Modern take on “Pictures at an Exhibition” perhaps is the CD Kolory Też Potrafią Śpiewać (ROPE WORM RW1) credited to Niala Effen, but in fact it’s that singular Belgian genius Alain Neffe who you may also know as Bene Gesserit or Pseudo Code.
The music has been rather obscure and hard to find for a long time. The story is that he originally recorded it for an exhibition of paintings by Nadine Bal called “Les Couleurs Aussi Peuvent Chanter” in 1989. If you bought a painting off the wall at that time, you might have been given a copy of the record from the tiny print run of 28 copies. A bit later in 1993 it came out as a cassette on Obuh Records in Poland, an item which itself commands quite a high collector’s price. I don’t know for sure how authentic any of this tale may be, especially as Nadine Bal may herself be part of the Insane Music “mafia”, with aliases of Benedict G and Barbra Montgomery, and also acting as the other half of Bene Gesserit. Matter of fact, she’s also the other half of Alain Neffe himself – they’re a married couple. I bet if Dylan Nyoukis tried a similar experiment for the paintings of Karen Lollipop, it’d be a lot more direct than this oblique swipe.
Even so this peculiar synth music – no idea why it’s been tagged “ambient” on the web – has a boppy charm and a rum sense of ticklish funnybones propelling it along. Despite the insistence on “colours” being able to sing, in fact all the tracks are named for women and girls, from Muriel to Yvette and Catherine to Anne-Marie. The differences between these musical portraits are not profound, and we’re left with the vague impression that red is no stronger a colour than yellow, or that Beatrice is equally as pretty as Gina; come to that, I’m starting to doubt if the music is really a celebration of beauty as such, as there’s an oddly disenchanted streak running through all of these minimalist stabs. (02/06/2023)