A1   Blues pour Miguel Enriquez.mp3

A2   Piano Dazibao.mp3

A3   Abrisme Galanica.mp3

A4   Olendja.mp3

B1   L'Heure est à la Lutte.mp3

B2   Mazir-Mare Jo Cantar No Sabia.mp3

In Heldon nobody particularly likes liner notes. However, although the groups’ albums have none they abound, from the very beginning, with clues and often cryptic references. The name of the group, obviously, comes from a science fiction novel by Norman Spinrad, but perhaps it is less well known that the title of the album Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale (1976) is taken from a pirate recording of King Crimson made in 1974, an elegant way to state the possible lineage between guitarist (and synthesizer player) Richard Pinhas and Robert Fripp, his peer in the British band. Likewise, Richard Pinhas values the philosophers Lyotard, Nietzsche and Deleuze (whose lessons he followed at Vincennes), and the cover of Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale quotes another intellectual, Pierre Klossowski, a theology specialist, according to whom all creators owe it themselves to provoke a “state of insecurity straying from the oppressive regime of mediocrity”, words which could be considered as a mission statement for Richard Pinhas!
Having been a precursor of the home studio, Richard Pinhas came to the Davout studios to record the fifth Heldon album Un Rêve sans conséquence spéciale originally released in 1976 on the Cobra label. He had a special space reserved for him, where there was a Moog 3 which had belonged to Paul McCartney.
Intense, violent, bitter, abrasive, uncompromising: the first on-site recording is in keeping with the four predecessors, prefiguring both Industrial- and post-rock, showing once again that the early references to “guerrilla electronics” (and to William S. Burroughs) were not in vain! The newcomers to this universe, bassist Didier Batard (Cœur Magique, Triptyque), on one track, and drummer François Auger (heard on the fifth album by Gérard Manset) finally transform Heldon into a fiery power trio for the inspired “MVC II”. Without forgetting that the faithful Patrick Gauthier is also on board, as is Jannick Top (Magma), each on one track.
Listening to the result it is easy to understand why Merzbow, Wolf Eyes and Oren Ambarchi, in the 2000s wanted to record with Richard Pinhas! It must also be noted that the often-made comparison between Heldon / Richard Pinhas and King Crimson / Robert Fripp, while still pertinent, is insufficient, as Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale breaks much new ground beyond those horizons.

4 Toward The Red Line レッド・ラインにむかって

After their first album which came out in 1971 on Futura Records, Perception wanted to rapidly record a second, but Gérard Terronès did not want to produce another, especially so soon after the first. Therefore, the only solution was to produce it themselves. It is thus completely logical that it came out on the label of the Association for the Development of Improvised Music (A.D.M.I.) created by Didier Levallet with the aim of promoting creative music ( and, on this subject, it was this same label which also produced the excellent Inter Fréquences by the Free Jazz Workshop).  As the album was entirely created from A to Z by Perception, they decided on a more ambitious project, exploring a wider palette of colours by augmenting the original quartet with additional instruments. So, it was with numerous guests including Teddy Lasry, Jean-Charles Capon, Kent Carter and Jean-François Jenny-Clark, that Perception developed still further the apparently contradictory directions which were their specificity. This is further highlighted by the fact that Siegfried Kessler, largely absent on this recording, is temporarily replaced by Manuel Villaroel, a pianist from Chile with a completely different temperament (and, by-the-by, already the name behind the superb Terremoto with the Matchi-oul Septet).  Contrary to the first album, which seems in comparison much more compact and united this second (and second-to last, not counting the live recordings), with the many different options proposed, would seem to predict the different directions that musicians from Perception would subsequently take. One track, by Yochk'O Seffer, who had already been part of Magma two years previously, looks forward to the more structured Neffesh Music, whilst, in the opposite direction, another track, by Didier Levallet, is more evocative of the future arrangements on Swing Strings System. It is, to sum up, a nice paradox that all these different elements, from tightly written pieces to wild improvisation, work so well together and are one the key attributes of a group free like few others.

Colima

To finally become oneself: that was the lesson, in the 1960-1970s, that European musicians attracted to improvisation had learned from American free-jazz. Following this idea, the musicians of Perception, whilst individually accompanying Mal Waldron, Slide Hampton, Johnny Griffin or Hank Mobley when they played in Paris, decided early on to break free from what was going on across the Atlantic and seek their own authenticity.  When Mestari, their third and final album, came out, Yochk'O Seffer, Siegfried Kessler, Didier Levallet and Jean-My Troung had four years of questing and originality behind them developing their own individual language. A language in which the spontaneity of the improvisations did not exclude influences taken from European folk or classical traditions.   Balanced, ethereal and structured, Mestari was a return to the original core quartet (the previous album included numerous guest musicians). It opens infinite perspectives and is totally in phase with what was being produced in France at the same time by Cohelmec Ensemble and the Dharma Quintet.

4 Toward The Red Line レッド・ラインにむかって

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