BORN BAD RECORDS - Forced Exposure

$19.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 2/25/2022

LP version. Includes 12-page booklet and download code. Born Bad Records present a reissue of Ruth's Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, originally released in 1985. Thierry Müller, who initiated the Ruth project, is not at his first try when the album Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, including the eponymous track, is released in 1985. His older brother Patrick along with one of their cousins make his musical education and he quickly becomes familiar with contemporary and experimental music. He starts quite early to tinker sounds on old tape recorders by himself but it is in 1977 that Thierry launches with some friends his first group, Arcane, while studying at the School of Applied Arts. Alongside Arcane, Thierry is already working solo on his Ilitch project/concept, an experimental and innovative work, whose first album Periodik Mindtrouble was released in 1978. The album brings Thierry recognition and success in the very elitist circles of experimental and underground music. Ilitch's musical bias was too narrow for Thierry's ceaseless experimental curiosity, parallel to these activities, he therefore develops a punk project called Ruth Ellyeri with the author, actress and photographer Murielle Huster. The title is an anagram of Thierry Müller (the complete name is Ruth M. Ellyeri). At the end of 1978, he meets Philippe Doray at the Oxigene office. Doray is another big name of French experimental music. Thierry moves to his home near Rouen, a remote farmhouse with a music studio made of odds and ends. They work on their respective creations but meet from time to time on experimentations in common, including Crash (a tribute to JG Ballard). As early as 1982, a first version of the track "Polaroïd/Roman/Photo" is out under the name of the project Ruth. Philippe is quite amused by the idea of working on a more pop project and offers to write the text. Thierry works on other tracks for the future LP and asks some friends to write other texts: Edouard Nono, visual artist, writes the lyrics of "Mots", Frédérique Lapierre those of "Misty Mouse" and "Tu M'ennuies". It is her voice you hear on these two tracks and on the first version of Polaroïd/Roman/Photo. Later, Thierry settles down in the Anagramme recording studio to carry out acoustic sound recordings. But when the sessions are over, the two musicians are not too happy with the results of Polaroïd/Roman/Photo: according to them, they lack "flamboyance". They decide then to record a new female voice with a professional singer and the sound engineer Patrick Chevalot offers to mix the track in the Synthesis studio "so that it blows out".

$14.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 2/25/2022

Born Bad Records present a reissue of Ruth's Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, originally released in 1985. Thierry Müller, who initiated the Ruth project, is not at his first try when the album Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, including the eponymous track, is released in 1985. His older brother Patrick along with one of their cousins make his musical education and he quickly becomes familiar with contemporary and experimental music. He starts quite early to tinker sounds on old tape recorders by himself but it is in 1977 that Thierry launches with some friends his first group, Arcane, while studying at the School of Applied Arts. Alongside Arcane, Thierry is already working solo on his Ilitch project/concept, an experimental and innovative work, whose first album Periodik Mindtrouble was released in 1978. The album brings Thierry recognition and success in the very elitist circles of experimental and underground music. Ilitch's musical bias was too narrow for Thierry's ceaseless experimental curiosity, parallel to these activities, he therefore develops a punk project called Ruth Ellyeri with the author, actress and photographer Murielle Huster. The title is an anagram of Thierry Müller (the complete name is Ruth M. Ellyeri). At the end of 1978, he meets Philippe Doray at the Oxigene office. Doray is another big name of French experimental music. Thierry moves to his home near Rouen, a remote farmhouse with a music studio made of odds and ends. They work on their respective creations but meet from time to time on experimentations in common, including Crash (a tribute to JG Ballard). As early as 1982, a first version of the track "Polaroïd/Roman/Photo" is out under the name of the project Ruth. Philippe is quite amused by the idea of working on a more pop project and offers to write the text. Thierry works on other tracks for the future LP and asks some friends to write other texts: Edouard Nono, visual artist, writes the lyrics of "Mots", Frédérique Lapierre those of "Misty Mouse" and "Tu M'ennuies". It is her voice you hear on these two tracks and on the first version of Polaroïd/Roman/Photo. Later, Thierry settles down in the Anagramme recording studio to carry out acoustic sound recordings. But when the sessions are over, the two musicians are not too happy with the results of Polaroïd/Roman/Photo: according to them, they lack "flamboyance". They decide then to record a new female voice with a professional singer and the sound engineer Patrick Chevalot offers to mix the track in the Synthesis studio "so that it blows out". CD version includes 24-page booklet with Iiner notes in English and French.

$18.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 1/21/2022

LP version. Printed undersleeve; includes download code. Try to understand how Cannibale, from some living room in the Northern France town of L'Aigle, managed to perfect a sound somewhere between the Caribbeans, 1960s West Coast garage scene and Tropicalia's Brazil. They got into "doing nothing" lately. And while doing so, they've put together their third album, Life Is Dead. Simmered, gnawed to the bone; everything in that record feels more precise and simmered at length. Their distinct working method, both open to experimentation and mathematically redundant, ties all of their albums together. Everyday, in the alcohol-heavy botanical mist of his den in L'Aigle, Manuel tinkers about, pieces together instruments and "vomits music", to please the band's buddies. It's all the more convincing coming from an habitué of mosh pit close-combat rather than passionate oscillation. An infusion of instinct and seduction feeds back into the group's vaporous music and Nicolas' dreamy lyrics. Life Is Dead is shaping up to be yet another motor for imagination, for out-of-control body moves and spasms of the brains. Take, for example, the drumming bass and razor-sharp guitar strokes on "The Hammer Hits" or the racing "Kings of the Attics", which recounts the tribulations of a teens' band on rehearsal. Only one track is a bit of an outsider, the album's last composition for which Manuel feels he "managed, for the first time, to achieve [his] idea of non-blend between new-wave and Caribbean music". This record also stands out due to an ever more intense connection to the body. In the sense of matter and food on "Savouring Your Flesh", which could be the soundtrack for a pagan feast in a cartoon. Or else as object of desire in the palatable lament "Taste Me". Nicolas defies death -- absurdly, always: daredevil tendencies, psychedelic purgatory and a good laugh with a white light beaming straight in his face. Opening title? Two guys trying to kill each other, without ever managing to get the job done. "I Don't Want To Rot"? The tale of a body crushed on the pavement, like if it was told by madmen racing full blast around a kart track. "The Mouth Of Darkness"? A hard-rock band title, an idea for a track to go along the title, a screwup resulting in a song recounting how the screwed-up song should have been. Welcomed as rookies in Born Bad's laps for its tenth anniversary, Cannibale now sits -- comfortably so -- at the big table of the label's leading bands. In the future, for sure, this Life Is Dead will have its own chapter in their dedicated anthropo-ethno-socio-musicological study - a somewhat post-mortem moment, in the full flow of creation. Frustration's singer Fabrice Gilbert can be heard on "Kings Of The Attics".

