First spun was Les Lambrissures Crevees (SPASM56). Strange songs delivered with a half-hearted recit and strumming acoustic guitar are sliced and shot through with layers of noise, electronic interventions, field recordings, overlapping voices, and general debris. A delicious lo-fi delirium results, over-crowded with a rich excess of sonic information, very little of which matches up. I just love it. And with song titles like ‘For Getz Sake’ and ‘Releve Champ Frequence’, you can’t miss. Surrealism in a collage scrapbook of disarray. As it turns out, this record is pretty typical of what Astatine does.

More of the same on La Compression Du Souffle (SPASM58), another 16 short tracks with distorted songs fighting their way through lumps of murk and mud. Sometimes here the electric guitars are doubled up (I think) and there’s even a bass following the simple melodies and lost style of singing; all highly reminiscent of Sebadoh, only even more obscure. To use his own words: “I wanted to be eric’s trip playing the first songs by HOOd or the inverse, can’t remember and now I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.” This very limited LP (most of the output existed briefly as lathe cuts, and limited press CDRs) also boasts some wonderfully bewildering episodes which are clearly not songs, but amount to glimpses of a strange internalised world, sketched in lo-fi noise. Another gem. The Dada-styled lettering (probably composed from newspaper headlines, like Sex Pistols covers) is one of Astatine’s visual trademarks, if the previous ten-inch is a precedent.

On Du Jazz Dans La Ferraille (SPASM61), another sixteen tracks (maybe 16 is his lucky number), we’ve got no songs as such but a number of turgid instrumental pieces which are characterised by a thumping, lumbering rhythm – perhaps the creator’s primitive interpretation of what “jazz” drumming is supposed to be. Piano, string bass emanations, and other nauseating sounds worm their way into each piece in an incredibly glorpy, sluggish, manner. I adore the absurdist, playful atmosphere of this creeper. Guest player Lobox is credited with “drum interludes” and Stephane provides sleeve notes in French, referring to Max Roach and Charles Mingus, whose music I love, but must concede that neither of them would have dared to make a record as occluded and opaque as this beaut.

Faiblesse De Certains Sons De Guitare Lache does exist as (SPASM66), but before me I have a copy of a limited CDR on the French Label [A…Autoprod]. This particular album once again invites comparisons with Sebadoh, and this time the songs (the first two tracks, at any rate) have more in the way of an identifiable melody and it might even be possible to make out some of the lyrics, even though Astatine continues to mumble and murmur as if his mouth were full of dough. The guitars are also heavier and a tad closer to an actual “indie rock” sound, which may be due to the various guest players who appear on the album. This one might almost the best place for a beginner to start with the world of this naive outsider genius, but be warned there are still a fair number of bewildering sound experiments on the record, identified with surreal and poetic titles such as ‘Refuser Les Instruments Legues Par L’Industrie’ and the gorgeously de-natured ‘Alkaline Fragments’. Astatine has a real knack for “distressing” his sound in a gloriously aesthetic way, the like of which we haven’t heard since the glory days of Ashtray Navigations.

19 cuts on Chamber Fracture (SPASM51), which emerged in 2014 on a limited LP run (20 copies). More introverted loner-indie songs recorded in a bedroom in the self-overdub PortaStudio way. One thing to savour is the way that the layered tracks don’t quite match up, but it works perfectly anyway. As usual, Astatine gives us two songs to sweeten the deal, then dives straight into the perplexing noise cuts. Not quite as over-loaded as the later Les Lambrissures Crevees, which I prefer; Chamber Fracture has its moments of high weirdness, but the songs and stoned-out guitar riffs are starting to feel a bit samey. Superb cover image of foggy desolation is credited to Remigijus Treigys.

