Etron Fou Leloublan – Les Trois Fou's Perdégagnent (Au Pays Des...)

From my Rock In Opposition feature in Audion #38: Les Trois Fou's Perdégagnent (Au Pays Des...) (which means something like "The three crazies go on [into the country...]") which saw newcomer Francis Grand in the role of multi-winds player (and much more). The album was recorded and mixed by Jean-Pierre Grasset (the guitarist/multi-instrumentalist who also works under the moniker "Vertø") who did an incredible job in complex studio montage and mixing, and can be heard playing guitar on side one. The ideas from the previous album are here refined and developed, having even more complex instrumental interplay, with kind of half sung "poems" wedged in between the scuttling scampering musical progressions. It's all very complex stuff - schizophrenia controlled! Side one ends with a track subtitled "Artman inspiration" where Etron Fou become an intense Urban Sax and Lard Free hybrid, with multi-winds and electronics against Vertø/Frippian guitar. This is interesting in that Chris Chanet had left Etron Fou to work in Urban Sax, and also, much of the album was written by Chris under the guise of Eulalie Ruynat (just to confuse us). Obviously it was material they had been working on for some time, and it's this refinement of composition, complex elaboration and advanced use of the studio that makes this the finest Etron Fou record. Musically superb, challenging and excellently recorded.