Music from France

**Edition of 1000 copies**Eliane Radigue's Geelriandre / Arthesis is named for the pieces that fill its two sides. Geelriandre, realized on an ARP 2500 synthesizer in 1972, features Gérard Fremy on prepared piano. Arthesis, realized using the University of Iowa's Moog in 1973, comprises the full duration of side B. Eliane Radigue has received much deserved praise for her transcendent composiitions for tape, synthesizers, and acoustic instruments. Her work is deep, slowly changing, and timelessly…

The saxophone is most often associated with jazz, a lead instrument that’s strong on melody and a potent vehicle for improvisation. Urban Sax puts all those ideas to bed. For those unfamiliar, Urban Sax is the creative outlet of composer Gilbert Artman, who started the group back in the mid-70s, and composes and arranges all of the group’s material. The “group” in this case is over 75 performers, consisting mostly of saxophones (the entire family from sopranino to bass), but also including clari…

Edition of 500. First ever vinyl edition of the amazing Music By Xolotl, originally issued only on cassette by Unity Records in 1978. Painter and musician Bernard Xolotl was born in France in 1951. As a teen, he was introduced to electronic music through the works of musique concrete composers like Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer, although he found the early recordings of Pink Floyd to be more inspirational.During the summer of 1970 while stopping in Belgium, he found a vast Library with rare …

Originally released in 1979, Iceland is Richard Pinhas' third solo album and his first following the breakup of Heldon. While moving away from the maximalism of his old band, paring down Heldon's hybrid of otherworldly sci-fi imagery and pummeling psych-prog riffs, the journey through Iceland is decidedly more inward.  Consisting of longer, brooding synth-based pieces as well as short proto-industrial études and interstitial sketches, Iceland features Pinhas' delay-ridden electric guitar, pulsat…

Recorded December 1980 - April 1983. Fantastic cosmic, space, ambient and experimental music from mysterious French duo Annanka Raghel and Ivan Coaquette (formerly of Spacecraft and Musica Elettronica Viva). Originally released in 1983 as a limited edition cassette packed in an oversized match box with matches on Camouflage label. Fondation was a two piece band: Annanka Raghel on keyboards, voice and reciting and Ivan Coaquette on guitar, bass, synthesizer, percussion. Each track starts with sho…

La Tène is back with a double invitation to its third full length LP.  The hurdy-gurdy/harmonium/percussions trio welcomes two bagpipes (cabrettes and 23” to be exact), and a combo of string instruments (12-string guitar and electric bass).  Beyond the instrumentation, we’re looking at a gang of high esteemed guests: Jacques Puech, Louis Jacques, Guilhem Lacroux and Jérémie Sauvage, whom works are given their due credit (with the La Novià collective and its multiple variations, the France group…

Private Edition of 230 copies. Historical 'lost' 1982 recordings issued on a 7" picture disc, blending the wonderful voice of Jacques Doyen, the music by Jac Berrocal and a background collage of distant, heavily-treated and distorted sounds from Anne Gillis (whose voice is also filtered through a De Dion Bouton oil can) "Yet another Jac Berrocal picture disc! Is there another member of the French underground more dedicated to this format than Berrocal? I say no! And this one’s as good as all the…

**Edition of 300, sold-out at source** Hailing from Paris, Jonathan Fitoussi has been exploring contemporary minimalist musical forms for almost a decade. His recent solo works have been described as a “fusion of electronic and acoustic sounds with melodic textures, colours and emotions in a cinematographic aesthetic style”, all of which is fuelled by his passion for recording, for analogue studio technology and for rare instruments. He’s also audio restoration engineer at Institut National de l…

**Includes a 12 page accordion-style booklet with documents from Luc Ferrari's archive** L’Escalier des Aveugles, or The Stairway of the Blind, was commissioned in November 1990 by Spanish National Radio (Radio Nacional de España). Asked for a piece to premiere as part of the European Day of Music, Luc Ferrari returned with a radiophonic concept that organised his anecdotal music into montage form, sequencing short, elusive narratives in a successive way.The completed composition is formed of th…

Bureau B present a reissue of Richard Pinhas's Rhizosphere, originally released in 1977. Richard Pinhas is one of the most important French electronic space rock musicians. Following five albums with his band Heldon, he released his first solo record in 1977. Backed by Heldon's congenial drummer François Auger but no longer bound by the group dynamic, he explores his freshly purchased Moog modular system in search of new sounds. It marked a departure into new realms. "We don't need new technique…

