, discovering Paris... "Everything intrigued them!", JB adds, never out of flowery anecdotes. National newspapers, specialized magazines, radios and TV stations, Arte and TV5, then the BBC had interest. They left convinced, just like the audience, enthralled by the direct, live formula. All the same when they had to record in the studio -- a whole new thing too, like a final challenge they rose to with youth's talent, thanks to the listening skills of Laurent Boisgisson from One Two Pass It studio. A feverish and energetic soundtrack in which nabo, peulh and waama are enlivened with drum lines and spiced up with more "modern" sounds, spreading words of tolerance and kindness. Simple and direct, they speak of their reality, of the ills of young women who don't always have a choice. JB welcomed them in a record studio, and allowed for the formula to be sharpened into a sort of garage band with an Afro twist. Thanks to the English lessons that their manager Jérémie Verdier has been providing every Sunday night for two years over video conference, the girls even experimented with English lyrics in "We Are Star Feminine Band" and "Woman Stand Up". In Paris is the happy outcome of that challenge. Liner notes in English and French.

$19.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes four-page booklet with liner notes; also includes download code. Évariste is one of the rare specimens of artist-cum-scientists. Among his kind stand others like Pierre Schaeffer, a Polytechnique graduate (an engineer but also the father of musique concrète) and the eccentric Boby Lapointe (graduate of the École centrale and inventor of the Bibi-binaire system, patented in 1968). Évariste's songwriting, joyful and full of energy (albeit extremely critical), shrouds an original tragedy: born in 1943 among résistants, Joël Sternheimer (aka Évariste) grew up without a father, lost to Auschwitz. In 1966, the young Joël sports Princeton's colorful paraphernalia, freshly returned from the country is in the midst of the Vietnam War. Joël, who's under the supervision of a rebellious physician, is dismissed. He regardless keeps following the prestigious seminaries of the Institute for Advanced Study, chaired by Oppenheimer, inventor of the atomic bomb. Likely inspired by the hippie movement and music, Joël buys a guitar and starts playing in Washington Square. Morisse is blown away by Lucien Morisse's tape and signs him onto the label right away. Michel Colombier, arranger for Serge Gainsbourg, contributes some of his original ideas to the 7" E=mc2. The organist Eddy Louis, who is to participate, in 1969, to the success of Claude Nougaro's Paris Mai (1969), also appears on the record. It's 1966 and the Antoine phenomenon (signed on Vogue) storms through France. Success comes around swiftly and in 1967 Évariste launches into a second 7", Wo I Nee, again arranged by Michel Colombier. Quantum mechanics fans finally get their anthem with "La Chasse Au Boson Intermédiaire" (Intermediary Boson Pursuit). A few months later, it's May '68 and everything's turned upside down. Évariste writes a series of songs inspired by the events, which he immediately submits to Lucien Morisse. When he hears the song "La Révolution" -- a father and son dialogue -- he can't take any more: AZ simply cannot release this. But there and then Lucien Morisse makes a gesture which will remain engraved in French music's history: sorry to be unable to officially stand by the singer, he encourages him to self-produce the record, but with his tacit support. Évariste keeps singing at the Sorbonne with "Jussieu's Gang" and "the young Renaud" he nicknames "le p'tit gavroche" (street urchin). Renaud volunteers to type the lyrics of the song "La Révolution" so that the chorus can be sung and recorded. The self-released 7" La Révolution/La Faute À Nanterre is sold under the table and door-to-door for half the price of a standard record, on and around the boulevard Saint-Michel; and it runs out fast. When the theater director Claude Confortès decides to adapt Wolinski's drawing series titled "Je Ne Veux Pas Mourir Idiot" (I don't want to die a fool), he asks Évariste to write the original soundtrack. Dominique Grange (writer of the song "Nous Sommes Les Nouveaux Partisans") soon joins the team. After 150 performances, Évariste leaves his place to Dominique Maurin (brother of Patrick Dewaere). Évariste composes the songs for Claude Confortès' next play, Je Ne Pense Qu'à Ça ("That's all I think about"), co-wrote with Wolinski in 1969. The comedians of the play record the songs on a 7". 1970 is the beginning of a decade in the course of which Évariste is to make a decisive discovery in the musical and scientific domains. Following this breakthrough, he moves away from self-produced music and gaucho magazines to focus on science.

