MONSTER MELODIES - Forced Exposure

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New release on the Monster Melodies label of an unreleased album by Grand Nebuleux et ses Laveurs de Conscience. The group's final production after Les Pirates du Cortex released in 1976 on the Hocco Mitu label, this second album by the group, after various personnel changes over the years, comes from sessions recorded in 1979. It includes tracks with vocals, unlike the first album which was only instrumental, which mixes funk jazz and psychedelic rock sounds. The group joins here the universes of Zappa and Gong, while keeping its own originality. In 1975, Jean-Pierre Gormond (singer), Christian Nys (bassist), Mickey Blow (singer, harmonicist) and Jean-Patrick Rochow (guitarist), living in the suburbs of Paris, on the banks of the Seine and Marne and the Seine St Denis, got together frequently to play music. Christian and Jean-Pierre were already members of Impact, a group that gained some notoriety in the region before being renamed Amnésie. Other members join the quartet, Bidou (flute and saxophones) and François Abbou (percussionist). The latter offered in December 1975 to record a demo in a studio located in Yonne, "La Pense Folie" equipped with an 8-track. Thierry Jouberteix, familiar with the place, joins them on keyboards. After listening to the demo, a friend from the studio, Colin du Liège, decided to produce the group and have it recorded in the same studio, this time equipped with a 16-track Otari. For the occasion, he invites a brass section made up of three members of Urban Sax: Patrice Quentin (Alto Sax), Antoine Duvernet (Tenor Sax, Soprano and Flute), and Gérard Amsellem (Baritone Sax). Drummer Robert Plisson completed the composition of the group. Le Grand Nébuleux et les Laveurs de Consciences is born. Le Grand Nébuleux and les Laveurs de Consciences was one of the first groups to claim the influences of ethno-electric African music (Fela, Don Cherry) and jazz (Miles Davis) mixed with a rock sound.

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Les Idoles is a mythical record of sixties psych rock prefiguring punk. A work which in style had no equivalent in France at the time. Thanks to the performance of the Rollsticks, a rock band created from scratch with musicians from different musical worlds, to accompany the erratic vocalizations of actors Pierre Clémenti, Bulle Ogier, and Jean-Pierre Kalfon. The band consists of Patrick Greussay (later of Calcium) on the drums and guitars, Stephane Vilar (later of Calcium, PLVG), Didier Léon (future accomplice of Barney Wilen), Didier Malherbe (later of Gong and Clearlight, amongst others), Jacques Zins (later of Calcium), and with the participation of Yvan Julien (jazzman, composer, trumpeter, conductor), and Michel Portal (jazzman, composer, saxophonist). The recording of this album is different from the album Les Idoles published in 1967, recorded in June 1966 in Barclay studios. The record company needed to make the record when the film was released to have the music recorded six months in advance, as it was practiced at the time. The unreleased recordings offered here were made during the shooting of the film, in 1967 at the Davout Studio to use in the film. During these sessions, the musicians really knew the repertoire inside out and the music is more intense, more powerful, which makes it very interesting. Made from master tapes found in the archives, this new album with the exception of "Et floc c'est la tasse" and "Chanson de l'archevêque" dispensable titles whose tapes have been definitively lost, includes practically the same titles as the 1967 album, but in different interpretations to which unreleased instrumentals have been added. No film captures the glittering, zombified world of yé-yé pop royalty with as much style as Marc'O's 1968 musical Les Idoles. Seen today, this flamboyant tale of complicity and revolt yields multifaceted readings -- as backstage drama, as denunciation of consumer capitalism, and as the historical record of a crucial meeting between commercial auteurism and the avant-garde. He quickly attracted a motivated troupe of almost-unknowns and built up a repertoire of original works like Les Bargasses. The stage version of Les Idoles was among the group's last and most successful productions. Teetering on the verge of chaos (there was a standing offer of free tickets to anyone who rode into the theater on a motorcycle), its open structure and physically demanding roles recalled the confrontational performance ethic of The Living Theatre... Color vinyl; gatefold; includes three inserts.