$12.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 1/21/2022

Try to understand how Cannibale, from some living room in the Northern France town of L'Aigle, managed to perfect a sound somewhere between the Caribbeans, 1960s West Coast garage scene and Tropicalia's Brazil. They got into "doing nothing" lately. And while doing so, they've put together their third album, Life Is Dead. Simmered, gnawed to the bone; everything in that record feels more precise and simmered at length. Their distinct working method, both open to experimentation and mathematically redundant, ties all of their albums together. Everyday, in the alcohol-heavy botanical mist of his den in L'Aigle, Manuel tinkers about, pieces together instruments and "vomits music", to please the band's buddies. It's all the more convincing coming from an habitué of mosh pit close-combat rather than passionate oscillation. An infusion of instinct and seduction feeds back into the group's vaporous music and Nicolas' dreamy lyrics. Life Is Dead is shaping up to be yet another motor for imagination, for out-of-control body moves and spasms of the brains. Take, for example, the drumming bass and razor-sharp guitar strokes on "The Hammer Hits" or the racing "Kings of the Attics", which recounts the tribulations of a teens' band on rehearsal. Only one track is a bit of an outsider, the album's last composition for which Manuel feels he "managed, for the first time, to achieve [his] idea of non-blend between new-wave and Caribbean music". This record also stands out due to an ever more intense connection to the body. In the sense of matter and food on "Savouring Your Flesh", which could be the soundtrack for a pagan feast in a cartoon. Or else as object of desire in the palatable lament "Taste Me". Nicolas defies death -- absurdly, always: daredevil tendencies, psychedelic purgatory and a good laugh with a white light beaming straight in his face. Opening title? Two guys trying to kill each other, without ever managing to get the job done. "I Don't Want To Rot"? The tale of a body crushed on the pavement, like if it was told by madmen racing full blast around a kart track. "The Mouth Of Darkness"? A hard-rock band title, an idea for a track to go along the title, a screwup resulting in a song recounting how the screwed-up song should have been. Welcomed as rookies in Born Bad's laps for its tenth anniversary, Cannibale now sits -- comfortably so -- at the big table of the label's leading bands. In the future, for sure, this Life Is Dead will have its own chapter in their dedicated anthropo-ethno-socio-musicological study - a somewhat post-mortem moment, in the full flow of creation. Frustration's singer Fabrice Gilbert can be heard on "Kings Of The Attics".

$12.50 IN STOCK

By Martial, Total Heaven Records Shop (Bordeaux): "I've been waiting for this a while now. Arthur Satan is releasing a solo album on Born Bad; and that's wonderful news. . . The key to this record is in a chest thrown down a well. Rewind back to spring 2010 and remember "Four Naked Sons", with those divine '60s folk songs recorded by Arthur. They already came across as the negatives to his multiple bands -- now they clearly sound like early demos. That plus all the experience and you get today's album. There's this old joke of the guy tumbling down the stairs thinking to himself, at each floor landing: 'So Far So Good'. Less electricity, less noise, more tenderness: yes, the beast can do it. Softness and light, that's what it's about. Who would have thought? Then there's also some beautiful piano... Thanks to his buddy Dorian? Nope. True to himself, Arthur does it all alone. The hefty servings of Mellotron are his, too. And what about the wonderful guitars? Same! And the refined arrangements? The heavenly vocal harmonies? Still him. Le Nain Boit du Vin -- or 'the dwarf drinks wine', Arthur's alias on social media -- is full of surprises indeed. And so is his record. The distinctive backing choirs on 'Free' are reminiscent of an encounter between the Pole Krzysztof Komeda ('Fearless Vampire Killers', the soundtrack of Rosemary's Baby) and the American collective Elephant 6 (Elf Power, Of Montreal, Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control). 'The Nap' is tea time: Arthur's the host, John Fahey the guest. 'The Boy In The Frame' is the famous unreleased ballad of the album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Well, well... 'Summer' starts off like a lullaby on the metallophone and evolves into something of a Donovan song, minus the unexpected crankshaft solo. 'Love Bleeds From You Neck' is somewhere between acid folk song and medieval lament. 'It's All The Same' is another surprise, with its modern mix and particularly innovative arrangements. 'Time Is Mine' might be the track most evocative of J.C. Satàn... Though actually all the tracks on So Far So Good hover between tradition and modernity, obscure sunshine pop, good old classics and weird experiments. Before the album's outlandish finale, with Ween's cosmic overture to 'Boredom is Quiet', 'She's Long Gone' will have had time to evoke Brian Wilson's Beach Boys roaming through the English countryside looking for the perfect cottage . . . 'She's Hotter Than The Sun' owes just as much to T. Rex than to the ubiquitous Beatles. For, at last, that's what's so wonderful about pop music: as long as it's made honestly and wholeheartedly, it touches very different people in the same manner..."