$12.50 IN STOCK

Évariste is one of the rare specimens of artist-cum-scientists. Among his kind stand others like Pierre Schaeffer, a Polytechnique graduate (an engineer but also the father of musique concrète) and the eccentric Boby Lapointe (graduate of the École centrale and inventor of the Bibi-binaire system, patented in 1968). Évariste's songwriting, joyful and full of energy (albeit extremely critical), shrouds an original tragedy: born in 1943 among résistants, Joël Sternheimer (aka Évariste) grew up without a father, lost to Auschwitz. In 1966, the young Joël sports Princeton's colorful paraphernalia, freshly returned from the country is in the midst of the Vietnam War. Joël, who's under the supervision of a rebellious physician, is dismissed. He regardless keeps following the prestigious seminaries of the Institute for Advanced Study, chaired by Oppenheimer, inventor of the atomic bomb. Likely inspired by the hippie movement and music, Joël buys a guitar and starts playing in Washington Square. Morisse is blown away by Lucien Morisse's tape and signs him onto the label right away. Michel Colombier, arranger for Serge Gainsbourg, contributes some of his original ideas to the 7" E=mc2. The organist Eddy Louis, who is to participate, in 1969, to the success of Claude Nougaro's Paris Mai (1969), also appears on the record. It's 1966 and the Antoine phenomenon (signed on Vogue) storms through France. Success comes around swiftly and in 1967 Évariste launches into a second 7", Wo I Nee, again arranged by Michel Colombier. Quantum mechanics fans finally get their anthem with "La Chasse Au Boson Intermédiaire" (Intermediary Boson Pursuit). A few months later, it's May '68 and everything's turned upside down. Évariste writes a series of songs inspired by the events, which he immediately submits to Lucien Morisse. When he hears the song "La Révolution" -- a father and son dialogue -- he can't take any more: AZ simply cannot release this. But there and then Lucien Morisse makes a gesture which will remain engraved in French music's history: sorry to be unable to officially stand by the singer, he encourages him to self-produce the record, but with his tacit support. Évariste keeps singing at the Sorbonne with "Jussieu's Gang" and "the young Renaud" he nicknames "le p'tit gavroche" (street urchin). Renaud volunteers to type the lyrics of the song "La Révolution" so that the chorus can be sung and recorded. The self-released 7" La Révolution/La Faute À Nanterre is sold under the table and door-to-door for half the price of a standard record, on and around the boulevard Saint-Michel; and it runs out fast. When the theater director Claude Confortès decides to adapt Wolinski's drawing series titled "Je Ne Veux Pas Mourir Idiot" (I don't want to die a fool), he asks Évariste to write the original soundtrack. Dominique Grange (writer of the song "Nous Sommes Les Nouveaux Partisans") soon joins the team. After 150 performances, Évariste leaves his place to Dominique Maurin (brother of Patrick Dewaere). Évariste composes the songs for Claude Confortès' next play, Je Ne Pense Qu'à Ça ("That's all I think about"), co-wrote with Wolinski in 1969. The comedians of the play record the songs on a 7". 1970 is the beginning of a decade in the course of which Évariste is to make a decisive discovery in the musical and scientific domains. Following this breakthrough, he moves away from self-produced music and gaucho magazines to focus on science. Includes liner notes in English and French.

