Thrash The Flash is evidently a very “occasional” side project of Jean-Marc Foussat, the prolific French improviser…the only other known instance of this combo, featuring Marc Dufourd on electric guitars, is a rather obscure CDR called La Reprise Des Vides which Foussat happened to send me in 2002. That particular item also featured the woodwinds of Jérôme Bourdellon and the trumpet of Damien Dufourd adding to the general mayhem and wild rage, but for today’s item Viens! (FOU RECORDS FR – CD 67) we’re back to the basic duo.
One long track recorded in April 1982 and a more recent offering from August 2013, featuring the VCS3 and vocal ravings of Jean-Marc. Marc Dufourd showed up very briefly in the 1980s as a member of the French experimental jazz art group Axolotl with Bernard Bollerot, Etienne Brunet, Jacques Oger, and Lambert Boudier; their first 1981 album has recently been rescued by Le Souffle Continu. I never heard it, but it’s supposedly more in the “classic” free improv realms than their second LP Outmaneuvre (1984) which leans towards Rock In Opposition tendencies. Dufourd also lent his guitar skills to the Hotel Hotel album by that towering genius of French avant-everything, Jac Berrocal, and he recorded with the great Pascal Comelade.
It’s been great to hear these “vintage” 15 mins of wayward guitar exploits from 1982, but I have the impression the session wasn’t much more than a try-out and might not have been intended for publication at the time. This is kinda reflected in the unfinished and sketchy nature of the music. No matter, since there are some listeners (and I’m one of them) who are hungry for any evidence of free-thinking experimentation from this 1980s period, which is rapidly developing into another “golden age” of free playing. My only other observation that this incarnation of Thrash The Flash isn’t as outright “noisy” as the 2002 version, but noise isn’t everything.
The cover images are by Diavolo Marco; we’re advised to look closely at these abstract paintings for the hidden text messages which spell out “everlasting sonata” and may have some bearing on the nature of Foussat’s music and his life’s task. (17/12/2024)