beyond the border
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......................................................................................................................................................... Together with Henry Cow, Stormy Six, Samla Mammas Manna and Univers Zero, French band Etron Fou Leloublan was part of the Magick Five, i.e. one of the five original Rock in Opposition bands. Between 1976 and 1985, the unfamous group recorded and released five studio albums, totalising 43 songs and quelques brindilles. Their musicianship and experimental madness were legendary among the more forward-looking musicians and other admirateurs de l'étrange, but to say they were aknowledged on a larger scale would be exaggerated. This was Art rock with a twisted A, so to speak. Fortunately for us - and let's celebrate - this triple-cd condenses Etron Fou Leloublan's entire career in one go, which also helps the listener to have a clearer idea regarding exactly why such a bizarre constellation of experimental musicians should (or not) be remembered by their brilliant descendants. Avant-contines and avant-ballades, it would seem the French avant-garde underground came to life as a literal perversion of the world of chansonnerie. It still had to be done back in 1976, and the band did it with playful passion, conscious as they probably were that they were basically destroying music the way it had been heretofore. As a matter of fact, Etron Fou Leloublan were, AT LARGE, especially Jazz, Rock and Pop, although everything they did within these black holes was not really Jazz, Rock nor Pop. Or maybe it was, had these genre gymnastics been systematically offended, tickled, laughted at, disrespected and sodomized inside out as well as outside in. The compositions were fractured and have been cut on a dime, but, in many ways, the music was cleverly kept catchy, kitsch and easy-listening, which, indeed, must have been Etron Fou Leloublan's characteristic originality among the Rock in Opposition's historical beginnings. In short, these musicians played around with apparently basic though abnormal structures, often led by saxophone, drum, guitar, bass, organ and a few synths, and it sounds like they had much fun turning it all into demented and absurdist small-orchestra hymns. Also, listening to their 43 songs offers you a very pleasing entrance into the unique drumming style of Guigou Chenevier, who with Chris Cutler and Daniel Denis was somehow changing the face of band music's rhythm section forever, performing his nervously hit & miss minimalist style. Guigou was, and still is, a true bricoleur. On a special note, if you understand French, I can promise you that you're going to be laughing once in a while, as the singer(s) was one hell of a raconteur. Imagine Boris Vian at the asylum drinking too much coffee, uncomfortably sitting with a more populist and understandable version of André Breton's surrealism, while pre-Miriodor circus band music and a punk-pop translation of Henry Cow play along, and you might have an idea of what to expect. Without the destructive work of bands such as Etrou Fou Leloublan, I wonder what music would be like nowadays. Now I believe it is about time to find out about the French origins of Rock avant-gardism, if you haven't yet. Oliver Side
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