$12.50 IN STOCK

Dominique André is in his studio-apartment, a converted maid's room on Avenue Junot in Paris. In front of his Revox tape recorder, which can record two tracks separately, is a motley collection of instruments: a children's organ, a cooking pot, a guitar, a frying pan and various other everyday objects to be rubbed, banged together and gently beaten. On either side of the recorder, an upright piano, a stack of film sound effects records and a vinyl turntable sit waiting . . . In a glorious career as a production designer, came collaborations, sometimes friendships, with Claude Sautet, Pierre Granier-Deferre, Samuel Fuller, Georges Lautner, Andrzej Zulawski, Gérard Oury, Philippe de Brocca or Francis Veber. Dominique is the one who finds solutions, the one who makes everything look easy, the one who adapts to the craziest requests, the most demanding constraints . . . Dominique André received a commission from France Musique, created a film soundtrack and published a single vinyl record (reissued here) that went unnoticed having been released as "library music". Despite all this, his daily passion remains confidential, personal, even intimate, out of modesty, but above all out of indulgence, like when, hiding by yourself at the back of the cupboard, you stick your finger into the jar of jam and know that sharing goes on elsewhere. On either side of the Revox potentiometer rotation curve, the tape no longer knowing which timeline to turn to, his family listens, admiring and incredulous at so many self-taught adventures, such amateur brilliance. And his other grandmother, a virtuoso pianist who accompanied the first black jazz orchestras in France, as well as his son, first violin in the Paris Orchestra, both marvel, uncomprehending. In doing so, they offer a possible definition of true experimental beauty, which is somewhat misunderstood, and timeless. Finally, a last door opens, and in the next room, for a long time now, the experiments continue, always amateur, always enlightened. And the forms, the colors, developed in parallel in Dominique André's painting, cannot be described in the present narrative, which has to be brief, because only then will its form be relevant. LP version comes in printed under sleeve with gold pantone; includes download code.

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes printed undercover and download code. In the ever-expanding universe of '70s and '80s French library music, Sauveur Mallia holds a special place; his career, multifaceted work and the uniqueness of his talent have made him an exemplary figure in the unsung world of library musicians. In those years a few of them, often for economic reasons, would set off on a space conquest, taking along just a few synthesizers. Their ambition well surpassed the modesty of their means; it was in turn the condition to their experimentations with sound which were to create a new sonic space: that of a nation tumbling into modernity. From French soil to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, there were just a few steps to take. It's with the label Tele Music, boarding the spaceship Arpadys, along with the Voyage crew, that Sauveur Mallia took the big leap.

You had also formed Arpadys with the members of Voyage?: Arpadys was me with the same team. I composed, arranged and recorded Arpadys with the same producer as for Voyage, Roger Tokarz. In that period I was listening to German bands a lot, like Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. I was very much into space music and I started working at home with my synths. The approach was completely different than to what I was used to as a professional bass player.

Which synthesizers were you using?: Old mono stuff, not even polyphonics. Three Korgs and some Moogs. I didn't use drum machines yet, but played with the drummer of Voyage. I recorded drum and guitar parts in the studio then went to England for the mixing. But most of the album was recorded at mine.

When did you start making library music?: I always worked with Roger Tokarz, who produced Voyage and Arpadys. With my friends who were members of Voyage we also made library records for his label Tele Music with different themes we proposed based on sports, the news, etc. I worked in my studio. Originally Arpadys was a library record Roger wanted to commercially release, Industrial Rock. Not much came out of it at the time, yet its become really sought-after in recent years.

Was library music a way to experiment freely?: Yes, I did what I wanted, without any restriction. Then people used it or they didn't. On each record, there were long versions of each track and we made 60, 30 and 15 second edits -- it gave medias the choice. The constraints came with custom sound-design for the radio, with jingles and France Info's credits I made at home solo with my machines for 17 years, then for RTL, Europe1, and for quite a few TV shows.

$12.50 IN STOCK

That year, the night lasted five months in a row. Every day, when Benjamin Dupont woke up, the sun had been below the horizon for hours. Between 10pm and 4am, locked up secretly in Studio S**** with Marc Portheau, they piled up guitars, turned over amps, chopped over riffs, simplified arrangements and arbitrated. In the early morning, Lauriane Petit sees Benjamin coming back as she leaves to work. Without a word, he lies down. The sun pulls on his eyelids while, in his head, the journey continues: the pieces of music he recorded all night long slip into his dreams. There was no need for drugs to record Vacuum Sealed. The intensity of the ten songs that compose the album was enough to make the rest of the world disappear. The music is so massive, its presence so thick, that after a month of work, Benjamin and Marc couldn't even talk to each other. One of the cornerstones of their generation, made by musicians who also have -- or had -- a foot in the Villejuif Underground, Pleasure Principle, Bisous de Saddam or Dame Blanche... Like all great albums, it opens with a screaming introduction, "Greeting From The Space Boys". The band goes from one breathtaking track to another ("Excuses" sung by Lauriane like a Kim Deal composition, "Sad Toys" or the paroxysm of dancing melancholia, "Pictures Of You" or the best guitar riff ever played with a vibrato) before hanging on a thread. At this point of the record, one could believe that Bryan's Magic Tears is the gifted son of The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream. In 1991, this side of the album would have been recorded by a British band and released by Creation. After showing off the muscles on one album side, Benjamin Dupont digs a little deeper into his own veins and transfigures his band's music. They've been mistaken for drugged-out wankers, a band that makes big noise because they have three guitars on stage, slackers singing nonsense in false English. The B-side of Vacuum Sealed features three autobiographical pop songs with absolutely impeccable lyrics and melodies. In "Tuesday", "Isolation" and "Always", despite the drum machines and the false air of lightness, it's the Smiths' fan who speaks. One last display of overpowering production later -- "Superlava" -- and there it is: you thought Bryan's Magic Tears were taking drugs to make music to take drugs to. In fact, they do the opposite. They compose a repertoire that will outlive them, songs you can already imagine in the mouths and on the fingers of the future generations that will rediscover this marvelous album. One of the guitar classics of the early '20s. LP version includes download code.

$10.00 IN STOCK

Two unissued tracks from Frustration's last album So Cold Streams (BORNBAD 123CD/LP).

