Various Artists - Festival Du Son (Nyl, Bali-Barong, Alain Renaud, Exmagma) -1977- (LP, Continental Edison), France/Germany

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.

Enjoy! Recommended stuff!

Get it HERE

Various Artists - Opus '70 -1970- (LP, Radio Nederland), Netherlands

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.

The cover of the record looks great!

Get it HERE

Naif - Atlas -1982- (LP, Filobus), Spain

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.

Highly recommended!

Get it HERE


Message:

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.

Bence - Archaic Inventions

Batu Kármen - Max Mara & Lili Luna -1994- (Tape, Bahia), Hungary

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.

Recommended!

Get it HERE

Gruppe Nuova Consonanza - Improvisationen -1969- (LP, Deutsche Grammaphon), Italy

So this probably doesn't need too much of an introduction, but I'll do it anyway. Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza (also The Group or Il Gruppo) was an Italian free improvisation Avant-Garde group. The three main people involved were Franco Evangelisti, Ennio Morricone and Egisto Macchi. They have created numerous incredible albums ranging from electro-acoustic improvisation to jazz to beat-driven psychedelic rock in a krautrock fashion. The coolest thing was that they were already men in their fourties when they made all this music.

Lately many of their records and recordings have been reissued by multiple record labels as well as some of the records made by individuals of the group. I can strongly recommend the solo work of Egisto Macchi. Morricone's work we all know by the legendary soundtracks he produced for movies like The good, the bad and the ugly and Once upon a time in the west. Italy's library and soundtrack music will always prevail over that particular genre of music elsewhere.

This record is a typically full-improvised recording of the group that was even published by the very renowned Deutsche Grammaphon company that was specialized in classical music. I know this was available on the web at some point, but is barely to be found these days so I thought it was a good idea to share again.

Get it HERE

Ernesto Cardenal - Gebet Für Marilyn Monroe & Psalm 21 -1972- (LP, Pietbiet), Germany/Nicaragua

Merry Christmas and an Archaic New Year to all followers of the blog!

This is a record I'm very happy to present on this blog. It's a beautiful example of how all kinds of ideological currents surfed along on the waves of hippieness and political progressiveness during the early seventies and eventually were translated to psychedelic music.

Ernesto Cardenal is a Nicaraguan priest, poet and politician. He was also minister of culture in Nicaragua at the end of the seventies. Cardenal started a christian commune in 1966 on the Solentiname Islands in Nicaragua in which they lived in poverty among indigenous farmers. This is a record he made in Germany in the early seventies with a couple of christians who were completely out of their minds. Cardenal wrote the texts and the German musicians made the musical adaptations and German translations. The first side of the record is called "Prayer for Marilyn Monroe" and has a completely pedantic and moralistic character. It tells the story of the life of Marilyn Monroe and why it was all a futile effort. The second song is called Psalm 21 and talks about war, torture and technological problems of the world. Really heavy stuff (I mean the record).

The greatest thing about the record is that the German vocalists sing both in German and Spanish. Their Spanish has an insanely strong German accent which makes it incredible. It has a similar feeling to German bands like Floh De Cologne (who would totally hate these christian people) or Dutch hippie flutist Sigurd Cochius who made one album in the early seventies. It's very groovy with amazing flutework. The flutist who is appearing on this record is Klaus Dapper who was also in Krautrock groups like Bröselmaschine and the NWW-List group Kollektiv so this record has a link to some of the proper Krautrock bands as well.

UPDATE: I got hold of a new copy of this album, which means the bad quality B-side of last time has been replaced by a better rip. I suggest you grab this pearl again! 

"Herr, in dieser Welt, die verseucht ist von Sünde und Radioaktivität sprichst Du eine kleine Verkäuferin nicht schuldig, die wie alle kleinen Verkäuferinnen davon träumt, ein Filmstar zu sein. Ihr Traum wurde Wirklichkeit (doch eine Wirklichtkeit in Technicolor), sie agierte nur nach dem Script, das wir ihr gaben - das Script unserer eigenen Leben - und es war ein absurdes Script. Vergibt ihr, Herr, und vergib uns allen..."

Get ready for some amazing Christian Krautrock! 

Get it HERE!

I uploaded some vintage North Korean records as well if you prefer to listen to that during this Christmas.

VA - Young Hungarian Electronic Music Composers -1983- (LP, Hungaroton), Hungary

As promised in the first post of Hungarian electronic music, here's the second one that came out in Hungary compiling some of the electronic music composers that were active in the seventies and eighties. I have to say that this one is probably the key record for Hungarian electronic composed music and in my opinion even more incredible than the other one.

Five Hungarian composers are present here: Iván Székely, Miklós Csemiczky, Máté Victor, Lászlo Király and István Szigeti. Some of these composers have published some solo records in Hungary which are really worth it to check out. The music ranges from electro-acoustic pieces to really intense electronic pulsating sounds intwertwined with singing of Hungarian vowels. It never bores and is really versatile while still creating the feeling that it's a whole, which is an amazing effort done for a compilation.

The first piece For Alrun by Iván Székely was recorded live in 1975 during an electronic music showcase in Bayreuth. The record starts and ends with two Hungarian folk songs to complete the musical journey:

Népdal:                                                  
Gyere ki te gyöngyvirág                      
Mert feljött a holdvilág, jaj               
Majd kimegyek hajnalba              
Magos fejű kalapba, jaj

Folk Song:
Come out, you lily,
For the moon has risen, jaj
I'll go out at dawn
In a high-topped hat, jaj

Weöres Sándor: Lied:
                        
Várlak a déli sugárban,                 
várlak az éji sötétben,                      
várlak a télben, a nyárban                
várlak a földön, az égen                  

Lied by Sándor Weöres:

I await you in the noon sun,
I await you in the dark night,
I await you in winter, in summer
I await you on earth, in the sky


Get it HERE