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LP
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GRVTS 012LP
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Mutant troubadour Laurent Gérard, aka Èlg, makes an ideal addition to the misfits at Editions Gravats with Vu Du Dôme, a patently strange record resembling a sort of cryptic opera or the dramaturgy of a waking dream. Leading listeners up the garden path after the Mauve Zone album (NP 021LP, 2016), the French-Belgian artist's latest album feels like a stroll around a topiary maze at twilight on a warm night, with Èlg acting as a spectral protagonist narrating/ranting in first person while a supporting cast including Catherine Hershey, Borja Flames, and Ernest Bergez only make the trip more unfathomable. Forming a bridge between improbable dimensions of musique concrète and chanson, or electro-acoustic and literary spheres, on Vu Du Dôme Èlg riddles his music to life with literal and metaphorical take on sound poetry; blending French language vocals with glossolalic babble against quietly enigmatic backdrops whose low, shifting lighting and mid-fi resolution lends them to comparison with illusive theater stage designs as much as the overgrown niches of the imagination explored by Luc Ferrari or Èlg's Reines D'Angleterre bandmate Ghédalia Tazartès before him. A dusty revenant, an epileptic bard, a peaceful messenger: Èlg plays all those roles simultaneously. Combining pointedly purposed production and cryptic incantation, he acts as a souterrain psycho-pomp relaying energies from one reality to another, taking care not to stray too far explicitly in either direction and hold his ground ambiguously with the nous of an ancient Greek play or the kind of pathos and logic likely to baffle a computer. Taken in context of Roope Eronen's artwork -- a naive illustration of smiling cone faces on a bouncy castle -- each listener's perception of Vu Du Dôme is bound to differ from the next in an all too rare and precious way that's testament to the genius avant-garde vision of its mercurial creator. Èlg's first release for fellow Francophone freaks at Jean Carval and Low Jack's Editions Gravats. Art and design by Roope Eronen and David Coquelin. Mastered by Matt Colton at Alchemy.
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LP
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NP 021LP
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Last copies, reduced price. Since 2004, Èlg (Laurent Gérard) has drawn concentric sound spirals made of musical pipes and entrails. He uses an arsenal of instruments and methods, constantly renewed while building improbable bridges between musique concrete and French song-writing, cartoon-like radiophonic creations and cosmic pop as well as lo-fi Dada-esque experimentation with electronic tentacles. Èlg is half of the electronic botanic duo Opera Mort, and a third of big band trios Orgue Agnes (with the members of Kaumwald) and Reines d'Angleterre (with Jo Tanz and Ghédalia Tazartes). He's had albums released by Kraak, SS-Records, Lexi Disques, Fonal, Hundebiss Records, and Alter, among others.
?I DIG COSMIC MUSIC WITH ROCKS OFF? anathema to top 40, Èlg is the holy ghost of the new sound. his music deals with the altered state with muscle -> primed on transcendence like naked hug, the fire music of his previous duos or the zap force of his earlier Nashazphone jam ?Capitaine Present 5,? it feels hip to stay forever eternal in the house of mirrors & emerge on the cyclone. coney island baby bataille. there's a dimensionality of miracles herein, we were born on earth...as humans. Then there's Èlg, Laurent Gérard -> he's a love lodge, a sonic native. this is immersion music? climb upward, go down and deep. my fave cosmic strip here is in cool color? the rare moment on this LP when the guitar solo explodes from the narrative ripping a hole in "song.? through the planet of one voice, we hear the inimitable Dylan Nyoukis and the one and only OG Alan Bishop. these heads are perfect jam vehicles to hang with Laurent. Then there's the paramour lady Catherine Hershey, forever muse?roast tongue. brand new language, brave nu world. this grabs the tusk of Francois Tusques and rides Mother Gong, all glissando and Kobaïan. learned from Shandar and transporting with a freer range Lard Free, organic music that slays all inner city mountains, outer realm gotham. bluer than noon. contempo lone gunman exploratory moderne with the controls set to the heart of love. we're in the "Mauve Zone", where is bananafish? hearing is believing. a transport to future analog and digital dialup. call this dude, he's beyond rap. what a crazy fucking life.? -- Matt "MV" Valentine; Guilford, VT; spring 2016.
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LP
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ALT 006-5LP
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Second edition repressed on 150 gram vinyl into color reverse board jackets. Èlg is Laurent Gerard. Since 2000, Élg has made a name for himself in the experimental underground performing solo in venues across Europe and the USA and also in the trio Reines D'Angleterre with Jo Tanz and Ghédalia Tazartès. Over the years he has built a complex body of work which has been spread amongst reputable labels such as Kraak, SS, Lal Lal Lal, Taped Sounds and Nashazphone. Now, four years since his debut, Tout Ploie, Alter and Hundebiss present Mil Pluton, the second Èlg album on vinyl. In that time, Gerard has knuckled down with a bunch of new gear and built a fresh sound which is difficult to categorize but still carries many of the characteristics of his previous work. One can hear EBM-esque rhythms, scalpel-sharp musique concrète-style editing, dense layers of swampy electronics which open up the same hypnotic spirals that the Èlg of old did. Vocally, Èlg has evolved beyond conventional language and now works with an Esperanto-like form of alien linguistics to front the sonic mass. If your musical interests sit within the realm of outer limits electronics and have been drawn towards the work of Throbbing Gristle, Bernard Szajner, Coil and Tazartes, then look no further. Mil Pluton also features musical contributions from Jo Tanz, Jean-Philippe Gross, Bill Kouligas (PAN), TG Gondard and Jan Anderzen (Tomutonttu/Kemialliset Ystävät). All tracks were composed, recorded and mixed by Èlg in Brussels in 2011, then mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin in December of that same year, and pressed lovingly onto 150 gram vinyl by Alter and Hundebiss in September 2012. Edition of 300 copies, housed in an elaborate fold-out jacket.
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