Triple LP
Born Bad partner with Sacha Sief for this triple disc collection of private press recordings issued via the Kiosque d'Orphée pressing plant operation helmed by Georges Batard between 1973-1991. Before punk had ossified the notion of DIY production into an ideological means of operation, this is what we had - outsiders, dreamers, schemers et al carving out their own niche and trying to make headway with whatever vision it is they'd committed to. These 23 tracks offer a compelling survey of such (mis)adventure, a cross-section of disparate creative activity that hangs together surprisingly well, combining psych, folk, prog, synth-experimentation, jazz and adjoining in-between explorations that might, through squinted eyes, serve as an alternative French faction of the Nurse With Wound List. Far too many highlights to list in full, though there's a reason Sief has chosen to open with the Pascal Comelade-like dreaminess of Mar Vista (whom you might also remember from Strawberry Rain reissue some ten years back), while elsewhere Warlus' 'Girl Like You' is longing folk lament that would have found space on the Down & Out comp from last year, Chantel Weber finds some middleground between Nico darkness and Brigitte Fontaine chanson, and Dominique A's 'Silence entre nos larmes' is like Solid Space cast in Breton chic. In its own kind of way, this is an ethnographic undertaking, capturing something that isn't quite there anymore but speaks of a very specific sensibility that has found other ways to manifest. What's more, given the low number in which many of these records with initially made, this is gonna be your only way to access much of this music. Manna, then, for the enquiring mind.
