This is a rare Brazilian compilation of Avant-Garde composers from the early seventies. There existed a couple more records in this series (MEC 70, MEC 71) published by the ministry of education and culture of Brazil. One of them was posted ages ago by Continuo. The MEC series was created to showcase all Brazilian contemporary Avant-Garde music including musique concrète and electronic music in the early seventies.
On this record, which I believe is the first in the series, there are three Brazilian composers present: Edino Krieger, Ernst Widmer and J. Lins. All pieces are performed by the Orquestra Sinfônica Nacional. The first side is by Edino Krieger with his piece Ludus Symphonicus from 1965. It's a modern composed strictly classical piece reminding me of Harry Sparnaay's Bass Clarinet Identity II that I posted a while ago.It constantly evolves from tension to de-tension and is occasionally influenced by Brazilian rhythms. Unfortunately this side of the record turned out to be quite crackly.
The second side consists of two pieces: Quasars (1970) by Ernst Widmer and Policromia (1970) by J. Lins. These pieces are more spacious and experimental so to speak and evoke more futuristic images because of their cinematographic nature. Speaking about futuristic, I really love the sixties and seventies graphic and optical art from South America (in design, architecture etc.). It integrates and combines the beautiful natural and often tropical environment with geometrical modernity and the space age. The MEC covers all look amazing.This music has to be placed in that context too.
This single is one of the first examples of electronic music from The Netherlands and was made at the Philips company in Eindhoven, a city in the south of The Netherlands. Philips was one of the first companies to create a scientific lab devoted to the creation of electronic music. They were also the company that created the Compact Audio Cassette.
In the late fifties Philips' Natlab was a place where composers like Dick Raaymakers, Tom Dissevelt and Henk Badings were experimenting with tape loops and electronic sound generators. All this futuristic electronic music has been rediscovered over the last decades and has even been re-released. Make sure you find the Fantasy In Orbit and Song of The Second Moon albums on the web (better on vinyl).
This particular record was published to accompany a "technical magazine" by Philips which they published regularly in those times. The first piece on this vinyl is called "Elektronische Muziek", Klankvoorbeelden, which means "Electronic Music", Sound examples. The creator is unknown and this piece hasn't been reissued as far as I know. The second side is an excerpt of Henk Badings' Kain en Abel, created for Ballet, which is to be found on multiple collections of this music coming from the Philips music archives.
Get this historical document of electronic music HERE
Roland Topor (1938 - 1997) was a French illustrator, painter, writer, filmmaker and actor who generally made surrealistic and absurd works. He is known for the novel The Tenant which was later adapted to a movie by famous director Roman Polanski and for being one of the creators and illustrators for the magical psychedelic French/Czech animation movie La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet) from 1973.
In 1962 he created the Panic Movement (named after the god Pan) together with Spanish screenwriter, pataphysicist and poet Fernando Arrabal and Chilean director and writer Alejandro Jodorowsky. They did numerous performances and theatre works to oppose surrealism becoming mainstream. You can see a performance here. Topor also wrote songs for French/Japanese singer Megumi Satsu who was friends with French sociologist Jean Baudrillard. So all pieces of the puzzle of life and deviancy are here.
This record of Roland Topor came out in 1975 for an exhibition of his work at the Stedelijk Museum (museum of modern art) in Amsterdam in an edition of 500 copies. It's a truly crazy record in which Topor speaks French and Dutch in an insane avant-garde slapstick manner. It's a humorous yet gripping recording that shows the genius and insanity a unique artist of the 20th century.
This is a pretty rare trifold record that came out in France as promotion for the Continental Edison audio brand. It was made to demonstrate their hi-fi equipment. Probably through the music industry and some record label connections this record somehow got some of the weirdest bands from France's seventies on there. Most of these bands were on Richard Pinhas' (Heldon) Urus Records which was called Disjuncta before that. Every side of the record was dedicated to a different audience and had one act covering one whole side. None of the tracks have titles listed. The last record has an easy listening trumpet orchestra on the E-side and a Beethoven suite on the F-side, which I did not include in this rip. The rest of the sides are recordings of great underground acts of zeuhl and progressive rock music. It's a mysterious combination of acts on a promotional record like this. I don't know if Festival Du Son was indeed a real festival, I can't find that information.
The A-side (Pour Les Fans de Pop) is represented by French Zeuhl band Nyl which made one pretty good album in the mid-seventies and is a prime example of a Gong and Magma influenced psychedelic rock band, but for this record described as the "pop-music representative". The first song (of the entire record actually) might sound pretty generic, but later on the music becomes more psychedelic and agressive with cool French English Vocals. I really think that Nyl was a much better band in reality than is to be heard on their only published record.