$17.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download code. By Martial, Total Heaven Records Shop (Bordeaux): "I've been waiting for this a while now. Arthur Satan is releasing a solo album on Born Bad; and that's wonderful news. . . The key to this record is in a chest thrown down a well. Rewind back to spring 2010 and remember "Four Naked Sons", with those divine '60s folk songs recorded by Arthur. They already came across as the negatives to his multiple bands -- now they clearly sound like early demos. That plus all the experience and you get today's album. There's this old joke of the guy tumbling down the stairs thinking to himself, at each floor landing: 'So Far So Good'. Less electricity, less noise, more tenderness: yes, the beast can do it. Softness and light, that's what it's about. Who would have thought? Then there's also some beautiful piano... Thanks to his buddy Dorian? Nope. True to himself, Arthur does it all alone. The hefty servings of Mellotron are his, too. And what about the wonderful guitars? Same! And the refined arrangements? The heavenly vocal harmonies? Still him. Le Nain Boit du Vin -- or 'the dwarf drinks wine', Arthur's alias on social media -- is full of surprises indeed. And so is his record. The distinctive backing choirs on 'Free' are reminiscent of an encounter between the Pole Krzysztof Komeda ('Fearless Vampire Killers', the soundtrack of Rosemary's Baby) and the American collective Elephant 6 (Elf Power, Of Montreal, Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control). 'The Nap' is tea time: Arthur's the host, John Fahey the guest. 'The Boy In The Frame' is the famous unreleased ballad of the album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Well, well... 'Summer' starts off like a lullaby on the metallophone and evolves into something of a Donovan song, minus the unexpected crankshaft solo. 'Love Bleeds From You Neck' is somewhere between acid folk song and medieval lament. 'It's All The Same' is another surprise, with its modern mix and particularly innovative arrangements. 'Time Is Mine' might be the track most evocative of J.C. Satàn... Though actually all the tracks on So Far So Good hover between tradition and modernity, obscure sunshine pop, good old classics and weird experiments. Before the album's outlandish finale, with Ween's cosmic overture to 'Boredom is Quiet', 'She's Long Gone' will have had time to evoke Brian Wilson's Beach Boys roaming through the English countryside looking for the perfect cottage . . . 'She's Hotter Than The Sun' owes just as much to T. Rex than to the ubiquitous Beatles. For, at last, that's what's so wonderful about pop music: as long as it's made honestly and wholeheartedly, it touches very different people in the same manner..."

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Printed under sleeve with gold pantone; includes download code. Dominique André is in his studio-apartment, a converted maid's room on Avenue Junot in Paris. In front of his Revox tape recorder, which can record two tracks separately, is a motley collection of instruments: a children's organ, a cooking pot, a guitar, a frying pan and various other everyday objects to be rubbed, banged together and gently beaten. On either side of the recorder, an upright piano, a stack of film sound effects records and a vinyl turntable sit waiting . . . In a glorious career as a production designer, came collaborations, sometimes friendships, with Claude Sautet, Pierre Granier-Deferre, Samuel Fuller, Georges Lautner, Andrzej Zulawski, Gérard Oury, Philippe de Brocca or Francis Veber. Dominique is the one who finds solutions, the one who makes everything look easy, the one who adapts to the craziest requests, the most demanding constraints . . . Dominique André received a commission from France Musique, created a film soundtrack and published a single vinyl record (reissued here) that went unnoticed having been released as "library music". Despite all this, his daily passion remains confidential, personal, even intimate, out of modesty, but above all out of indulgence, like when, hiding by yourself at the back of the cupboard, you stick your finger into the jar of jam and know that sharing goes on elsewhere. On either side of the Revox potentiometer rotation curve, the tape no longer knowing which timeline to turn to, his family listens, admiring and incredulous at so many self-taught adventures, such amateur brilliance. And his other grandmother, a virtuoso pianist who accompanied the first black jazz orchestras in France, as well as his son, first violin in the Paris Orchestra, both marvel, uncomprehending. In doing so, they offer a possible definition of true experimental beauty, which is somewhat misunderstood, and timeless. Finally, a last door opens, and in the next room, for a long time now, the experiments continue, always amateur, always enlightened. And the forms, the colors, developed in parallel in Dominique André's painting, cannot be described in the present narrative, which has to be brief, because only then will its form be relevant.

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download code. That year, the night lasted five months in a row. Every day, when Benjamin Dupont woke up, the sun had been below the horizon for hours. Between 10pm and 4am, locked up secretly in Studio S**** with Marc Portheau, they piled up guitars, turned over amps, chopped over riffs, simplified arrangements and arbitrated. In the early morning, Lauriane Petit sees Benjamin coming back as she leaves to work. Without a word, he lies down. The sun pulls on his eyelids while, in his head, the journey continues: the pieces of music he recorded all night long slip into his dreams. There was no need for drugs to record Vacuum Sealed. The intensity of the ten songs that compose the album was enough to make the rest of the world disappear. The music is so massive, its presence so thick, that after a month of work, Benjamin and Marc couldn't even talk to each other. One of the cornerstones of their generation, made by musicians who also have -- or had -- a foot in the Villejuif Underground, Pleasure Principle, Bisous de Saddam or Dame Blanche... Like all great albums, it opens with a screaming introduction, "Greeting From The Space Boys". The band goes from one breathtaking track to another ("Excuses" sung by Lauriane like a Kim Deal composition, "Sad Toys" or the paroxysm of dancing melancholia, "Pictures Of You" or the best guitar riff ever played with a vibrato) before hanging on a thread. At this point of the record, one could believe that Bryan's Magic Tears is the gifted son of The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream. In 1991, this side of the album would have been recorded by a British band and released by Creation. After showing off the muscles on one album side, Benjamin Dupont digs a little deeper into his own veins and transfigures his band's music. They've been mistaken for drugged-out wankers, a band that makes big noise because they have three guitars on stage, slackers singing nonsense in false English. The B-side of Vacuum Sealed features three autobiographical pop songs with absolutely impeccable lyrics and melodies. In "Tuesday", "Isolation" and "Always", despite the drum machines and the false air of lightness, it's the Smiths' fan who speaks. One last display of overpowering production later -- "Superlava" -- and there it is: you thought Bryan's Magic Tears were taking drugs to make music to take drugs to. In fact, they do the opposite. They compose a repertoire that will outlive them, songs you can already imagine in the mouths and on the fingers of the future generations that will rediscover this marvelous album. One of the guitar classics of the early '20s.

$8.00 IN STOCK

Petit Orang-Outan ("Little Orangutan") is a psychedelic tale that tells the story of a little orangutan that grows so big that it becomes gigantic and out of control. It then eats the sun and disappears into the night. Edition of 500.

$12.50 IN STOCK

In the ever-expanding universe of '70s and '80s French library music, Sauveur Mallia holds a special place; his career, multifaceted work and the uniqueness of his talent have made him an exemplary figure in the unsung world of library musicians. In those years a few of them, often for economic reasons, would set off on a space conquest, taking along just a few synthesizers. Their ambition well surpassed the modesty of their means; it was in turn the condition to their experimentations with sound which were to create a new sonic space: that of a nation tumbling into modernity. From French soil to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, there were just a few steps to take. It's with the label Tele Music, boarding the spaceship Arpadys, along with the Voyage crew, that Sauveur Mallia took the big leap. CD version includes 16-page liner notes in French and English.

