Brave the man who attempts to summarise Ghédalia Tazartès or the work of this astonishing French-born creator who died in 2021, a year which happens to coincide with this item Quoi Qu’il En Soit (BISOU RECORDS BIS-013-U), a booklet with a CD insert…some may savour his astonishing tape-works made with the Revox, notable for their very bold approach that mixes up huge number of diverse sources with great rapidity and imaginative overlays, resulting in beyond-surreal escapades that could create hallucinations for the susceptible listener. Repas Froid on the PAN label was one such. More recently we came to value Tazartès’ vocal bellowings and eructations, for instance on the remarkable Superdisque realised with a long-term acolyte, the accomplished David Fenech.
Little did I realise Ghédalia Tazartès was also a collector and curator of strange bric-a-brac, filling his accommodation with grotesques and found ornaments with a talent for juxtaposition that made him a true inheritor of the surrealist mantle. The Paris flea markets are just the place to fulfil such ambitions, but you must have the eye and the brain to make the correct selections from these rafts of flotsam. Peruse the colour photos in this book and you’ll have an inkling of this personal “cabinet of curiosities”, so dubbed by Dominique Abensour, who correctly likens G-T to a Renaissance antiquarian in their preface, while noting our man’s penchant for glassware and porcelain objects as well as many dolls’ heads. In 48 pages, our interest is not only piqued, it leaves us hungry for a volume five times as large and catalogue raisonee of all the artefacts, without wishing to destroy the mystery of it all…
For the music lovers still with us, play the free CD insert La chute de l’ange of a trio piece recorded at Eglise Saint-Merry in Paris, 2019. On this 35-minute dreamlike drone, Jérôme Lorichon plays Buchla synth, effects, and trumpet, while hero of the French underground Quentin Rollet plays alto and sopranino saxophones, accompanying the wispy moans and gasps of Tazartès, who also plays Tibetan bowls and bells, as if declaring himself both Buddhist and Catholic at once. While not the most essential or the most startling record to have been issued in the name of this great man, it does set the tone and build a suitably solemn atmosphere for the contemplation of these sensual and tactile objects from his collection. From February 2021.
A long-overdue review for an item received four years ago.