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Monster Mélodies presents the second in a two-part unpublished recording of a concert by Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem at studio 102 of the Maison de la Radio dating May 21st, 1973. Areski Belkacem and Brigitte Fontaine, major artists of the French counterculture, were often be censored or deliberately ignored by the media due to their libertarian positions. Obtaining success at a late stage, it was not until the album Kékéland in 2001 and Rue Saint Louis en l'Ile in 2004, for Brigitte Fontaine to earn gold records. At the turn of Brigitte Fontaine's career, when breaking away from the Jacques Canetti team she made new encounters. After collaboration with Jacques Higelin, she meets Areski Belkacem. She then met Pierre Barouh who supported the Fontaine/Areski duo, by producing a handful of cult albums on his label, Saravah. As well as meeting Jean Karakos, boss of the BYG label. They became the first musicians in France blending free jazz with their own musical production in recording with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Their free music accompanies the free inventive and provocative poetry of Brigitte Fontaine. Theater remains the first passion of Brigitte, who began to perform on stage at the age of twelve in a play by Marivaux before continuing with classical repertoires Audiberti, Molière, Giono, Vian, Genet. Constantly active, Areski and Fontaine went on the most improbable tours scouring small provincial theaters, playing in prisons and psychiatric hospitals, losing themselves in confidential and financially catastrophic tours, including in Canada and in Algeria in 1970 only ten years after the conflict. The record Concert Théâtral was recorded in 1973. A year which was a turning point in the career of the duo, the two artists decided to perform on stage without musicians to accompany them and in a stripped-down staging. The songs here are all filled with the inventive and offbeat poetry of Brigitte Fontaine, accompanied by atypical music created by Areski, they appear on their various albums published between 1971 and 1973 but are here interpreted in their simpler expression, on stage, without the help of other musicians, the duo accompanying themselves on guitar, percussion, and accordion. A recital taking as much of the singing as of the theater, or happening such as the two artists produced between 1973 and 1979, in a unique way and of which it remains here the only testimony. The recording of this concert at studio 102 of the Maison de la Radio dating May 21st 1973, had been broadcasted on "France Culture" on November 2nd 1973 but remained unpublished until now. Edition of 1000 on color vinyl (numbered).

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Monster Mélodies presents Concert Théâtral, an unpublished public recording by Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem dating from 1973. Areski Belkacem and Brigitte Fontaine, major artists of the French counterculture, were often be censored or deliberately ignored by the media due to their libertarian positions. Obtaining success at a late stage, it was not until the album Kékéland in 2001 and Rue Saint Louis en l'Ile in 2004, for Brigitte Fontaine to earn gold records. At the turn of Brigitte Fontaine's career, when breaking away from the Jacques Canetti team she made new encounters. After collaboration with Jacques Higelin, she meets Areski Belkacem. She then met Pierre Barouh who supported the Fontaine/Areski duo, by producing a handful of cult albums on his label, Saravah. As well as meeting Jean Karakos, boss of the BYG label. They became the first musicians in France blending free jazz with their own musical production in recording with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Their free music accompanies the free inventive and provocative poetry of Brigitte Fontaine. Theater remains the first passion of Brigitte, who began to perform on stage at the age of twelve in a play by Marivaux before continuing with classical repertoires Audiberti, Molière, Giono, Vian, Genet. Constantly active, Areski and Fontaine went on the most improbable tours scouring small provincial theaters, playing in prisons and psychiatric hospitals, losing themselves in confidential and financially catastrophic tours, including in Canada and in Algeria in 1970 only ten years after the conflict. The record Concert Théâtral was recorded in 1973. A year which was a turning point in the career of the duo, the two artists decided to perform on stage without musicians to accompany them and in a stripped-down staging. The songs here are all filled with the inventive and offbeat poetry of Brigitte Fontaine, accompanied by atypical music created by Areski, they appear on their various albums published between 1971 and 1973 but are here interpreted in their simpler expression, on stage, without the help of other musicians, the duo accompanying themselves on guitar, percussion, and accordion. A recital taking as much of the singing as of the theater, or happening such as the two artists produced between 1973 and 1979, in a unique way and of which it remains here the only testimony. The recording of this concert at studio 102 of the Maison de la Radio dating May 21st 1973, had been broadcasted on "France Culture" on November 2nd 1973 but remained unpublished until now. Edition of 1000 on color vinyl (numbered).