Attempts, Debris and Left Behind (FISSILE 6) exists as 20 CDRs on the Fissile label (just three copies remain for sale at time of writing). This is a set of 22 demos and out-takes, which presumes that somehow they were deemed unsuitable for inclusion on any given finished item. This may indicate that Astatine likes to set the bar high. On the other hand, the quality isn’t much different to what we’ve heard so far in this batch, although arguably some of the meandering sound-odysseys such as ‘Cable’ and ‘Siren Seven One’ are somewhat more primitive and unfinished, and generally uncertain in tone and delivery. Given that Astatine evidently makes a virtue of such qualities, that’s really saying something. I can’t think of any serious fan that would be disappointed with these left-behinds. On these very personal statements, Astatine has raised “undesirable” elements in recording to a high aesthetic benchmark all of his own – the accident, the mistake, the process-glitch are all grist to his millstones. If you’re as sated as I am of hearing “flawless” digital records with their clean surfaces, you know what to do. Highly recommended!

In this vein, the track ‘No Go(l)d No Master’ stands out as a showcase for a clutch of spoken-word samples which appear to have been sourced from a series of hysterical pan-International activists, lamenting assorted crises that blight the 21st century globe; they make their plaint against a backdrop of free-form musical noises, where Oiseaux-Tempête do their take on the improvised art-noise thing in the mode of Art Bears or Henry Cow, only much more stilted and rigid. Not all ghastly though, as this track benefits from the splendid Ondes Martenot textures played by Christine Ott, a talented French lady who’s a composer in her own right, and who made a record for Gizeh Records this year; she also shines (though less brightly, as she’s buried in the mix) on ‘Black As Midnight On Moonless Night’. The Ondes Martenot is an unusual electronic instrument which I usually associated with recordings of Messiaen’s work, though it has appeared elsewhere.

Equally narrative in mode is the story-telling epic ‘The Strangest Creature On Earth’, which for its musical setting adopts a sort of sea-shanty dirge played on keyboards resembling concertinas; it stomps forward at an unvarying leaden pace and the overall mood is frozen stiff. On top of this, G.W. Sok (from The Ex) adds his ludicrous recit in a memorably bad piece of acting; his over-wrought declamation is cringe-worthy. Even so, there’s a cathartic effect produced by this grim, bone-chilling musical fable, a tall tale worthy of any American huckster from P.T. Barnum onwards. It’s also notable for the contributions of bass clarinet player Gareth Davis, whose work also impressed me on the ÜTOPIYA? album. We hear a few more moments of his splendid tootling on ‘Nec Mergitur’, a lively quasi-ethnic doodle which closes the record.

Oberland (guitars, mostly) and Pigneuil (synths, mostly) dominate the record though, and their heavy-handed instrumental style is shown for instance on ‘Quai De L’Exil’, a guitar-rich piece which strikes the listener as a French over-thought attempt to do the Dylan Carlson Earth thing; skeletal arrangements, emphasis on resonant twangs, and a sense of unearned self-importance handing over every ominous note and sound. ‘Black As Midnight…’ follows a similar template, predicts imminent catastrophe for mankind, and like many of the pieces here builds up to an intense freak-out climax at the end…for all their posturing, they’re still conventionally rockist in many ways. ‘Eclipse & Sirocco’ is admittedly quieter, a tasteful synth drone epic which in this context is positively serene, but still conveys a sense of tragedy and disaster on a global scale. As with previous record, I can’t escape the sense they’re trying to tell us something about the world in their musical surveys, and don’t like what they see. Last time the message was bolstered by numerous symbolic images and photos on the digipak, an onslaught of bombast I am spared on this occasion as I only have a promo card sleeve with the cover image of a defaced icon. A blinded saint, perhaps also appalled by the world as it was in the 6th century…From 25 May 2016.

As I see it, Ease-Up Jerk appears to be a more easily available version (to us mere mortals anyway), of the Hyperactive Jerk vinyl album, which briefly teleported into this plane of existence with a run of thirty-six copies, numbered by manicured hand and with covers screened of the finest silk. dDASH are a French electroid/nth gen. new wave project who’ve cut discs for Planet Mu and Tigerbeat6 amongst a few others and is manned by J. B. Hanak (see also membership of Sleaze Art and heavy metallers Cobra), and his brother Fred. Thing is, Fred isn’t credited as a player here…so…a one-man show it is then.