$20.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes eight-page booklet and download code. Wouldn't it do them justice to rid Les Calamités (literally "the calamities") of the embarrassing phrase "girl band", durably stuck to their skins and plaited skirts? It's nothing but a pink puffy cloud obscuring their true importance as a "band" full stop, as well as their fleeting though mind-bending trajectory. In just a few months going on stage with a handful of original songs recorded here and there, they became, from Dijon to Rouen, Paris to Toulouse, Bordeaux to Strasbourg, the darlings of an uncompromising rockers' demanding scene. Tolerated by some, maybe, they were also consecrated, certainly (should they have needed the accolade). The trade-off was a succession of quick and distinctive verse-choruses for which the adjectives "fresh" and "light" seemed to have been invented again. They delivered just as many covers, which gave an idea of the origins of their songwriting: one foot in the fifties (on the dancefloor), the other in the sixties (in the garage). All of this leading to their final hit, a successful incursion in the top sales with a popular song for everyone to hum at ease, from seaside campsites to the cool kids of the capital. Everything the Calamités touched, with their classy, rigorous, casual ways -- plus just enough amused detachment -- turned into gold. Small-scale, three-voice anthems sung with a style given both by arrogant innocence and cheeky ease. Without playing the cards naturally assigned to girls (sexy attitude, feminist clichés, dilettante groupism) they managed to combine a pop teen spirit with a shameless rock n' roll energy. The Calamités were however and at once, one step behind -- some kind of '50s-60s classicism -- and one ahead thanks to their writing talent and French lyrics. They lived in Beaune, Burgundy, and do so mostly uneventfully. It's the early '80s. One thing leading to another, with a repertoire made up of just as many covers as personal compositions, they find a drummer after trying many, fire up local, then national venues, befriend the Dogs and other rock n' roll bands and recorded an album, À bride abattue, for the label New Rose. Coveted by fanzines, then approached by the magazines Best and Rock & Folk, they also appear on regional then national television, from Les Enfants du Rock all the way to Platine 45 with Jacky. When all the doors seem wide open, they choose to focus on the end of their studies instead. Caroline definitely moves on, while Odile and Isabelle push things just a bit further and treat themselves to a hit that easily makes its way into the Top 50: the famous "Vélomoteur", fan-produced by Daniel Chenevez -- one-half of the successful duo Niagara and a savvy producer.

$14.50 IN STOCK

Wouldn't it do them justice to rid Les Calamités (literally "the calamities") of the embarrassing phrase "girl band", durably stuck to their skins and plaited skirts? It's nothing but a pink puffy cloud obscuring their true importance as a "band" full stop, as well as their fleeting though mind-bending trajectory. In just a few months going on stage with a handful of original songs recorded here and there, they became, from Dijon to Rouen, Paris to Toulouse, Bordeaux to Strasbourg, the darlings of an uncompromising rockers' demanding scene. Tolerated by some, maybe, they were also consecrated, certainly (should they have needed the accolade). The trade-off was a succession of quick and distinctive verse-choruses for which the adjectives "fresh" and "light" seemed to have been invented again. They delivered just as many covers, which gave an idea of the origins of their songwriting: one foot in the fifties (on the dancefloor), the other in the sixties (in the garage). All of this leading to their final hit, a successful incursion in the top sales with a popular song for everyone to hum at ease, from seaside campsites to the cool kids of the capital. Everything the Calamités touched, with their classy, rigorous, casual ways -- plus just enough amused detachment -- turned into gold. Small-scale, three-voice anthems sung with a style given both by arrogant innocence and cheeky ease. Without playing the cards naturally assigned to girls (sexy attitude, feminist clichés, dilettante groupism) they managed to combine a pop teen spirit with a shameless rock n' roll energy. The Calamités were however and at once, one step behind -- some kind of '50s-60s classicism -- and one ahead thanks to their writing talent and French lyrics. They lived in Beaune, Burgundy, and do so mostly uneventfully. It's the early '80s. One thing leading to another, with a repertoire made up of just as many covers as personal compositions, they find a drummer after trying many, fire up local, then national venues, befriend the Dogs and other rock n' roll bands and recorded an album, À bride abattue, for the label New Rose. Coveted by fanzines, then approached by the magazines Best and Rock & Folk, they also appear on regional then national television, from Les Enfants du Rock all the way to Platine 45 with Jacky. When all the doors seem wide open, they choose to focus on the end of their studies instead. Caroline definitely moves on, while Odile and Isabelle push things just a bit further and treat themselves to a hit that easily makes its way into the Top 50: the famous "Vélomoteur", fan-produced by Daniel Chenevez -- one-half of the successful duo Niagara and a savvy producer. Liner notes in French and English. CD version includes 36-page booklet.