$33.00 IN STOCK

A limited-edition record of the unreleased recording of PLVG (pronounced "plug") recorded in 1973. PLVG is formed of ex-members of the band Calcium, considered the cream of French studio musicians. In May 1971, soon after his triumphant Olympia 70, singer Julien Clerc surrounds himself with musicians Charles Benaroche and Denis Lable. They are joined in '72 by Stéphane Vilar (ex-Calcium) who had just composed the music of Circus Bonjour, Jean Claude Poligot, Richard Lable, and Philippe Gall. The band thus constituted, accompanies the singer contentiously. Tracks are registered with the title "Les Trottoirs" (the sidewalks). Stephen Stills, who was staying at Julien Clerc's house at the time (where he meets Véronique Sanson his first wife, future mother of his son Christopher) says "it's a hit" as soon as he listens to the song. Clerc, a more formal musician, agrees to perform with the band during the first part of his shows. It was during the summer tour of 1973 that the band under the name of PLVG (acronym for Poligot, Lable, Vilar, Gall) made its debut in front of a dumbfounded audience. Whilst taking a break from touring the following month, the group records a dozen titles at the Ferber studio between November '73 and February '74, joined by Zouzou on a cover of a Calcium track: "This Morning". The album never saw the light of day, because Clerc no longer performed on stage. France Gall, in the height of her career, lived with Julien Clerc and left him in 1974 for Michel Berger. Julien Clerc, annoyed, dismissed the musicians and replaced them with keyboardist Gerard Bikialo (ex-Magma), guitarist Georges Kawczynski (nicknamed "Crapou"), and bassist Christian Padovan. Gall went on to compose the soundtrack of Fréquence Meurtre in 1988. Poligot went on to appear in other albums by Jean Claude Vannier, Hugues Aufray, and Jacno. Vilar goes on to compose many music for movies and plays. Denis Lable goes on to be part of cmany different bands including the famous project Utopic Sporadic Orchestra with Christian and Stella Vander of Magma, Didier Lockwood, and Jannick Top, and especially plays the guitar in 1972 on the legendary album of Jean Claude Vannier L'enfant assassin des mouches. Richard Lable goes on to make appearances on albums by Catherine Lara and Hugues Aufray amongst others before attempting a solo career. Color vinyl; includes insert; edition of 1000 (numbered).

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Monster Mélodies presents an unpublished recording of Opus Minor, an underground Parisian group with undeniable musical qualities, who gave numerous concerts during its brief existence from 1970 to 1973 but never had the opportunity to publish its recordings. The record consists of an instrumental track, seven songs sung in French and three more songs in English, in which the band, beyond its influences, creates its own musical universe. In September 69, at the École Normale Supérieure of Cachan (ENS), three student teachers meet: Jean-Claude Lardrot, Jean-Louis Grassi, and Guy Aicart. They decided to start a rock band called Opus Minor. The first, who had taken piano lessons and played in his teens as a singer-guitarist in bands, focused on the keyboards and the vocals. The second, who had already participated as a guitarist in short-lived, country-folk bands, focused on the bass and the vocals. The third discovers his passion for the drums. A first guitarist joins them but is soon replaced by Philippe Marcenac, a student in architecture at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. A fifth accomplice, Daniel Reynet, takes care of the sound system and the technical and material matters. At student house parties, Opus Minor played covers of Cream, John Mayall. During the summer of '70, inspired by the hippie movement, the band members got a taste of community life playing every night in a club of a holiday village in the Hérault. The band then composed its first titles in English and French, in which we find the post-May '68 spirit. In 1971, Opus Minor won a student group contest organized by RTL and starts to perform often in various Parisian prestigious schools. Invited in June of the same year to the festival of Auvers-sur-Oise organized by couturier Jean Bouquin, Opus Minor and four other bands performed just in time before the rain and everything sank in the mud. For a year they rented a suburban house in Villepinte to practice every weekend, and they'd go back to their rehearsal studio in the basement of ENS Cachan. This is where, from April 28th to May 1st of '73, the original compositions finally published on this album were recorded. But the same year, three of the band members are appointed to teaching positions located in different provinces too far away, which resulted in the band coming to an end. Gatefold sleeve; Includes two posters; Color vinyl; Edition of 1000.

