Catalogue
Assassins
FRANCE FOU RECORDS FR – CD 64 (2024)
Insane twisted French rock from the early 1980s…formed by guitarist Jean-François Pauvros and trumpeter Jac Berrocal, with the addition of Gilbert Artman on drums.
For the brief lifetime of this meteoric combination, Jean-Marc Foussat happened to be on hand to make some recordings, and these three examples amounting to about one side of a vinyl LP in playing time have finally been pressed into CD. Crazed guitar work from Pauvros, sometimes a member of of Tribraque and Marteau Rouge, but happy the collector who gets his paws on a copy of No Man’s Land (a rarity from 1976, thankfully reissued by Le Souffle Continu). Gilbert Artman comes our way from Lard Free and Urban Sax, and what better pedigree could a connoisseur of experimental art music from the 1970s ask for? The creative genius of Berrocal, contributing indecipherable electric hieroglyphs galore, is likewise unfathomable, but if you enjoy hearing him in “raw and unfettered” mode, this is the record for you.
This brutal, disturbing noise rock is something I would have hesitation in aligning with benchmarks of similar agitational angst from the post-punk milieu, such as This Heat and The Pop Group, but it also matches the No-Wave Mars record for sheer unhinged energy and volcanic incandescence. While a part of us wishes for a triple-CD set of this music we could cherish, we’re grateful to have heard this much of it, reinforcing the notion that it’s a fleeting snapshot of a glorious moment that has passed long ago and an event that could never take place again in the milieu of modern music. To put it another way, this is all there is, and it makes its statement with beaucoup de force in a small space of time.
Additionally, I suspect that hearing more than twenty minutes of it would be decidedly unsafe, resulting in profound changes to the minds and souls of those fortunate enough to open this Catalogue and face these Assassins. Essential! From 3rd April 2024.