You had also formed Arpadys with the members of Voyage?: Arpadys was me with the same team. I composed, arranged and recorded Arpadys with the same producer as for Voyage, Roger Tokarz. In that period I was listening to German bands a lot, like Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. I was very much into space music and I started working at home with my synths. The approach was completely different than to what I was used to as a professional bass player.

Which synthesizers were you using?: Old mono stuff, not even polyphonics. Three Korgs and some Moogs. I didn't use drum machines yet, but played with the drummer of Voyage. I recorded drum and guitar parts in the studio then went to England for the mixing. But most of the album was recorded at mine.

When did you start making library music?: I always worked with Roger Tokarz, who produced Voyage and Arpadys. With my friends who were members of Voyage we also made library records for his label Tele Music with different themes we proposed based on sports, the news, etc. I worked in my studio. Originally Arpadys was a library record Roger wanted to commercially release, Industrial Rock. Not much came out of it at the time, yet its become really sought-after in recent years.

Was library music a way to experiment freely?: Yes, I did what I wanted, without any restriction. Then people used it or they didn't. On each record, there were long versions of each track and we made 60, 30 and 15 second edits -- it gave medias the choice. The constraints came with custom sound-design for the radio, with jingles and France Info's credits I made at home solo with my machines for 17 years, then for RTL, Europe1, and for quite a few TV shows.

$17.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes printed undersleeve and download code. Cyril Cyril stirs the snow globe, Helvet underground as they are called. Cyril Cyril's Sunday is a trance, you arrive, people gather. The samples vocals, hesitates, moans a little, Miami Beach, OK let's go. This is how Cyril Cyril introduce their new album Yallah Mickey Mouse. Once again, they take back their instruments and their roots with their ruffled tips. It is not about untangling. The sonorities are sculpted in vibrating marbles with indocile fossils. A visionary sonic narration, an invitation to an unorganized journey. Multiple influences are called on in the frame of this project of personal emanations and studio research. A tribute to the friends of Hyperculte in memory of an Egyptian camel, winks to the phrasing of Cha Cha Guitry, to the animal of Gerard Manset or to the hand of Indochine. Cyril Bondi is at the drums with his custom instruments, his body is trained to the groove of the wizards, and the fanfare of delirious insects starts. Cyril Yeterian is on the banjo or on the electric guitar. His storyteller's voice, that has travelled time and migrations, resumes the stories suspended since our last meeting. Cyril Cyril carries our voices, including the ones of those who are no longer here. They come back, it's crazy how modern they are, and then without embarrassment too, without embarrassment and generous, happy to be able to regain a little youth, it looks lost, they sing. Cyril Cyril carries their voices. Reeds, hands, undulate, breathe, like this music. Cyril Cyril carries our bodies. The ternary scale of our emotions and our smiles that come back. The wave makes you lose control, but the harmonies gently overtake this feeling as you lay on the sand. Also, the irony. The figures of power, the small march of insects accompanies them while laughing, these presidents. And always the surprise, bells ring in all you ears, eyes, and hands. Cyril Cyril carries your senses. Cyril Cyril opens your mind. You resonate more and more, you get more and more entangled, everything intertwines, the sounds and their lights. The psychedelic organ melody accompanies the voice which rises in the higher frequencies, the percussions encourage you. You accelerate the pulsation, you get closer and stomp together, you want the head of Mickey Mouse. Echoes of bird songs, of a bestiary. You are animals, the carnival of animals.

$17.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes printed under sleeve and download code. France, 1990. Fun Radio, NRJ, Skyrock set a new pace, and their crushing hegemony irrevocably marks the end of the free radio utopia. The giants become vital in the hit industry and carry on fueling France's greatest invention: la variété. A quintessentially French version of British dance pop with a very specific tang to it, too coy to emulate trendy clubs' and rave parties' music, europop cautiously tests the waters of what will soon turn into a tsunami: house music. Is house the soundtrack of the '90s? In Europe, it gave steam to comeback bands just as much as to the most memorable formations of the decade, while in France it paved the way for the global success of French Touch. "Real" house music emerges in early '80s Chicago (where the Warehouse club, which allegedly gave its name to the genre, closes down in 1983). England's acid house and Belgium's new beat, its European offshoots, fed the cravings of tabloids in 1988 and 1989. The house music we're interested in though, the type bound to soon overwhelm European charts, is already pretty far away from the Afro-American music born in Chicago. So far away it inherited a new name: dance music. Just like it had been the case with disco a few years back, house and techno aren't exactly in the good books -- acid house and new beat even less so. And it's precisely the genre's mainstream iteration this compilation focuses on; the house en français, which strives to get on board the running train in 1990. The house which sports the all-over jean look, bandana, cap, chewing gum, Peugeot 205 complete with snazzy beats on the radio. The big deal big fuss type, miles away from the original, underground house. It might not have been born in the '90s, but that's clearly when house music became mainstream. Music producers propose their very own club versions, cross breeding French variété and house. The result: a chart and club ready ersatz that is to quickly seduce young audiences. The tracklist, like the soundtrack to a club night that never happened, fictitiously reconstructs the fleeting moment when house made its arrival in France, bridging the gap between variété and Eurodance. Features Marie Touchet, Michel Moers, Anne Zamberlan, Thalie, Histoires de Filles, Fred de Fred, Techno90, Jean-François Maurice, Claire An, and Artiste Inconnu.