Bureau B presents a reissue of Richard Pinhas's East West, originally issued in 1980. The fourth solo album by French spacerock mastermind Pinhas, East West was his first and only album to be released by a major label (CBS). Some say it is his most commercial but Pinhas doesn't see it that way. "Signing to CBS was a blessing. It gave me the tools for better production. At that time, some big companies were better and more honest than the so-called underground labels. Besides, I don't see any vir…

Vous et Nous is the ninth album by experimental pop French musician Brigitte Fontaine and the seventh by Areski Belkacem, released in 1977 on the Saravah label. It's an avant-garde double album mixing a variety of instruments and vocal styles, with synthesizer and drum machine on some songs. Other, more acoustic, songs show the Algerian/African influence that Fontaine and Areski were known for. The album was not well understood upon release, but in later years was championed by musicians such as…

This DDAA legendary debut LP from 1982, here available as an expanded and fully remastered edition. There were bands like Can in Germany, Nurse With Wound in UK, The Residents in USA, and there were Deficit Des Annees Anterieures in France. Formed in 1979 by 3 artists from the Beaux-Arts of Caen: Jean-Luc André, Sylvie Martineau-Fée, Jean-Philippe Fée; DDAA was one of the leaders of the independent, experimental, industrial '80s French scene with their highly artistic, peculiar and thoughtful vi…

**Edition of 100** Here is DDAA’s Holy Grail: the first five single reissued for the first time on CD! “GNz-11” traces the beginnings of the band that had never really been revisited before: the first five years 1979-1984 in term of record productions! But more precisely the origins of the band are still older: DDAA was founded in April/May 1977 (and not in 1979, as we can read on a well-known music database site: this information is wrong!). DDAA with Die Form (Philippe Fichot) are two crucial …

Éliane Radigue's complete Naldjorlak trilogy (2004-2009): I for cello (Charles Curtis), II for two basset horns (Carol Robinson, Bruno Martinez), III for all three. Recorded in Paris in 2011 by Daniel Deshays. 3CD.

Edition of 500 copies. A stunning set of previously unheard posthumous recordings from Mika Vainio aided and abetted by Franck Vigroux. Haunting, cinematic, extreme electronic panoramas of the highest order… Mika Vainio and Franck Vigroux’s brutal yet filigree electronics come to light in ‘Ignis’, which finally discloses the further, etheric results of recording sessions that made up their ‘Peau Froide, Léger Soleil’ album in 2014, their celebrated previous collaboration for Cosmo Rhythmatic.Pos…

Face Time is the second release from the trio of Oren Ambarchi, Kassel Jaeger, and James Rushford, following on from their 2016 debut Pale Calling (BT 020LP). Recorded at the GRM studios in Paris in June 2017, the record immediately returns to the idiosyncratic sound-world of the trio's first release, a simmering stew of electronic smears, pitched-down animal moans, and mysteriously emotive microtonal organ chords. But before long the record takes an unexpected turn, as sounds that initially ent…

Bruno Duplant’s Chamber and Field Works is a double album that elegantly straddles the boundaries between composed and environmental sound. On disc one, the Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble brings to life three works composed between 2015 and 2017: “all that I learned and then forgot,” “where our dreams get lost,” and “a place of possibilities.” Duplant’s music here is characterized by extended tones, elongated melodies, and the intricate balancing of classical instruments - string, wind, and subtle …

 Richard Pinhas, the founder of '70s legends Heldon, is one of France's best known experimental musicians and is a key figure in development of rock music fusing with electronic music. In 1977 Heldon played three unreleased tracks during this tour -- these titles have never been recorded since. Bam Balam Records thought that these three tracks were lost forever, but luckily they were found recently. The sound is rough, but it's a rare document. Live In Metz '77 was produced by French guitarist a…

LP version. Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple), Richard Pinhas (Heldon), and Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins). What else is there to say? Richard Pinhas is one of the more atypical French musicians of the last 40 years. He has been surprising everyone all these years -- Always appearing where you expect him the least. Makoto Kawabata, who has been a big follower of Heldon, has also been a longtime friend and partner of Tatsuya Yoshida. So naturally, these three reunited in 2016 at the Studio Con…