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Monster Melodies present Kundalini, an unreleased live recording of Hamsa. This French band with Richard Raux (ex-Magma) at his best in 1976 play an incredible and unique music, groovy, powerful, between funk and spiritual jazz, drawing on roots in African and Indian rhythms. Raux was born in Périgueux in 1945, but would never forget his Creole origins, his family having come from Madagascar. In his early years, Raux was introduced to ethnic music, Django Reinhardt, Brassens, and most importantly the jazz of Coltrane, Dolphy and, Monk. Richard studied at Paris' Ecole Normale, and frequently played at the Chat Qui Pèche in order to measure himself against other horn players. It was there that he met the bassist Jean François Catoire, who played in two groups with the distinction of having Christian Vander as drummer. When Vander formed Magma in 1969, Richard was staggered by the energy of the new group. He shared Vander's fascination for Coltrane, he was hired to replace departing saxophonist René Garber. After 12 months of intense work, Richard took part in the recording of Magma's first album for Philips, before leaving the band. While Magma had taught him a lot about composition, he was exhausted by having to play note-perfect renditions of un-notated music on stage, with no room for improvisation. The first Hamsa record was released in 1975 on Fiesta, a small Belgian label that specialized in African music. Raux composed all of the tracks and was accompanied by Patrice Raux and John Faure on guitar, Jano Padovani and Jean Louis Besson on drums, Albi Cullaz on bass, and Alain Pistre on percussion. Following that, Hamsa was snapped up by singer Jacques Higelin as his backing group, but the relationship ended in conflict when Higelin prohibited the musicians from playing any solos at all. Richard had discovered free jazz through Frank Wright, and collaborated with the Celestial Communication Orchestra directed by Alan Silva, but left mid-concert, exasperated by being forced to "play the same segment twenty times before playing the music backwards". Into the '70s and '80s Richard toured as a soloist, and collaborated with Charlie Haden, Jacques Thollot, Mal Waldron, among others. He also formed The Richard Raux Quartet, who recorded the album Under The Magnolias (1995) was formed with the desire to return to more orthodox jazz, showing the diversity of his approach.