For the past decade, they’ve been a visible presence within the French underground, choosing occasionally (for reasons unknown), to morph into other organisms like the punning Boulder dDASH and the not so punning Evol d. Dopa. Though whether these offshoots offer up different instrumentation and conceptual blah, I simply have no idea. The dozen tracks trundle along in a pretty much linear fashion, pneumatic drumbox to the fore, with Factorial bass lines dutifully following along in its wake. “Animal Machine” and “Monkey Monster” kick up prerequisite amounts of dust and what have you – all throat strangulations and fat ‘n’fuzzed-out guitar arrogance. Needles back pedal from fire engine red to a cuter pink with “Prostitutes” and “Shiny Day” in which this particular J. B. takes it to le pont with a plastic soul near falsetto that’s surrounded by an almost radio friendly ambience.

If anyone out there seeks to track dDASH’s lineage back to their fellow countrymen of a synthpunk past, ‘specially the Metal Urbain family tree (Metal Boys, Dr. Mix etc.), I’d be reluctant to give that the thumbs up. There’s less indication of broken glass and civil disobedience in evidence here. Perhaps the cribsheet’s pointers towards the Sub Pop and Amphetamine Reptile empires would be a more accurate target? Maybe.

Descent to the Sun (BAM BALAM BBLP 021) LP sees Michel Henritzi pit his lapsteel guitar against the electronic violin of a regular sparring partner, the Japanese player Fukuoka Rinji; they produce nearly 43 minutes of continuous, noisy drone that appears to made from an alloy of solid metals. Very little variance across the two scrapey sides; a harsher, less psychedelic update on Vibracathedral Orchestra of yore. You’ll feel heroic just for enduring ten minutes of this squall, full of sleet and hail. Beautiful cover art by Wouter Vanhaelmeesch makes the outing appear profound, mystical, strange; wisdom may drop from the skies as you listen. From 10 Dec 2014, on a Bordeaux record label.

You can also hear the same two musicians paired up on Berlin (AFP 053), a cassette tape from Anarcho Freaks Production. This is described as “guitar n violin muddy blues”. We’ve had this here since 10 December 2014. This time the cover imagery is a black and white photographic print and depicts, in out of focus glory, a stroll down a Japanese street. Although it’s not raining, the music makes it feel that way. I’d like to think this photo was taken in the 1960s, but it wasn’t.

Michel Henritzi rejoins Junko, another old sparring partner, for Behind The Door (BLOSSOMING NOISE BN063CD) – a set of studio performances showcasing his twangiest Western-style Hark Marvin guitar, played in a free form style but still carrying traces of country and western echoes in each gloomy note; on top of these melodic backdrops, Junko squeals in her most insufferable tones, sounding like a wounded African parrot in its death throes. I really cannot abide to listen to this for longer than I need to. Of interest: they do a Suicide cover version (‘Cheree’), and the album has a vague film noir theme implied in the song titles and the keyhole image on the cover. Nice screenprinted cover is by Makeup Diaries. From 1st October 2015.

O’Death Jug is Michel’s duo project with Christophe Langlade who we last heard with The Ballad Of Sad Cafe. They both play guitars and lapsteel guitars on Dusted (DYIN’ GHOST RECORDS), and the cover art is intended to evoke a romanticised, idealised vision of the Old West through its monochrome charcoal sketches of Monument Valley. The tune titles on Dusted do likewise, with frequent references to the weather, the sky, horses, trains, and shadows. Like the cover images, the music is curiously empty; not a human soul in sight to disturb the isolated serenity of the landscape. You should be able to detect faint echoes of blues, country, rockabilly, folk, and other American guitar genres in the music, but their meandering improvisations stay mostly on the side of formless and impressionistic. From 27 May 2015.