The B-side (Pour Les Amateurs D'Exotisme) is the Gamelan group Bali-Barong from Indonesia that was recorded during a field recording by Jean-François Bizot, who also created Actuel (sub-division of BYG records imprint) and was an important person in the French underground culture from the seventies and beyond. Bali-Barong published one album on Disjuncta records in 1975.
The C-side (Pour Les Avant-Gardistes) is by French psychedelic guitarist Alain Renaud, who was also in Heldon in the early seventies and made a couple solo albums. His music on here is a typical mixture of acoustic and electric guitar combined with some synthesizer sounds. I kept this side as whole as I felt it was intended originally like that.
The D-side (Pour Ceux Qui Aiment Le Jazz Moderne) is done by one of my personal favorite Krautrock groups from the seventies Exmagma. Exmagma was from Stuttgart and consisted of Thomas Balluff, Andy Goldner, and Fred Braceful (who also played with Wolfgang Dauner in his group Etcetera). Exmagma played some top notch fully improvised jazz-rock kraut and have made two legendary albums.
All in all it's a cool record with some recordings of bands of which we don't have that much material. Possibly this material is also on some of the already published records by these artists, but I was too lazy too verify. I had to record the album quite loudly because of the crackly condition. Ironic that Continental Edison used this record as a showcase of how great their audio equipment was, but pressed the music on some of the thinnest slabs of vinyl you can imagine and put it in hard plastic inner sleeves. Some internet prices I have seen for this are not worth it. Anyways.
Next up on the blog is this pretty interesting promotional compilation of Dutch Avant-Garde composers. Opus '70 was published by the Dutch world radio broadcasting system to be distributed in the United States and Canada to shed light on contemporary composers from Holland. On both sides of this record there is a program introduced in English to be transmitted by foreign radio stations. The pieces are variably incalculable, spacious or created by weirdly processed instruments.
The composers on here are Otto Ketting, Ton de Kruyf, Wil Eisma and Ton Bruynel. These four composers stand out as some of the most important composers of the Dutch Avant-Garde alongside Louis Andriessen and Ton de Leeuw just to name a few. Specially Bruynel did some great works of electronic music and musique concrète which I recommend you to find. On this record his piece is also the only one with electronic sounds and electronic processing. You can see him here in a clip in Dutch in which he talks about his music.
Naif was a project created in the early eighties by three important musicians from the Spanish underground music scene. Their only album Atlas is regarded as one of the holy grail records coming from the experimental music scene of Spain and Cataluña. The amount of copies that were put out is unspecified.
The members of the band were: Albert Giménez, founder of Spanish cosmic electronic band Neuronium and later creator of many free-improvised avant-garde flamenco albums in the eighties. Enric Cervera, known for his role in Spanish contemporary jazz and other improvisational releases and Victor Nubla, one of the founding members of one of Spain's most brilliant experimental acts Macromassa who also participated in numerous other experimental projects of the Spanish home-taping and DIY culture, like El Secreto Metro. Also he played with French-Catalan artist Pascal Comelade, French Mecano-musician Pierre Bastien and others. You can find all his work for free on his personal bandcamp over here.
The music moves in between Spanish flamenco guitar, Rock in Opposition like sounds, progressive rock, free improvisation and electronic manipulations. At times it reminds me of another Catalan underground outfit called Súck Electronic, at other moments it sounds like jazzy soundtracks with freakish improvisation. Every side of this double album has got a different profile which is indicated on the labels. The last side is an 18 minutes long track.
Archaic Inventions exists for two years now. I'm proud I've been able to extend the lifespan for such a long time. Thank you all for visiting the blog and I hope the uncovering of these recordings finds a nice place in your daily life. Thank you all for the support and spreading this great music globally. Let's continue this journey for another year to come.
Batu Kármen is the moniker and band from the early nineties of Hungarian painter, writer, musician and director feLugossy László. He is a notable underground figure in Hungary and was the leadsinger of one of Hungary's best avant-garde groups called A.E. Bizottság (Albert Einstein Committee). They made two albums and toured Europe in the eighties. Make sure you find those recordings somewhere. Here you can see them in an old clip of the underground-movie Jégkrémbalett (Ice Cream Ballet) from 1984 in which they took part and did the soundtrack.
feLugossy is known for being part of a vibrant artist scene of Budapest and the nearby artist-town of Szentendre of the eighties. This recording of Batu Kármen is a nice insight into Hungary in the early nineties when many things became possible to do in the alternative scene due to the change of the political system. New bars and underground places were opened and festivals were being created which helped artists and musicians develop themselves in the new times.
The lyrics are quite absurd while keeping a very intelligent essence. The music is quite a bit Captain Beefheart-like in a post-punk context with maybe some strange eastern european "indie"-influences. Actually a great album. Some songs were uploaded to youtube before, but here's the whole thing.