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The story begins in the city of Bordeaux in 1964. Captivated by Hank Marvin's guitar-playing, Jean Pierre Daran teaches himself to play Shadows tunes, working out their intricacies by the unusual method of slowing 45RPM singles down to 33RPM. Jean Pierre joins forces with Yvan Blanl?il, Jean Jacques Pouget, and Serge Blachère to form the band Les Franglais. In 1971, a new musical project takes shape when Jean Pierre and Yvan form Lucie Dans le Ciel with three other students: Francis Ferrer, Christian Lassalle, and André Lesgouarres. The music is influenced by '60s beat and Frank Zappa's freakiness. After playing some local gigs, Lucie Dans le Ciel score the support for Magma, when they went through Bordeaux in April '72. At that show, Christian Vander and his band were won over by the madness of the Bordelais musicians, who closed their set with a big battle of cream pie. A friendship grows, and contact is established between Magma's professional musicians and the Bordeaux amateurs. However, Yvan Blanloeil is now more excited by theatre than by music, and he quickly sucks the life out of Lucie Dans le Ciel by wanting to restrict it to providing musical accompaniment to theater shows. The other musicians, no longer feeling that they are expressing themselves, don't hide their dissatisfaction. Yvan continued his theater career alone. In the meantime the musicians around Jean Pierre Daran formed a new group: Amélie la Sèche. As none of the musicians can read music, everything is worked out through discussion; the strong sense of unity this creates yields a number of highly-collaborative musical sketches recorded on a Teac 3300 reel-to-reel recorder. On these recordings Jean Pierre creates his own universe on the guitar, and Christian Lassalle, Francis Ferrer, André Lesgouarres, and new bass-player Jean Pierre Alcaïne add their own contributions. After clarinetist and saxophonist Christian Faure joins, Amélie la Sèche play a number of concerts, but never outside the Bordeaux area. The band's most creative period begins in July '74, while the group (now renamed Xalph) is rehearsing in a house in Pondaurat, a small village in the Gironde. Recordings of accomplished pieces of "dense music full of rhythmic and harmonic twists and turns" are made by the group, with the bass overdubbed onto a reel-to-reel Sony and the ever-present Teac 3300. Clear vinyl; Includes poster and insert; Edition of 1000 (numbered).

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2023 restock. Monster Mélodies present the never before released album by Calcium. A legendary French psychedelic rock album, recorded in 1969, of which only two tracks were released at the time. Percussionist Stéphane Vilar played with pianist Jef Gilson and recorded on his 1964 album Oeil Vision (OI 012LP). Musician Graeme Allwright introduced Vilar to Marc'O, then director of the theater school of the American Center Boulevard Raspail. The director, looking for musicians to play rock n' roll in his project Les Idols, hired Vilar along with jazz pianist Patrick Greussay, saxophonist Didier Malherbe (Gong, Clearlight), and guitarist Didier Léon who features on the Barney Wilen's 1972 album Moshi (FFL 015LP). Stéphane then recruited jazz bassist Jacques Zins through Jérôme Savary. Les Idols is where the musicians who baptized The Rollsticks played. It was performed in 1966 and was later adapted for a feature film in 1968, where the same participants were joined by Valérie Lagrange. Stéphane Vilar then decided, together with his brother the painter Christophe, to create his own band which included some of the Rollsticks: Jacques Zins, Patrick Greussay, Didier Léon, drummer Alain Sirguy, and singer Danièle Ciarlet known as Zouzou. Model and muse of the Parisian night scene, Zouzou acted in Eric Rohmer's Afternoon Love (1972). Considered to be the French Marianne Faithfull, she released two 45 EPs orchestrated by Jacques Dutronc. She represents the image of the liberated woman in France in the sixties. The group took the name of Jardin, and soon changed it to Calcium. Thanks to financial support from Sylvina Boissonnas, the group bought instruments and practiced and refined the compositions for a year before recording. Two recording sessions were held at the Davout studios in 1969. Christophe was replaced by guitarist Denys Lable who later recorded on Jean Claude Vannier's L'enfant Assassin Des Mouches (FKR 001X-LP). After the recordings, Michel Taittinger, the heir of the namesake Champagne and television producer, obtained a contract with Pathé for the band. A single was put on the market without any promotion, resulting in poor sales. It's now considered to be one of the rarest singles of French psychedelic rock. Due to the disinterest of the record company, which only wanted put Zouzou's character forward to create a new Janis Joplin, the masters for the album were abandoned on a shelf for forty-eight years. Color vinyl; Includes two inserts; Edition of 1000 (numbered).

