condition (record/cover):  EX (occasional minimal surface noise) / EX- (two tags on back)

The debut album by Present, released 1980 on Atem (the French label/magazine that also handled the early Art Zoyd and Aksak Maboul records) as ATEM 7008. Recorded and mixed between end-January and end-May 1980 at Overijse, Belgium, with Gérard Nguyen producing, Triskaidékaphobie (French for "fear of the number 13") is a notable early Belgian RIO statement: dark, repetitive, mechanical, with a chamber-rock attack that pushes the Univers Zero template into more frenetic and more guitar-driven territory.

Roger Trigaux (guitar, piano) had been a founding member of Univers Zero and played on the first two UZ albums; after Heresie (1979) he left to concentrate on his own vision and founded Present. The early lineup featured fellow Univers Zero personnel Daniel Denis on drums and Christian Genet on bass (Denis was simultaneously in both bands), plus Alain Rochette on second piano. The album consists of three pieces: "Promenade Au Fond D'Un Canal" (nineteen minutes of cyclical zeuhl-adjacent menace), "Quatre-Vingt Douze" (fifteen minutes of segmented chamber-rock interplay between piano, guitar, bass and drums), and the closing three-minute "Répulsion" (a creepy ambient drone before its time).

The original vintage Atem French pressing on ATEM 7008, with cover artwork after a drawing by Sir Charles Bell. Some copies have a black cover instead of the standard white. Triskaidékaphobie is an early document of Present and one of the darkest, most uncompromising RIO records of its era.