$13.50 IN STOCK

Until now, Zombie Zombie mostly pushed the song for covers (Iggy Pop, Sun Ra or New Order). For this new album, they built long harmonic progressions, along with singer Angèle Chemin, a soprano familiar with contemporary music, and Laura Etchegoyhen, Swiss army knife of Basque origin. You know it, even if you haven't worn out your bottoms on the pews of a church: Latin sings well. But, why Latin?: "We wanted to remain mysterious, to send cryptic messages, to dive back into a language from another time, like the copyist monks of the Middle Ages." And like their hooded ancestors, they do whatever they want with the text, and add porn illuminations in the corners, for those who know how to listen closely. Zombie Zombie is fifteen years old, or 90 years in group-years (multiply by six: more than a cat, less than a dog). That would have been enough to rest on their laurels, with an old fashioned in each hand. But no: they went for full-on fat and reverberated doom orgy. Choir work hints at the arrangements of David Axelrod or Ennio Morricone, with chanted syllables on several titles ("Lacrymosa", "Consortium"). This album gambles hard. Decidedly, Vae Vobis is not your average 122 bpm banger party. It's a well-balanced album, worth listening to in one go, to let each trap-of-a-track work its magic. E.g. "Ring Modulus", which, under its strong structure, houses extended-vocal-technique ornaments. Or "Aurora", a megalomaniac jewel cut to open the circus games. The brass section of Dr Schönberg and Etienne Jaumet plays it peplum style, along martial percussions banged on by big dudes in leather sandals. A disruptive album after more than ten years at Versatile Records -- an oddity born in the anxiety-fueled lockdown -- no matter: there's everything you love about Zombie Zombie, starting with their musical know-how. The ubiquitous vocoders are pushed to their limits. Sax, trumpet, and percussion come and add color to the record. The trio's musical tastes cover 95% of the styles listed by Discogs. So, it's no surprise that the black metal/doom reference is absolutely assumed. Each piece is a launching platform for big lyrical flights. There's space in the compositions: drums beat from the depth of time, as they would, in rather short pieces that will flourish on stage (hoping that the venues let them bring in the brilliant choristers). CD version includes 16-page booklet.

$19.00 IN STOCK

2022 repress; LP version. Includes 12-page booklet and download code. Born Bad Records present a reissue of Ruth's Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, originally released in 1985. Thierry Müller, who initiated the Ruth project, is not at his first try when the album Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, including the eponymous track, is released in 1985. His older brother Patrick along with one of their cousins make his musical education and he quickly becomes familiar with contemporary and experimental music. He starts quite early to tinker sounds on old tape recorders by himself but it is in 1977 that Thierry launches with some friends his first group, Arcane, while studying at the School of Applied Arts. Alongside Arcane, Thierry is already working solo on his Ilitch project/concept, an experimental and innovative work, whose first album Periodik Mindtrouble was released in 1978. The album brings Thierry recognition and success in the very elitist circles of experimental and underground music. Ilitch's musical bias was too narrow for Thierry's ceaseless experimental curiosity, parallel to these activities, he therefore develops a punk project called Ruth Ellyeri with the author, actress and photographer Murielle Huster. The title is an anagram of Thierry Müller (the complete name is Ruth M. Ellyeri). At the end of 1978, he meets Philippe Doray at the Oxigene office. Doray is another big name of French experimental music. Thierry moves to his home near Rouen, a remote farmhouse with a music studio made of odds and ends. They work on their respective creations but meet from time to time on experimentations in common, including Crash (a tribute to JG Ballard). As early as 1982, a first version of the track "Polaroïd/Roman/Photo" is out under the name of the project Ruth. Philippe is quite amused by the idea of working on a more pop project and offers to write the text. Thierry works on other tracks for the future LP and asks some friends to write other texts: Edouard Nono, visual artist, writes the lyrics of "Mots", Frédérique Lapierre those of "Misty Mouse" and "Tu M'ennuies". It is her voice you hear on these two tracks and on the first version of Polaroïd/Roman/Photo. Later, Thierry settles down in the Anagramme recording studio to carry out acoustic sound recordings. But when the sessions are over, the two musicians are not too happy with the results of Polaroïd/Roman/Photo: according to them, they lack "flamboyance". They decide then to record a new female voice with a professional singer and the sound engineer Patrick Chevalot offers to mix the track in the Synthesis studio "so that it blows out".