$14.00 IN STOCK

A pop star who turned his back to show business to become an independent artist, steered by the revolutionary ideas of his wife Jacqueline in 1960s France; these are the outlines of Henri Salvador's unusual musical career. At 50, Salvador starts experimenting with synths and drum machine, multi-track recorders and altered voice collages. He takes up editing and mixing, and solitarily makes songs for young and old from his home in Paris' Place Vendôme. Seventy years of music, a thousand of creations of all styles. Sometimes associated to ye-ye singers, he's also known to have brought rock to France (in 1956, with Boris Vian). As a kid he picks up the guitar without any theoretical basics and becomes so talented he plays with Django Reinhardt. The 30s are the years of his training; the 40s of his emancipation within musical ensembles which are to see his talents flourish. He finds his public and perfects his tricks: laughter and seduction. In the 50s he rediscovers the songs of the islands where he grew up, revisits jazz, swing, blues and sings for children. Jacqueline shapes and emancipates him. When they marry in 1950, she's a quiet and cultivated young lady who's to progressively take charge of his career. Ever reinventing themselves, the Salvadors intend to do without studios, engineers, producers and musicians altogether. "Siffler en travaillant" ("Whistle While You Work") is a brilliant reinterpretation of one of Snow White's theme song, which a young Salvador had already performed with Ray Ventura's Orchestra in the 40s; "Hello Mickey", a catchy, spirited ska; "J'aime tes g'noux", a great cover of Shirly and Co's "Shame shame shame"; on "Un jour mon prince viendra", he makes a beat borrowed from Suicide and a Les Paul solo collide. Meanwhile Rigolo also releases less family-oriented singles. Salvador takes up eroticism, the financial crisis, and the negotiations between the US and Vietnam. In 1975 Jacqueline is diagnosed with a cancer. As she manages, decides and initiates everything, Rigolo starts idling. Weary and beat, Henri doesn't feel like playing in his empty house anymore. He lets all of their projects die out: the TV show, the label, the musical editions, the PAM. Together with Jacqueline, Henri Salvador should've set an example for other artists: one of independence against an unfair and unyielding system. An inspiration not to end up enslaved by contracts signed too early, or to feed a bunch of comatose owners clenching onto millions of publishing rights. Includes liner notes French and English by Guido from Acid Arab.

$14.00 IN STOCK

France, 1990. Fun Radio, NRJ, Skyrock set a new pace, and their crushing hegemony irrevocably marks the end of the free radio utopia. The giants become vital in the hit industry and carry on fueling France's greatest invention: la variété. A quintessentially French version of British dance pop with a very specific tang to it, too coy to emulate trendy clubs' and rave parties' music, europop cautiously tests the waters of what will soon turn into a tsunami: house music. Is house the soundtrack of the '90s? In Europe, it gave steam to comeback bands just as much as to the most memorable formations of the decade, while in France it paved the way for the global success of French Touch. "Real" house music emerges in early '80s Chicago (where the Warehouse club, which allegedly gave its name to the genre, closes down in 1983). England's acid house and Belgium's new beat, its European offshoots, fed the cravings of tabloids in 1988 and 1989. The house music we're interested in though, the type bound to soon overwhelm European charts, is already pretty far away from the Afro-American music born in Chicago. So far away it inherited a new name: dance music. Just like it had been the case with disco a few years back, house and techno aren't exactly in the good books -- acid house and new beat even less so. And it's precisely the genre's mainstream iteration this compilation focuses on; the house en français, which strives to get on board the running train in 1990. The house which sports the all-over jean look, bandana, cap, chewing gum, Peugeot 205 complete with snazzy beats on the radio. The big deal big fuss type, miles away from the original, underground house. It might not have been born in the '90s, but that's clearly when house music became mainstream. Music producers propose their very own club versions, cross breeding French variété and house. The result: a chart and club ready ersatz that is to quickly seduce young audiences. The tracklist, like the soundtrack to a club night that never happened, fictitiously reconstructs the fleeting moment when house made its arrival in France, bridging the gap between variété and Eurodance. Features Marie Touchet, Michel Moers, Anne Zamberlan, Thalie, Histoires de Filles, Fred de Fred, Techno90, Jean-François Maurice, Claire An, and Artiste Inconnu.

$14.00 IN STOCK

The Wizzz! saga continues with a fresh selection of '60s and '70s rarities gathered from the unchartered nooks of the French-pop galaxy. Al Awni Bouarane, better known as Abdelwahab Doukkali, was one of the greatest figures of Middle-Eastern music. "Je Suis Jaloux", sung in French, was released on the label Philips in 1967. "Tom" -- a crepuscular mid-tempo with a touch of soul produced for Barclay in 1968 -- is François Bernheim's first solo release. Michel Handson signs this B-side with a touch of hip-hop in 1973 for the label Butterfly. This track from the Swede Matty Kemer's only single, a tribute to freedom and aviation, was recorded for the label Disque d'Or. Gilles Janeyrand's track was recorded in 1969 at the Studio des Dames. Albert-Henri Rykaert aka Alain Ricar was a comedian, singer, and songwriter, performing in cabarets or for the theatre, in Paris and in Belgium, then on RTB (Belgian TV). Paul Dupret captivates with the debonair B-side of the one and only single he released for the label Vogue in 1970. Richard Hertel's first single as a singer on the label Liberty, "Patatras Hola", also sees him play the drums and organ. Perfect groove, amused lyrics, and atonal gimmick. From a mainly folk corpus emerges Michel Didier's flashy cover of "Rainbow Chaser" by the English band Nirvana, here renamed "Comme un arc-en-ciel", is soaked in trippy effects by Jean-Claude Vannier. "Vedette international" is the work of the mysterious Liberatore. Alain Serco signs a frantic homage to his best friend Kiki, the B-side of his sole single, released on South Records at the beginning of the '70s. Gérard Gray, sensitive to rare or exotic instruments, search for a "different" sound and put together demos tinkering with a Revox tape deck and a variety of objects. "Le Grand Méchant Loup" by François Faray revisits Charles Perrault's tale of sexual liberation, yielding an ambitious glam-rock track. Patrice Lamy is a romantic singer from Lausanne. "Laisse-moi médire que je t'aime" is the B-side of his third record. The Tunisian crooner K.R. Nagati's "Sidi Bou" pays tribute to a summer romance and the town of Sidi Bou Saïd, perched on the cliffs overlooking Carthage and Gulf of Tunis. Les Missiles are a group of four buddies from the city of Oran (Algeria). The band's sound veers towards garage, or even pre-psychedelic music, filled with sound effects. CD version includes 24-page booklet (liner notes in English/French).

