Unusual record from four French players called Scaring The Mice For Revenge (PROHIBITED RECORDS PRO 061). Quentin Rollet (sax) and Nicolas Laureau (sitar) are joined by drummer Shane Aspergen and the oscillator effects of Jérôme Lorichon. Seems all four of them are old sparring partners in various studio sessions over the years, but this might the first time they played together as a foursome. They’ve ended up with a sort of Alice Coltrane melange, long instrumentals heavily tinged with oriental music flavours, and not only from Laureau’s sitar – Rollet manages to make his woodwinds sound like a ney with his squealy quarter-tones, and Aspergen ingeniously manages to play around the beat while still keeping up a steady pulse, thus bypassing Western conventions about rhythm. Even the track titles read like still frames from a travelogue movie – ‘Charming Snake Pit’ and ‘Cow face Posturing’.
The main event is ‘Bamboo Stick Shop’ which weaves its ancient-seeming spell for some 18 minutes of trancey, open-ended material. Not just free improvisation, there are an uncountable quantity of influences, accents and generic experiments in play here, and the attentive listener can discover everything from minimal electronica to psychedelia, jazz, and fusion-y elements. Nicolas Laureau is a revelation to us; I see he used to play guitar and sitar in a French avant-rock group Prohibition in the 1990s, then later played with NLF3, a group which apparently exhibited a very European take on “math rock”. Never heard these bands, but they suggest high-energy and complexity, whereas if anything characterises Laureau’s playing on this Scaring Mice record, we’d have to clutch for keywords like “serene” and “disciplined”, as of a fellow not especially in a rush to reach the end of the road before his trousers catch fire. The entire record feels like I’m riding in a howdah on top of an elephant, swaying leisurely to and fro. It might be the title refers obliquely to this experience, if you believe the old myth about elephants being afraid of mice. Cover artworks by Yu Matsuoka, with friendly press note by Julien Becourt. (30/08/2022)
Always enjoyed the tape music of French genius Jérôme Noetinger, but it’s usually been heard in the context of small group improvisation, electro-acoustic duo team-ups, and such like. Very good to hear him with a solo release now, and a double album at that. Sur Quelques Mondes Étranges (GAGARIN RECORDS GR2042) should more than satisfy your urge to hear what this man can do with his trusty Revox tape recorder. Although when I say “urge”, with me it’s an obsessive compulsion.
It’s been made mostly with the Revox B77, but also electronics, radio sets, and prepared recordings, and was all performed live in the studio. There are no overdubs and everything was recorded using room mics, plus something called “tube broadcast monitors” were part of the audio chain…I’m assuming that’s a good thing, and there’s no doubt that the electrifying “live room sound” is what passes over to the listener on hearing this exciting double LP, the moment you click on the stylus. Vivid! Unstoppable! Convulsive! You bet! Anthony Pateras, the Australian composer and modern electronicist, has provided a press note and is unstinting in his praise of this great French player, noting his respect for “the acousmatic tradition” and reminding us that Noetinger has pretty much dedicated his life to his music, working with the Revox machines for over 35 years now in production of live electro-acoustic music. Pateras speaks warmly of “tireless timbral research” and the “detailed and rich vocabulary”, sentiments we can only endorse. It’s also worth dwelling on the “aurally strange” dimension which Pateras highlights – true to its title this record does offer glimpses and views of Quelques Mondes Étranges, where almost no sound is familiar, and some of them are shockingly odd and troubling. Ideas unspool at a quicksilver pace, often three or more events unfolding in real time before us inside this galactic zoo, this fifth-dimensional aquarium.
Can’t stress enough the tiny miracle of hearing these profound transformations, these radical shifts, happening live in the studio, where jolts and currents dance about in uninhibited fashion…which shows something about the achievement of this French maverick oxide-wrangler who has deliberately avoided the laptop route, where sounds pass before us after their 200th trip through the digital reprocessing factory using ho-hum software that knocks all the corners off, and they arrive listless and apathetic, denuded of all life. Not so with Noetinger, whose music lives and breathes fire, flowing with the blood and juices of creation. Strap into the chair now to hear nine explosive short episodes – with surreal titles like ‘White Horse against UFOs’ and ‘Le Bouffon Moderne’, and even a French translation of Sun Ra’s Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy – then settle into Side C for a fizzy distorted interrupto-drone that lasts for 18 minutes and is guaranteed to dispel headaches, rheumatism, and other winter ailments. The lock-grooves on side D don’t work exactly as planned on my promo CD, but they should send your mind (what’s left of it) into a state of bedlam quite soon. A true modern triumph of analogue electronic music and imaginative ideas, presented on Felix Kubin’s label (and who better, himself being a champion of old-school methods and equipment for as long as I can recall). Tale a big bite out of the strange…recommended!! (15/08/2022).