L. Petitgand + Scanner + Geins’t Naït
Et Il Y Avait
FRANCE Mind Travels Series / Ici d’Ailleurs MT19 CD / DIGITAL (2023)
Here is a great album of weird electronics and sample-ism. It would be easy to assume it has as much to do with contemporary architecture as music if you go by the photos by Francis Meslet on the sleeve and in a way, it does. I very much enjoy the variety and dynamic and flow of the finely aggregated material; much more arresting than your common or garden pond ambient electronica.
Scanner, as I’m sure you know, is the UK sound artist and electronicist Robin Rimbaud. He made a name for himself back in the 90s cementing courses of “overheard” mobile phone calls captured by means of an electronic device not usually available to the layman. He is still up to his old tricks judging by some of the hazy broken transmissions integrated into this material. I always think with some of his stuff “should I actually be listening to this?” which alone means we’re in the presence of a great artist. Anyhoo. Geins’t Naït is a duo since 1986 of Thierry Merigout and Vincent Hachet sometimes compared to Test Dept. or Einsturzende Neubauten. Their album A Consommer Sans Moderation was recently reissued by Klanggalerie. Laurent Petitgand is the French composer and actor associated with Wim Wenders. He joined Geins’t Nait in 1987.
The ten tracks when heard together are like rafters slung under a superstructure; it’s like one long ambient piece. However, it has some interesting twists and turns and there are a few surprises along the way: “Italia LP4” features buttressed massed voices in a surprisingly strong passage while “Gabriel LP2” benefits from a fleeting sarod sample. Nice. And “Italia Scan’” not only utilizes drums, but there is a guitar part that comes out of nowhere that could almost be the work of Steve Hillage. Perhaps it is.