$17.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes printed under sleeve and download code. When you decide to get a degree at university, like chief songwriter Emile Cartron-Eldin, music goes on hold. When you don't have enough dollars for that overpriced repressed LP the record store puts it on hold behind the counter. This is: Music To Hold Onto! To cherish and adore, right here right now. After little shining stars of self-released cassette classics showing great promise of solid SF song writing Music On Hold deliver an album with strictly "only the hits" in updated graphics and soundbite studio wizardry... and amen! It's the shinning neon-color video game classic you never played in your youth in the arcades. You only dreamed about it after too many bong hits. You think you've heard these songs before? Ha! You've never heard them better brother. Gary Wilson called, and sung you a melody and the Human League stole the synth lines... then The Spits put lead guitar in slow-motion. HEY! Superior Viaduct just found another lost record by Departmentstore Santas... Hold on. No, they didn't... our trusted Born Bad Records just stumbled upon a collection of stone-cold classics laying behind the wall of VHS's and sent them to be remastered for the best Sunday drive of your life. This is a record for all four seasons in all TV colors and black and white nouvelle vague romance. The punk generation doesn't take shame in playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, they know all the cheats. This LP is the first baseball bat you take you a Ferrari parked outside a strip club. This is the flock of seagulls that exploded in the sky in multi-colored fireworks and came raining down into the ears of the youth in these troubled times before cocaine became boring... This isn't your ironic Japanese obi-tape cassette vaporwave sally, Music On Hold is everyone else in the same bathtub giving each other sensual back rubs before slipping into silk dragon kimonos. It is sincere. It's real. It's an all filler-no killer instant classic of a nostalgia you can't even begin to unravel. The project once a solo affair is now a power-trio featuring funky starship troopers Guillaume Mobstaire and beloved cult-hero Mathis (Police Control, Skategang) in the shuttle. And as they blast off into cyberspace they toss this their first greatest hits out of the cockpit and into your hands.

$14.00 IN STOCK

When you decide to get a degree at university, like chief songwriter Emile Cartron-Eldin, music goes on hold. When you don't have enough dollars for that overpriced repressed LP the record store puts it on hold behind the counter. This is: Music To Hold Onto! To cherish and adore, right here right now. After little shining stars of self-released cassette classics showing great promise of solid SF song writing Music On Hold deliver an album with strictly "only the hits" in updated graphics and soundbite studio wizardry... and amen! It's the shinning neon-color video game classic you never played in your youth in the arcades. You only dreamed about it after too many bong hits. You think you've heard these songs before? Ha! You've never heard them better brother. Gary Wilson called, and sung you a melody and the Human League stole the synth lines... then The Spits put lead guitar in slow-motion. HEY! Superior Viaduct just found another lost record by Departmentstore Santas... Hold on. No, they didn't... our trusted Born Bad Records just stumbled upon a collection of stone-cold classics laying behind the wall of VHS's and sent them to be remastered for the best Sunday drive of your life. This is a record for all four seasons in all TV colors and black and white nouvelle vague romance. The punk generation doesn't take shame in playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, they know all the cheats. This LP is the first baseball bat you take you a Ferrari parked outside a strip club. This is the flock of seagulls that exploded in the sky in multi-colored fireworks and came raining down into the ears of the youth in these troubled times before cocaine became boring... This isn't your ironic Japanese obi-tape cassette vaporwave sally, Music On Hold is everyone else in the same bathtub giving each other sensual back rubs before slipping into silk dragon kimonos. It is sincere. It's real. It's an all filler-no killer instant classic of a nostalgia you can't even begin to unravel. The project once a solo affair is now a power-trio featuring funky starship troopers Guillaume Mobstaire and beloved cult-hero Mathis (Police Control, Skategang) in the shuttle. And as they blast off into cyberspace they toss this their first greatest hits out of the cockpit and into your hands.

$17.50 NOT IN STOCK

2021 restock. LP version. Includes six-page booklet (liner notes English/French). Includes download code. The Wizzz! saga continues with a fresh selection of '60s and '70s rarities gathered from the unchartered nooks of the French-pop galaxy. Al Awni Bouarane, better known as Abdelwahab Doukkali, was one of the greatest figures of Middle-Eastern music. "Je Suis Jaloux", sung in French, was released on the label Philips in 1967. "Tom" -- a crepuscular mid-tempo with a touch of soul produced for Barclay in 1968 -- is François Bernheim's first solo release. Michel Handson signs this B-side with a touch of hip-hop in 1973 for the label Butterfly. This track from the Swede Matty Kemer's only single, a tribute to freedom and aviation, was recorded for the label Disque d'Or. Gilles Janeyrand's track was recorded in 1969 at the Studio des Dames. Albert-Henri Rykaert aka Alain Ricar was a comedian, singer, and songwriter, performing in cabarets or for the theatre, in Paris and in Belgium, then on RTB (Belgian TV). Paul Dupret captivates with the debonair B-side of the one and only single he released for the label Vogue in 1970. Richard Hertel's first single as a singer on the label Liberty, "Patatras Hola", also sees him play the drums and organ. Perfect groove, amused lyrics, and atonal gimmick. From a mainly folk corpus emerges Michel Didier's flashy cover of "Rainbow Chaser" by the English band Nirvana, here renamed "Comme un arc-en-ciel", is soaked in trippy effects by Jean-Claude Vannier. "Vedette international" is the work of the mysterious Liberatore. Alain Serco signs a frantic homage to his best friend Kiki, the B-side of his sole single, released on South Records at the beginning of the '70s. Gérard Gray, sensitive to rare or exotic instruments, search for a "different" sound and put together demos tinkering with a Revox tape deck and a variety of objects. "Le Grand Méchant Loup" by François Faray revisits Charles Perrault's tale of sexual liberation, yielding an ambitious glam-rock track. Patrice Lamy is a romantic singer from Lausanne. "Laisse-moi médire que je t'aime" is the B-side of his third record. The Tunisian crooner K.R. Nagati's "Sidi Bou" pays tribute to a summer romance and the town of Sidi Bou Saïd, perched on the cliffs overlooking Carthage and Gulf of Tunis. Les Missiles are a group of four buddies from the city of Oran (Algeria). The band's sound veers towards garage, or even pre-psychedelic music, filled with sound effects.

