Label: Cuneiform
Category: Music
Average customer rating:
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1
UPC: 045775005126
EAN: 0045775005126
ASIN: B000008T0E
Release Date: 1995-03-29
Electronique Guerilla/It's Always Rock and Roll
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Artist: Heldon
Label: Cuneiform Category: Music Average customer rating:
Media: Audio CD Number Of Discs: 1 UPC: 045775005126 EAN: 0045775005126 ASIN: B000008T0E Release Date: 1995-03-29 |
Electronique Guerilla/It's Always Rock and Roll
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Complete Electronic Mesmerization.......2002-02-09
Pinhas was also under the sway of English bands like King Crimson, Soft Machine and
Matching Mole. The most obvious influence from England is undoubtedly the guitar playing of Robert Fripp. (On the second
Heldon album there is even a piece titled "In the Wake of King Fripp"!) Pinhas seems not the least bit ashamed to mimic
Fripp's distinctive "laser beam" sound and technique, but set against the backdrop of droning and gurgling synthesizers it creates
a completely different atmosphere from just about anything Crimson ever did. However, there is one track on this set, that
sounds as if it was created in an attempt to see how close Pinhas could come to recreating Fripp and Eno's "Swastika Girls"
from the legendary No Pussyfooting album. It's another slice of loveliness for those who wish there was more recorded
Frippertronics available.
Another great piece is "Cotes de Cachalot ala Psylocybine." This eight minute soundscape pits ominous synth echoes against a
wailing, moaning, distant sounding electric guitar solo. Like most of this set, that's all there is to it. No drums, vocals nor a hint
of traditional song structure, just complete electronic mesmerization.
Disc two starts off with the massive "Aurore." This 18-minute piece begins and ends with a drone note melded from an analog
synth and a harmonium. An ultra-mellow synth melody develops and interlaces itself slowly around the constant drone. More
than once this writer has fallen asleep enveloped in this piece's analog cocoon only to be jolted awake by the all out guitar
assault of "Zind Destruction" three tracks later. This is the lone heavy piece on the entire set. Whatever "Zind" is, it definitely
gets completely destroyed by the end. This track foreshadows Heldon's more rhythmic proto-industrial guitar and synth noise
fests found on later albums like Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale and Interface.
This set is absolutely essential listening for anyone interested in electronic music and is guaranteed to blow away most people's
ideas of what cutting edge music sounds like.
The rocky beginnings of the Heldon archetypes.......2001-04-18
All three of Heldon's first albums were recorded on home equipment and, therefore, suffer in sound quality but this release of Heldon I and III (Electronique Guerillas and It's Always Rock 'N' Roll) seems to suffer much more than Allez Teia. Unfortunately, Heldon I/III does not suffer only from poor recording quality. True, they lay down the groundwork for the large catalog of albums Heldon and their lead composer/guitar player, Richard Pinhas, would release over the following two decades but they also contain much that is unpolished, unprofessional and downright cheesy.
Heavily influenced by the contemporary works of Robert Fripp (King Crimson), and especially Fripp's collaborations with Brian Eno, Richard Pinhas went on to become one of France's most influential electronic and Progressive Rock musicians. Pinhas's own impressive style of distorted guitar improvisation definitely grew up on a diet of Fripp but he rapidly applied this talent to musical directions all his own. Heldon fanatics will here find the early beginnings of what became the band's musical archetypes but, with a few exceptions, those archetypes are not stated cohesively enough to be very interesting from anything other than a historic point of view.
Among the highs of this release are Back to Heldon, in which we first encounter what would become a standard Heldon synthesizer stylization: warbling, bubbling synthesizer patterns overtop a bass drone, topped off by a meandering distorted guitar. Unfortunately, this 8-minute piece effectively ends 5 minutes into the song, then unwisely continues with cheesy synthesizer noodles for 3 additional minutes. Cocaine Blues delivers another Heldon archetype, the brooding dark analogue bass with sparse, repetitive melody overlaid by a shimmering sequencer line and intermittent sound effects. This is possibly the most typically Heldonesque piece on the CD and, set aside from the rest of the album, is rather pleasing. Virgin Swedish Blues and especially Ocean Boogi are explorations of Fripp & Eno style compositions and are by far the best works on these two CDs. They display the personal emotive sensitivities Richard Pinhas would later transform into the classic Heldon sound, while simultaneously making reference to the masterworks of Robert Fripp.
The worst of this 2-CD set offends with incomplete thoughts, immature compositions and musicianship, overly long, boring or uninteresting musical ideas. The worst of the bunch is Zind Destruction, which is simply a painful and embarrassing excursion into stoned living-room improvisation. If you went to college in the '70s and knew any musicians at all, you've heard it all too many times. This song is nothing but an electric bass and guitar blues-rock influenced improvisation being gated on and off and then further processed through musically unappealing delay and reverb. The effect it ugly and disgusting, especially after the previous track, Ocean Boogi, which, as stated above, is a wonderful and sensitive piece, very reminiscent of the best tracks on Heldon's second album, Allez Teia.
Music Album:
Music CD
When Buddha Smiles ~ Benny Goodman