Pictured, not yet heard: THE VØID (ERRATUM 011) by Junko. Two studio tracks recorded in Paris by Joachim Montessuis; it’s her second solo album since Sleeping Beauty. I think that front cover image alone tells you a lot about the woman and her music. The photo was taken by Alex Woodward, not in Paris but in Tramway at Glasgow. I think I have been to this venue and it’s every bit as claustrophobic as it looks; its clammy walls are guaranteed to make avant-garde music feel like a death sentence. From 2nd September 2015.

Maybe the black cover has the power of suggestion, but all the music feels like it’s taking place under a pitch black sky at midnight, or on a near-dark stage with minimal lighting. A dark and grim tone abounds. The mood is set by the opening track alone, which may be just four minutes of Topelitz soloing with his bass and electronic set-up; it’s a wild puke of nasty and ugly noise. I have endured this musician in a live situation before, and I recall the nausea induced by his heavily-amplified frequencies. He’s merciless…sucking all the air out of his room with his blocky, confrontational tones.

The bulk of the album though, as demonstrated on long tracks like ‘Lune Des Grottes Profondes’ and ‘Un Oiseau D’or Aux Ailes Déployées’, shows the threesome playing together in a free-form display of hard-to-pigeonhole music, a queasy mixture of improvisation, noise, punk rock, free jazz and generally formless blathering. The trio do cohere on occasion, but there’s also a lot of negative energy swilling about the stage; you feel that the mud is rising up to their ankles. Berrocal defaults to feeding his every trumpet blast through an echoplex, so one can’t help thinking of electric Miles (Dark Magus would make a great alternative title to this album), but there’s no funk, syncopation or verve on offer from the rhythm section, mostly just evil brooding and aggressive nihilism. A lot of that scuzziness might be down to Topelitz, who has a strong taste for distortion and fuzz. Even the drummer Cognard has put aside his joyful jazz-rock fusion style of playing, and is often heard delivering angry hammer-blows for drumbeats, punishing his snares and toms brutally. I’ve never commented on how close his surname is to “cogneur”, literally “one who hits”; it seems a highly appropriate soubriquet today.

Perhaps the most telling moment here is on side two, where the trio attempt a version of the underground “hit song” ‘Rock’n Roll Station’, which Berrocal made famous with Vince Taylor under the auspices of Nurse With Wound. The original song from 1976 is strange enough, but at least those involved appeared to be having some sort of bizarre fun. Here, the live version is not only desolate and haunted, but also lacking in a steady rhythm or identifiable tune; the dial has been seriously tuned very far away from the original rock’n’ roll station. Berrocal, improvising surreal stream-of-consciousness verbals on stage, seems to be trying to rid himself of the albatross, as surely as John Lydon in PiL. Am I imagining things, or does he mumble “snuff movies” here a couple of times? A ghostly revisioning of a revenant that won’t go away…it’s reassuring that Berrocal refuses to pander to nostalgia, and is as anti-showbiz as you could wish for.

Though sprawling and slightly incoherent, there are moments of grisly punchiness and juicy nihilism that make this a worthwhile purchase…from 23 April 2015.

See here for a better idea of how the front cover is supposed to look; I’ve not been able to successfully photograph the gold embossed lettering the at the top.

Tribraque play a species of discordant rock music with a lot of energy and passion; it shades into Industrial music, experimental art-rock of the 1980s such as I’d associate with the ReR label, and overlaps to some degree with the sort of grim, abstract noise that fellow French player Franck Vigroux sometimes creates in his studio using synth and guitar pedals. Tribraque do it with guitar, electronics and drumming…what strikes me on this spin is how they tend to overdo everything, aiming at maximal noise and maximal performance on each cut…for instance, the guitarist Pauvros is forever pulling on his whammy bar, pushing hard on the pedal FX, and sliding his strings fit to bust for each action-packed solo. And the drummer Cognard cannot help padding out the available spaces with expert drum fills, doing more than just providing a rhythm. Clearly, they would hate to short-change their audience. It’s solid playing without a doubt, but it also feels slightly dated; harking back to progressive rock flourishes, or even in places to earlier forms such as Hendrix-like psychedelic guitar flame-bursts.