$18.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. Printed under sleeve; includes download code. A pop star who turned his back to show business to become an independent artist, steered by the revolutionary ideas of his wife Jacqueline in 1960s France; these are the outlines of Henri Salvador's unusual musical career. At 50, Salvador starts experimenting with synths and drum machine, multi-track recorders and altered voice collages. He takes up editing and mixing, and solitarily makes songs for young and old from his home in Paris' Place Vendôme. Seventy years of music, a thousand of creations of all styles. Sometimes associated to ye-ye singers, he's also known to have brought rock to France (in 1956, with Boris Vian). As a kid he picks up the guitar without any theoretical basics and becomes so talented he plays with Django Reinhardt. The 30s are the years of his training; the 40s of his emancipation within musical ensembles which are to see his talents flourish. He finds his public and perfects his tricks: laughter and seduction. In the 50s he rediscovers the songs of the islands where he grew up, revisits jazz, swing, blues and sings for children. Jacqueline shapes and emancipates him. When they marry in 1950, she's a quiet and cultivated young lady who's to progressively take charge of his career. Ever reinventing themselves, the Salvadors intend to do without studios, engineers, producers and musicians altogether. "Siffler en travaillant" ("Whistle While You Work") is a brilliant reinterpretation of one of Snow White's theme song, which a young Salvador had already performed with Ray Ventura's Orchestra in the 40s; "Hello Mickey", a catchy, spirited ska; "J'aime tes g'noux", a great cover of Shirly and Co's "Shame shame shame"; on "Un jour mon prince viendra", he makes a beat borrowed from Suicide and a Les Paul solo collide. Meanwhile Rigolo also releases less family-oriented singles. Salvador takes up eroticism, the financial crisis, and the negotiations between the US and Vietnam. In 1975 Jacqueline is diagnosed with a cancer. As she manages, decides and initiates everything, Rigolo starts idling. Weary and beat, Henri doesn't feel like playing in his empty house anymore. He lets all of their projects die out: the TV show, the label, the musical editions, the PAM. Together with Jacqueline, Henri Salvador should've set an example for other artists: one of independence against an unfair and unyielding system. An inspiration not to end up enslaved by contracts signed too early, or to feed a bunch of comatose owners clenching onto millions of publishing rights. Includes liner notes French and English by Guido from Acid Arab.

$14.00 IN STOCK

Cyril Cyril stirs the snow globe, Helvet underground as they are called. Cyril Cyril's Sunday is a trance, you arrive, people gather. The samples vocals, hesitates, moans a little, Miami Beach, OK let's go. This is how Cyril Cyril introduce their new album Yallah Mickey Mouse. Once again, they take back their instruments and their roots with their ruffled tips. It is not about untangling. The sonorities are sculpted in vibrating marbles with indocile fossils. A visionary sonic narration, an invitation to an unorganized journey. Multiple influences are called on in the frame of this project of personal emanations and studio research. A tribute to the friends of Hyperculte in memory of an Egyptian camel, winks to the phrasing of Cha Cha Guitry, to the animal of Gerard Manset or to the hand of Indochine. Cyril Bondi is at the drums with his custom instruments, his body is trained to the groove of the wizards, and the fanfare of delirious insects starts. Cyril Yeterian is on the banjo or on the electric guitar. His storyteller's voice, that has travelled time and migrations, resumes the stories suspended since our last meeting. Cyril Cyril carries our voices, including the ones of those who are no longer here. They come back, it's crazy how modern they are, and then without embarrassment too, without embarrassment and generous, happy to be able to regain a little youth, it looks lost, they sing. Cyril Cyril carries their voices. Reeds, hands, undulate, breathe, like this music. Cyril Cyril carries our bodies. The ternary scale of our emotions and our smiles that come back. The wave makes you lose control, but the harmonies gently overtake this feeling as you lay on the sand. Also, the irony. The figures of power, the small march of insects accompanies them while laughing, these presidents. And always the surprise, bells ring in all you ears, eyes, and hands. Cyril Cyril carries your senses. Cyril Cyril opens your mind. You resonate more and more, you get more and more entangled, everything intertwines, the sounds and their lights. The psychedelic organ melody accompanies the voice which rises in the higher frequencies, the percussions encourage you. You accelerate the pulsation, you get closer and stomp together, you want the head of Mickey Mouse. Echoes of bird songs, of a bestiary. You are animals, the carnival of animals.

$14.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Printed under sleeve; includes download. It's not easy mapping Marietta's journey -- one of the key players of the GrandeTriple Alliance De l'Est, an anarchic scene which exploded between Metz and Strasbourg in the early 2000s, fronting bands such as A.H. Kraken, Plastobéton, and The Feeling Of Love. In 2015, he released his first solo album, Basement Dreams Are The Bedroom Cream (BORNBAD 074CD/LP, 2015), an amazing collection of 4-track twisted lullabies who got him comparisons with Syd Barrett and John Frusciante. Then comes his second LP and suddenly, no more of that sweet demo sounding folky weirdness: La Passagère (BORNBAD 097CD/LP, 2017) was recorded in Los Angeles with Chris Cohen and it's a lush and mesmerizing record. Richer and fuller than the two previous records, Prazepam St. is also, paradoxically, unabashed and easier to grasp. "I wanted to have fun," says Marietta. "Build a dark and bright world with my little hands and raw material, like David Lynch when he did Eraserhead" -- one of the main keys to the album. It is also, more involuntarily a synthesis -- there's the raw side of the first album, that more flamboyant and ambitious of the second, but also small pieces of AH Kraken, Feeling Of Love and even Funk Police. Marietta went back to some of his teenage years favorite records -- Sonic Youth, Beck, Nirvana, the Beastie Boys, but also Jim O'Rourke or David Pajo. Prazepam St. is also a dark and twisted record, as its title shows -- a reference to an anxiolytic used for severe depression. "I have often tried to speak in my lyrics of the way the human mind works, of our contradictions, of our inner darkness," explains Marietta. "And this time I wanted to bring the lexical field of drugs into my texts. Our body and mind are shaped by these substances that we use and abuse and I wanted to play with that. It's a chemical album." Proof made with "DMPA", a molecule used as a chemical castrator on American sex offenders, transformed here into a battered folk song crushed by samples, rhythm machines and breaks from outer space. Or "Aluminum", a solid and shiny but highly harmful element, like the incandescent ride full of rumbling synths, which opens the album.