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2LP
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FFL 081LP
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After the experience of Camizole, Dominique Grimaud began a new (and different) adventure in 1979 with Monique Alba. Alongside Gilbert Artman (Urban Sax), Guigou Chenevier (Etron Fou Leloublan), Jean-Pierre Grasset (Verto), and Cyril Lefebvre (Maajun), Vidéo-Aventures is composed of instrumentals capable of reconciliating Captain Beefheart, Henry Cow, Suicide and... John Barry. All with the backing of Rock In Opposition, which enabled this Musiques Pour Garçons Et Filles to become known worldwide. "Let us enter your hearts": is the request made by Vidéo-Aventures, and how can we refuse? Especially as Musiques Pour Garçons Et Filles, recorded by Dominique Grimaud and Monique Alba fifty years ago along with handpicked colleagues, is as fresh as ever. 1979: having improvised a huge amount (and how!) with Camizole, Grimaud tried his hand at composition and studio recording with Alba. Their first instrument was the AKS synthesizer, with which the duo recorded the instrumental tracks that were then offered to their comrades Guigou Chenevier (Etron Fou Leloublan), Gilbert Artman (Lard Free, Urban Sax), Jean-Pierre Grasset (Verto) and Cyril Lefebvre (Maajun). At the end of the year, they all came into the studio for a week to record the eight tracks of this mini-album that Chris Cutler would issue a few months later on his label, Recommended. In France it was the beginning of the agitation around Rock In Opposition, to such a point that Musiques pour Garçons et Filles would rise to second place in the NME independent Charts. And this is hardly surprising... For these instrumental miniatures (here with the bonus of rare archives, some of which are previously unpublished) are uncontrollable: electronics augmented by lap-steel guitar ("Tina"), cunning pop ("Zazou Sur La Piste"), mechanic sound ("Une Vie Modern"), street piano ("French Kiss"), disturbing atmospheres ("La Ballade Des Cardiaques") or something like a TV theme tune capable of adjusting all the colors ("Telstar")... With such promising ingredients, why stop Vidéo-Aventures from entering... Originally released in 1981; expanded reissue. Carefully remastered from the master tapes by Gilles Laujol. Graphic design by Stefan Thanneur. Licensed from Dominique Grimaud.Eight-page booklet; 180 gram vinyl; 425 gsm brownboard outer sleeve.
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LP
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MEGA 030LP
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160-gram LP. Gatefold sleeve with new artwork. The elusive allure of Vidéo-Aventures is challenging to capture, and Megaphone/Knock'em Dead's reissue of their second LP, Camera (In Focus) Camera (Al Riparo) (1984, Tago Mago, France), reveals an album with a conviction in paradox that serves only to magnify their mystery. Plunging feverishly where their debut (Musique pour Garçons et Filles, 1979, Recommended Records) traipsed and alighted with informed whimsy, Camera (In Focus) Camera (Al Riparo) retains the duo of Dominique Grimaud and Monique Alba, abetted strikingly (and, often, surprisingly) by Jac Berrocal, Guigou Chenevier (Etron Fou Leloublan), Sophie Jausserand, Gilbert Artman (Lard Free, Catalogue, Urban Sax), Cyril Lefebvre, and Daniel Deshays. The result is a tour de force in several significant respects. Camera (In Focus) Camera (Al Riparo) is not obviously similar to its beguiling predecessor -- indeed, there are moments in which it calls for the listener's intrepidity and insight -- but it is at least as captivating. Venturing further from traditional instrumentation, Vidéo-Aventures employ elements of musique concrète, disjointed and enfeebled speech, accelerated percussion, and synthesized physical function (pulse, breathing, etc.). The chronicle of a singular process from a single perspective, it narrates the deterioration of a mind in the aftermath of duress. That mind is the narrator, but only from a sensory standpoint, as if the listener were seated inside the narrator's skull. What the listener hears is what the subject hears -- complete with pounding heartbeat, gasping breath, blood rushing through the head -- amounting to a devastating treatise against ends justifying means. Regardless of interpretation, Camera (In Focus) Camera (Al Riparo) succeeds on its own extensive musical merits. This record is borne of the dissonant, microscopic interim between impulse and accordant action. The change that occurs within that tiny lag is seldom heralded, but on Camera (In Focus) Camera (Al Riparo), Vidéo-Aventures inhabits it, isolating the transformation/mutation that crystallizes in flashes both smaller than fully formed thoughts and containing the universe of perception. Within each track, Vidéo-Aventures present an evolution, but not a hierarchical one -- in the specificity of their arrangements, they convey an instability that is unnervingly true to the variability and unpredictability of memory. This quality, which had punctuated their debut album, becomes here a harrowing pillar that unites every track within a claustrophobic continuum of emotions. The result is an opus that contains seamless and varied musical brilliance, conceptual continuity, and indomitably humane integrity.
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