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Showing posts with label Celluloid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celluloid. Show all posts

Friday, April 20, 2018

Jacno - "Jacno" Vinyl, LP, Reissue, 45 rpm, Mini-Album, 2011/1979 (Celluloid)


Bingo!  I've found the ultimate Techno-pop or Synth-pop music.   I discovered this album through YouTube as well as Apple Music, but finding the actual vinyl is either difficult or expensive.  By luck, I found the record, at a reasonable price and this is clearly a mini-album that needs to be fully reissued to the masses.  Approximately 20 minutes long, it will be the best 20 minutes in one's life.  

There are records that speak to me in a favorable manner, and then there are recordings that hit me like a gentle slap on the cheek, and Jacno's album is such a presence in my life.  I can't possibly fathom someone disliking this record.   Incredibly french whatever that means to the listener, but it conveys such a lightness, but with a tinge of sadness.  Serge Gainsbourg is always sad to me, on the other hand, someone like Jacques Dutronc is happy-go-lucky, until he reached his later years.  Jacno is somewhere between the two artists, and his solo and recordings with Ellie Medeiros (Ms. Brian De Palma) as well as with his early new-wave/punk band Stinky Toys, was a journey through French pop music culture.  

Part of the charm of these recordings is that it's very low-fi in its approach and sound.  One can picture Jacno smoking away ( he did die from cancer) and be working on these tracks by himself.  Most of the record is instrumental, with Ellie singing vocals on one song "Anne Cherchait L' Amour."  It's interesting to note that this mini-album came out at the end of an era (1979) and there is an innocence or the sense of loss.  Still, "Jacno" is a masterpiece. 

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Scritti Politti - "Songs To Remember" Vinyl, LP, Album (Celluloid/France) Rough Trade, 1982



One of the few great albums released in the early 1980s is Scritti Politti's "Songs To Remember."  As a young man, in the 80s, I remember buying all the 12" singles off this album, due to the re-mixed more sonic versions.  If you can find it, I strongly recommend to purchase "Faithless," which is great on this album, but the 12" single goes on and on, and it's an incredible piece of music.

 The basic sound of Scritti Politti is one of great sophistication.  A touch of reggae, soul, jazz, and singer/songwriter.  The main honcho of the band, Green Gartside,  had an interesting take on 'pop music' culture, which for him was seen through the eyes of a political theorist.   Well-read, and a one-time hardcore Maoist type of Leftie, he looked at the love song as a political statement or through the eyes of Derrida's reconstruct of things in front of him.

On the other hand, this album has the greatest groove flow.  The nine songs here are close to perfection, and there are great musicians on this album.   Green's voice is very white, but the backing is black in spirit, and even though there is this philosophical separation between thought and sound, it's a black soul orientated work.   Robert Wyatt makes an appearance or two, and one can clearly hear his influence on those tracks.  Scritti Politti made other fine and splendid records, but "Songs To Remember" is a masterpiece.