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Printed undersleeve; includes download code. Try to understand how Cannibale, from some living room in the Northern France town of L'Aigle, managed to perfect a sound somewhere between the Caribbeans, 1960s West Coast garage scene and Tropicalia's Brazil. They got into "doing nothing" lately. And while doing so, they've put together their third album, Life Is Dead. Simmered, gnawed to the bone; everything in that record feels more precise and simmered at length. Their distinct working method, both open to experimentation and mathematically redundant, ties all of their albums together. Everyday, in the alcohol-heavy botanical mist of his den in L'Aigle, Manuel tinkers about, pieces together instruments and "vomits music", to please the band's buddies. It's all the more convincing coming from an habitué of mosh pit close-combat rather than passionate oscillation. An infusion of instinct and seduction feeds back into the group's vaporous music and Nicolas' dreamy lyrics. Life Is Dead is shaping up to be yet another motor for imagination, for out-of-control body moves and spasms of the brains. Take, for example, the drumming bass and razor-sharp guitar strokes on "The Hammer Hits" or the racing "Kings of the Attics", which recounts the tribulations of a teens' band on rehearsal. Only one track is a bit of an outsider, the album's last composition for which Manuel feels he "managed, for the first time, to achieve [his] idea of non-blend between new-wave and Caribbean music". This record also stands out due to an ever more intense connection to the body. In the sense of matter and food on "Savouring Your Flesh", which could be the soundtrack for a pagan feast in a cartoon. Or else as object of desire in the palatable lament "Taste Me". Nicolas defies death -- absurdly, always: daredevil tendencies, psychedelic purgatory and a good laugh with a white light beaming straight in his face. Opening title? Two guys trying to kill each other, without ever managing to get the job done. "I Don't Want To Rot"? The tale of a body crushed on the pavement, like if it was told by madmen racing full blast around a kart track. "The Mouth Of Darkness"? A hard-rock band title, an idea for a track to go along the title, a screwup resulting in a song recounting how the screwed-up song should have been. Welcomed as rookies in Born Bad's laps for its tenth anniversary, Cannibale now sits -- comfortably so -- at the big table of the label's leading bands. In the future, for sure, this Life Is Dead will have its own chapter in their dedicated anthropo-ethno-socio-musicological study - a somewhat post-mortem moment, in the full flow of creation. Frustration's singer Fabrice Gilbert can be heard on "Kings Of The Attics".