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At the end of the sixties, Jean Pierre Weiller, a young Parisian and amateur bassist, was an assistant at a Soft Machine concert, and befriended Hugh Hopper who introduced him to Robert Wyatt. He was invited to the Abbey Road studios to attend the recording of Kevin Ayers's 1969 album Joy Of A Toy (MRSSS 513LP). Back in Paris, in October 1970, he decided to add a saxophonist to the band Brave New World, a band he set up at the age of seventeen with two other high school students of Paris's thirteenth arrondissement. Having become a quartet, the group took the name Contrepoint. Contrepoint, first formed by bassist Jean Pierre Weiller, organist Jean Pierre Carolfi, percussionist Mike Freitag, and saxophonist Robert Taylor, started to explore instrumental avant-garde music between rock and free jazz. Like so many bands at the time, Counterpoint performs in the circuit of the MJC and for various events. The members gained a certain notoriety, allowing them to be invited to the Pop Club of "France Inter" where they performed three singles: "Facelift", "Golden Section", and "Lily Kong" in the company of English musicians Elton Dean, Lol Coxhill, Hugh Hopper, and Laurie Allen. The group had a growing reputation and were in talks with CBS to release an album, but it was not like England. In France, the market for innovative music was not in line with the expectations from the French majors requesting maximum profitability. Contrepoint never recorded a studio album. Contrepoint did end up recording a live single, "Unfathomable Of The Seventh Time", on the initiative of Laurent Thibault, for Puissance 13 + 2 (1972), a compilation with other bands such as Catherine Ribeiro and Magma. In 1974, it was a new beginning. Counterpoint played in the first part of the new group by Hugh Hopper, which included Jean Pierre Weiller, Jean Pierre Carolfi, Elton Dean, and Mike Travis. A record from the band Hugh Hopper Monster immortalized on its second face the performance recorded in Bordeaux on March 20, 1974. But despite the recognition, after more than 200 concerts throughout France, Contrepoint separated in 1976. The unpublished record of Contrepoint, directed by Jean Yves Tonello in 1971, was originally engraved on acetate at the time and it remains one of the few existing testimonies of the work of these excellent musicians. Includes two inserts; Transparent vinyl; Edition of 1000 (numbered).

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2023 restock. Monster Melodies present the legendary album Satan, an absolute must-have in terms of French progressive music, recorded in 1973 and never before released. In 1968, in Le Mans (a town in the west of France in Les pays de la Loire), some young students, planning to become teachers, started a band under the name The New Rainbow. Like many young musicians at the time, they enjoyed English blues and were fans of Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and Led Zeppelin. Quickly, they changed their name to Heaven Road and started to become famous west of France, playing live frequently. After playing covers, they wrote their own compositions and delivered a very good show at the same level of any professional band. In Paris, they won three contests in Le Golf Drouot (the mecca of the French rock at the time) and were declared the best non-professional French band of 1972. Playing at the festival, the band started to hang out with big names from the French rock scene, like Variations, Magma, Il Etait Une Fois, Catharsis, Ange and Dynastie Crisis. In 1973, they decided to be a professional band and change their name to Satan. They produced a unique music between hard rock and progressive and delivered intense shows, inspired by the world of sci-fi and literature, with musicians wearing make-up and strange costumes. But despite the fact that they played before the English band Caravan in 1974 and had an appearance in local TV show, the band always suffered from financial difficulties. For this reason, they created the more commercial band Ciel D'été with the intention of playing exclusively in the ballroom circuit. With the financial proceeds from Ciel D'été performances, they went to a studio in Angers twice - the first time to record two commercial tracks for Ciel D'été, and the second time to record tracks for the future album by Satan which had been performing for more than three years at that point. But at the time, they couldn't find a record company to publish their record. Satan collapsed in the middle of 1976, joining the cohort of musical project killed by the French musical industry - an industry which was preoccupied with making easy money by already successful English and American music and producing very dispensable French music, marketed commercially. Comes as colored vinyl; Includes a poster and inserts; Edition of 1000 (numbered).