This excess becomes even more evident when the band cover a Trent Reznor composition ‘Hurt’ on the B side; it’s fair to say they improve enormously on the original recording of this grotesque self-regarding “ballad”, but at the same time it feels like Tribraque can’t really “do” contemporary music; the ideas of economy, restraint, and simplicity learned from post-punk music seemed to have passed them by somewhat, and they feel obliged to reward the listener with elaborations and excesses that don’t feel entirely right for the material. However, there’s still much to enjoy in their assured performances, and the generally angst-ridden and despondent tone of their music should strike a chord with many alienated listeners.

As ever, a beautiful package; green vinyl pressing, and double-sided colour silkscreen printing for the cover. The graphiste Mika Pusse, self-styled “Mexican Chicken Hunter”, provided the imagery. The baboon’s face is so beautifully rendered that I’m not surprised it gets repeated and reused multiple times across the covers. On the front, this ape poses mostly nude apart from his red underpants, and a face embedded in his belly smokes a cigarette which conjures an image of a friendly girl grinning delight [1. On the back cover, the roles are reversed, but the fiendish pleasure of the situation is not diminished.]. His tattoos and wine bottle mark him as an unabashed lover of the sensual life, as clearly registered in his demonic smile of self-satisfaction. All of this imagery registers a strong sexual and wanton streak, absolutely none of which is present in the music. From April 2015.

The core team seems to be Frédéric D. Oberland and Stéphane Pigneul – and Oberland is certainly the last person you’d expect to be leading a stoner / doom band, with his composerly and sound-art credentials, not to mention his porcelain moustache cup, and yet here he is slashing an axe with vigour, leaning on a mellotron until it collapses under the weight of his pallid hands, and supplying “dark energy” – the sort of idiotic credit that only the most posey musician would have the audacity to print on their album cover. Both he and Pigneul are members of two other bands which are probably great to hear, but look at those band names – FareWell Poetry and Le Réveil des Tropiques – both of ‘em steeped in ideas filched from post-Surrealist books of engravings and dismal prose, which abound in the flea markets of old Paris. Ben McConnell, their drummer, also can’t get over his own literary aspirations since he used to play in a band called Au Revoir Simone, and has also played with another self-regarding semi-goth type with long black hair, Marissa Nadler.

Even so…this album wins me over partly through addition of star player Gareth Davis with his bass clarinet, shining well for instance on the long third track where his instrument gives the “woody” flavour of pipe smoke and freshly-turned earth we all crave, and the whole enterprise starts to gel – at which point Oiseaux-Tempête perform like an intellectualised version of Isis with the addition of Lindsay Cooper. This is the third album the band have made for Sub Rosa, and it’s got something to do with their “existential turmoil” brought about in their hearts in response to the economic crisis in Greece. To further this concept, Frédéric D. Oberland has decorated just about every surface of this 8-panel digipak with his moody, arty, photographs – dogs, skulls, crabs, anything so long as it’s loaded with “significance”, and even depicts a capsized ship on the front cover, no doubt continuing his critique of the world banking crisis. Profound, non? Then there’s the track titles, each one aiming to be a mini-essay packed with resonances and mini-ideas, or else chapter headings to a turgid book of philosophy. ‘Portals Of Tomorrow’ is a classic in that regard, but how about ‘Someone Must Shout That We Will Build The Pyramids’?

In sum, this release may be slow, gloomy, impenetrable, and over-thought in a way only the French brain can manage, but musically it’s still a convincing stab hitting the heart where it hurts with its depressing, rain-sodden free-form stoner rock mixed with foreign / weird field recording elements and oh-so-graceful acoustic melodies. From May 2015.