$14.50 IN STOCK

Born Bad Records present a reissue of Ruth's Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, originally released in 1985. Thierry Müller, who initiated the Ruth project, is not at his first try when the album Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, including the eponymous track, is released in 1985. His older brother Patrick along with one of their cousins make his musical education and he quickly becomes familiar with contemporary and experimental music. He starts quite early to tinker sounds on old tape recorders by himself but it is in 1977 that Thierry launches with some friends his first group, Arcane, while studying at the School of Applied Arts. Alongside Arcane, Thierry is already working solo on his Ilitch project/concept, an experimental and innovative work, whose first album Periodik Mindtrouble was released in 1978. The album brings Thierry recognition and success in the very elitist circles of experimental and underground music. Ilitch's musical bias was too narrow for Thierry's ceaseless experimental curiosity, parallel to these activities, he therefore develops a punk project called Ruth Ellyeri with the author, actress and photographer Murielle Huster. The title is an anagram of Thierry Müller (the complete name is Ruth M. Ellyeri). At the end of 1978, he meets Philippe Doray at the Oxigene office. Doray is another big name of French experimental music. Thierry moves to his home near Rouen, a remote farmhouse with a music studio made of odds and ends. They work on their respective creations but meet from time to time on experimentations in common, including Crash (a tribute to JG Ballard). As early as 1982, a first version of the track "Polaroïd/Roman/Photo" is out under the name of the project Ruth. Philippe is quite amused by the idea of working on a more pop project and offers to write the text. Thierry works on other tracks for the future LP and asks some friends to write other texts: Edouard Nono, visual artist, writes the lyrics of "Mots", Frédérique Lapierre those of "Misty Mouse" and "Tu M'ennuies". It is her voice you hear on these two tracks and on the first version of Polaroïd/Roman/Photo. Later, Thierry settles down in the Anagramme recording studio to carry out acoustic sound recordings. But when the sessions are over, the two musicians are not too happy with the results of Polaroïd/Roman/Photo: according to them, they lack "flamboyance". They decide then to record a new female voice with a professional singer and the sound engineer Patrick Chevalot offers to mix the track in the Synthesis studio "so that it blows out". CD version includes 24-page booklet with Iiner notes in English and French.

$12.50 IN STOCK

Try to understand how Cannibale, from some living room in the Northern France town of L'Aigle, managed to perfect a sound somewhere between the Caribbeans, 1960s West Coast garage scene and Tropicalia's Brazil. They got into "doing nothing" lately. And while doing so, they've put together their third album, Life Is Dead. Simmered, gnawed to the bone; everything in that record feels more precise and simmered at length. Their distinct working method, both open to experimentation and mathematically redundant, ties all of their albums together. Everyday, in the alcohol-heavy botanical mist of his den in L'Aigle, Manuel tinkers about, pieces together instruments and "vomits music", to please the band's buddies. It's all the more convincing coming from an habitué of mosh pit close-combat rather than passionate oscillation. An infusion of instinct and seduction feeds back into the group's vaporous music and Nicolas' dreamy lyrics. Life Is Dead is shaping up to be yet another motor for imagination, for out-of-control body moves and spasms of the brains. Take, for example, the drumming bass and razor-sharp guitar strokes on "The Hammer Hits" or the racing "Kings of the Attics", which recounts the tribulations of a teens' band on rehearsal. Only one track is a bit of an outsider, the album's last composition for which Manuel feels he "managed, for the first time, to achieve [his] idea of non-blend between new-wave and Caribbean music". This record also stands out due to an ever more intense connection to the body. In the sense of matter and food on "Savouring Your Flesh", which could be the soundtrack for a pagan feast in a cartoon. Or else as object of desire in the palatable lament "Taste Me". Nicolas defies death -- absurdly, always: daredevil tendencies, psychedelic purgatory and a good laugh with a white light beaming straight in his face. Opening title? Two guys trying to kill each other, without ever managing to get the job done. "I Don't Want To Rot"? The tale of a body crushed on the pavement, like if it was told by madmen racing full blast around a kart track. "The Mouth Of Darkness"? A hard-rock band title, an idea for a track to go along the title, a screwup resulting in a song recounting how the screwed-up song should have been. Welcomed as rookies in Born Bad's laps for its tenth anniversary, Cannibale now sits -- comfortably so -- at the big table of the label's leading bands. In the future, for sure, this Life Is Dead will have its own chapter in their dedicated anthropo-ethno-socio-musicological study - a somewhat post-mortem moment, in the full flow of creation. Frustration's singer Fabrice Gilbert can be heard on "Kings Of The Attics".