Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Vinyl of the Day - "Soundtracks for the Movies of Pierre Clementi"

Vinyl of the Day
"Soundtracks for the Movies of Pierre Clementi" (Planam) 2010

First performed at the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux in March 2009, “Soundtracks for the movies of Pierre Clementi” is an electronic concrete music including many references to psychedelia, kraut, spontaneous sound creation of the 1960s-70s, building an intense dialogue with the specific universe of Pierre Clementi.

Even if psychedelia and electroacoustic music seem to have little in common, they got intersected in the work of some advanced artists. On one side electronics entered rock and free jazz, on the other electric guitar and drums have been manipulated by adventurous modern composers. We could take Joseph Byrd, Friendsound, Faust, Supersister or Brainticket as a reference as well as Luc Ferrari, Jacques Lejeune, Bernard Parmegiani or Pierre Henry. A complete list of exchanges and collaborations would be too long to compile. Their common background could be defined as the need to enter our unexplored inner consciousness, either through the use of drugs and lysergic substances, or through mysticism or esthetic explorations.

Vincent Epplay and Samon Takahashi's music as pure experience and sonic-energy is the perfect soundtrack to the three movies by Pierre Clementi. The first two movies “Positano - Bobine 30B01” (1969) and “La Deuxième femme - Bobine J” (1967-78) are the documentation of an intense period of experiences shared with Nico, Philippe Garrel, Frédéric Pardo, Tina Aumont, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Bulle Ogier, Marc O', Viva and many others. The third movie “La révolution n'est qu'un début: continuons le combat” (1968), is a true hymn to freedom and is based around the May '68 events. Like an hallucinatory flux, the images of these three movies have been used by Epplay and Takahashi as the starting point for creating a unique sound experience.

Edition limited to 300 copies with full-color sleeve, inner sleeve and insert, reproducing some very inspired scenes from the movies of Pierre Clementi.

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