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Monster Melodies Records present the first release of Jacques Dudon's Erosion Distillée, a work of French psychedelic music recorded in 1969. Colored vinyl. Includes two postcards and a fold-out family tree of Jacques Dudon's bands from 1967-2010. Hand-numbered edition of 1000. Jacques Dudon is a French multi-instrumentalist born in 1951 in Villecresnes (a small town in the southeast of the Paris suburbs). At 17, he taught himself how to play guitar before creating The Soul Bag, an electric blues band. Under his Ghislain pseudonym , Dudon was considered one of the best French guitarists, with his particular style of playing the guitar on his knees. The band changed its name to Ghislain Blues Band, then Blues Bag, and went through a few drummers. In 1968, the band discovered LSD and the music turned to a strong psychedelic style: the band would play solos for 45 minutes, performing a "liquid show." The band recorded the Le Chien single (1970) for EMI under the L'Assemblée name (yielding two legendary tracks presented on many psychedelic compilations) before going their separate ways. In 1969, Jacques Dudon recorded some tracks alone for an album but the project collapsed and the music was never edited -- until now. After 1969, Jacques Dudon appeared at the Festival d'Amougies with the French band We Free and at the Biot Festival, playing after Frank Zappa. Dudon made crazy music with special amplified guitars to produce feedback, playing chords with different objects in glissandi (a process he was the first to use according to Daevid Allen). At the end of 1969, he joined Pre-Crium Delirium and went on the road with the Hog Farm for a trip to Kathmandu via Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan. They organized the first Kabul rock festival in 1970 and stayed in India until 1974. He returned to France and invented the process of photo-phonic synthesis, becoming a master of microtonal music. He continued to participate in many projects in the south of France, building a new instrument, the Dulcevina, with 22 notes by octave in accordance with the 22 Indian shrutis. In 1979, he played this instrument for a project called Dedicace. Alejandro Jodorowsky used the instrument for his movie Tusk (1980). Dudon later created a school for harmonic exploration, psychoacoustic music, and initiation to polyrhythmic vocal and organized music festivals.

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Monster Melodies present Dies Irae featuring Dies Irae. A flagship group of the French progressive underground from the '70s, based on the French Riviera (Monaco). This record is the first record of this group to be released (not to be confused with the German namesake training krautrock record release on the Pilz label in 1971). It consists of tracks recorded on stage and in the studio from 1976 and 1978, when Dies Irae was at the top of its game. A record that will allow you to judge the qualities of this little-known group that claims its influences (including notorious groups of the era King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator and Magma) nevertheless has a very personal and original touch which deserves to be included in the history of French rock. Gatefold sleeve. Transparent vinyl. Includes many inserts. Edition of 1000.

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2015 release. Monster Melodies presents the self-titled album from Eclosion. A legendary recording in the history of Underground French Rock from 1972 released for the first time. Eclosion is a musical project by friends Leon Cobra (founder of the counter culture magazine Le Treponeme Bleu Pale), guitarist Bernard Stisi and Mark White (drummer and guitarist of Ame Son). Psychedelic entrancing music with an experimental, Indian influenced and noisy sound recorded in analog in early 1973 on a Revox tape recorder (the same used by Red Noise to record the sound effects of the album Sarcelles-Lochères in 1970 (FFL 004LP/LTD-LP)) with the help of a an echo chamber for a highly innovative outcome. But the trio ended up having different destinies. The project remained on a shelf, along with the planned design of the cover by illustrator Henri Aspic. 10 tracks specially selected and restored. Blue vinyl comes in a cover which folds open, with numerous illustrations. It also contains a separate illustration of a collage by Leon Cobra and an anniversary edition of the magazine Le Tréponème Bleu Pâle of 20 pages. Edition of 1000.

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2023 restock. Monster Melodies presents a collaboration with Moving Gelatine Plates with Moving Gelatine Plates. 45 years after the start of Moving Gelatine Plates, Monster Mélodies and the legendary band release an album of unreleased tracks recorded between 1970 and 1978. Comes as a translucent pink jelly colored vinyl. Comes in a sleeve which opens up, containing a flyer with a family tree illustration of the different components of the band, a post card of a vintage promotional poster rand a plus a record which is an identical reproduction of the one originally made in 1970.

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2015 release. Monster Melodies present Live at Lons Le Saulnier, 1974 from Robert Wood & Woodlands. An exceptional recording, dating from September 1974, featuring a band that has never released an album up to now. Robert Wood, an English vibraphonist, guitarist and singer, is a veteran of the jazz scene, free jazz, jazz and experimental rock having played with Alan Silva, Don Cherry, Gong, Marc Bolan, Sam Gopal, Kent Carter, Bernard Vitet, Lard Free, Christian Vander, Fred Frith and Yannick Top. He spent the majority of his career in France. Woodlands was formed in 1973 with Olivier Didier (Herbe Rouge) on drums and Simon Wheatley on electric bass. Patrick Fontaine (Ame Son and Bananamoon Band) replaced Simon Wheatley a few months later and it is this second line-up that is featured on this album. In 1974, Robert Wood & Woodlands played more than forty concerts in France. The group's music is bursting with energy. Robert Wood plays his Deagan Electravibe and Premier Vibraphone in a manner which is both extremely personal and relentlessly perfectionist, producing a unique sound enveloped by the bass and the drums. Using a technique which includes as Robert himself explains: "My own choice of mallets, sticks, different types of pieces of wood, finger cymbals, the palms of my hands, the soft tips of my fingers and the harder attack of my finger nails. Each of these different types of attack engendered their own characteristic sound parameters which could naturally be played in a myriad of intermingling sound colors. I have always strived to open the range and flexibility of expression of the vibraphone as an instrument complete in itself and not simply an extension of the percussion family. I added a Cry Baby wah-wah from the '60s and a legendary amp, the Mike Matthews "Freedom Amp". The mutational frequencies of the wah to go even further into my 'improvisational madness' as certain people called it. On my Premier Vibraphone, I struck the key(s) at basically five different positions on each key, with a further four intermediate positions on each key which I would also strike for modelling the inherent harmonics. Applied to the Deagan Electravibe this technique literally exploded the conceived limitations of the vibraphone, and also created new soundscapes for my vocals, shooting us off into a cosmic voyage of time, sound and rhythm." - Extracts from an interview by Ron Kane.

$33.00 IN STOCK

2023 restock. Monster Melodies present the original soundtrack of Amore (1973), a film by Henry Chapier, composed and performed by Vangelis Papathanassiou. An unreleased recording dating from July 1973. Vangelis Papathanassiou was the composer of the group Aphrodite's Child, he composed the band's music and the songs of Demis Roussos. Later Vangelis became famous for the soundtrack of the film Chariots of Fire (1981). In 1974, Henry Chapier after several atypical movie, An American Summer (1968), Sex-Power (1970) and Hi, Jerusalem (1972), directed the fiction film Amore. Here is an extract from the Divan d'Henry Chapier interview with Papathanassiou directed by Jean Claude Longin 2011: "This is happening in a city constantly threatened with death. At the time, I thought, there were a lot of documentaries and that I would do it differently. I imagined Venice in the guise of a heroine, a very beautiful woman, Sonia Petrovna, a girl of the Venetian aristocracy ailing, representing a page of history that has passed. But the fact remains that in the frame, in the subject, there was a little journalistic approach. Also because one of the actors, Daniel Quenaud, was presumed to be a reporter, sent to consider the merits of an architectural plan which would save Venice. So in the agreement, there is a slight journalist contamination. Otherwise there was also a love story... I think it's more of a fiction film than a documentary nonetheless." Chapier had this to say about going about the score: "The first time, it was at the Olympia, at the band's concert. I found the music to be trippy and wonderful, I, who above all, loved the Pink Floyd. I thought the Pink Floyd, I could never get them for my films. So I stormed in backstage at the Olympia, I said to Vangelis, 'Listen you are made to be an independent composer.' Things clicked between us instantly and so I asked if he wanted the script. He told me, 'no, we will see, me, I improvise from images.' This is a technique that is practiced today, but back then, it was unheard of. We did not have people like him, who recorded the sound on sixteen tracks, playing all the instruments themselves and who already had in mind how they would edit the soundtrack." Colored vinyl. Includes unpublished photos, the film poster and a postcard.