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GEINS'T NAIT & L. PETITGAND - Je vous dis

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Ici d'ailleurs Mind Travels Serie MT 01 Release Year: 2014 Note: music for a situationist movie? Surprising new album by this French project, active since 1986, with LAURENT PETITGAND (brother of DOMINIQUE PETITGAND) => quite poetic and higly atmospheric experimental electronic ambience with a 'weird' touch + influences from the industrial and electronic movements from the 80's, strangely effected singing, slow rhythms, instrumental drones, electronic sounds... very much worth to discover ! Price (incl. 19% VAT): €13.00 More Info "Geins't Naït is a project initiated in 1986 with a first album released by Thierry Merigout (drummer with Kas Product on their 1981 tour) and Vincent Hachet, who quickly stepped back from this project to work on his film-maker career. The L'or'n Cät album's release in 1987 marked the arrival of Laurent Petitgand, a singer-songwriter recognized for his composing work for (the late French singer) Bashung and original soundtracks for film directors such as Wim Wenders (including Tokyo-Ga, 1985, Wings of Desire, 1986, and the future The Salt of the Earth, scheduled in 2014), Paul Auster (The Inner Life of Martin Frost), as well as ballet music for Angelin Preljocaj (Liqueurs de Chair, Amer America). Bases are thus set down. While Geins't Naït offers rough pieces of music as an extension of its punk attitude which deeply moved the Berlin scene years ago, Laurent Petitgand is busy refining them and creating some musicality within the post-industrial collages, adding guitars, piano or any classical instrument. In 1993, following the release of C/O Lisa on the Permis de Construire label, noise gave way to a silence that lasted 20 years. Coming from nowhere, Si j'avais su, j'aurais rien dit, a particularly tormented album which, against all odds, revived the project in 2011. An album which showed an increasing alchemy between the two musicians whose different routes, this common project aside, seem to fit perfectly well now. Now, and more than ever, the duo's approach is based on an in-depth field. To sharpen the sounds, give them some kind of balance, a density and a mark. More than anything else, to make sure that music is a langage, an experience in the deeper meaning of the term. In its form, the collaboration between Geins't Naït and Laurent Petitgand echoes the adventurous musics from the eighties and is the French counterpoint to experimental british scenes (Coil, Current 93, Test Dept) and german scenes (Einstürzende Neubauten, Sprung Aus Den Wolken), so much so that this new work is difficult to label in its totality, entering ambient or industrial fields, as well as minimalist or repetitive music. Je vous dis is obvious in its ability for listeners to give life to the smallest element which is part of it, would it be a sample, a piano melody, or even the amazing work on voices, which, as well as instrumentation, assume a central part in the tracks balance. Melancholic, with a retained violence, sometimes even with a fearsome violence, Je vous dis surprises and captivates in its way to subtly catch the listener, thanks to a disturbing nocturnal mood, but also to an unsettling humanity. But this record is far from being an hermetical work : it's quite the opposite. Difficulty is not to get in this world, however particular or deviant it is, but to get out. More than just music, Je vous dis is a visceral obsession about detail, a sound sculpture with changing forms and various aspects, an unsleeping creature with inscrutable soul. As soon as one believes to have understood it, the next listening brings the listener back into doubt and questions. As in a situationist movie for which that album would be a perfect soundtrack, each complete immersion offers its lot of news interpretations and details, with were unkown until now but are definitively obvious in the end. A real masterpiece for the mind : complex, poetic and sophisticated, even in its darkest moments." [label info] www.icidailleurs.com "Years and years ago I worked in a space, which also functioned as a record store, and before, that I was a volunteer at another record-store/mail-order. In both 'stores' I saw the name Geins't Naït, but for whatever reason I no longer recall, I never played any of their records or CDs that we sold. Maybe it was because there was so much other great stuff to play? Let's keep it at that. So up until this CD I never heard their music properly, but in my defense, they didn't have any new release since 1993. The name Laurent Petitgand (not to be confused with Dominique Petitgand) I never heard before, despite the fact that he did soundtracks for Wim Wenders and Paul Auster as well as being a singer-songwriter. In 2011 he and Geins't Naït worked together for the first time and now there is a new album. But for me this is maybe a first introduction all around. And I am quite surprised. The label makes references to Coil, Current 93, Neubauten, none of which are really particular favorites with me, but in these hands it works out differently and actually quite well. There is quite some drama in this music, through the use of samples, melancholic piano bits and the dark voice of Petitgand. Geins't Naït provide a rather minimal set of music - not as in 'empty', but as in 'repetitions', which makes rather odd pop music. Petitgand's voice is most of the time heavily transformed (vocoder perhaps?), which makes that a rather darker atmosphere hangs over these pieces. It bumps and collides but that I think is the beauty of this music, it's rather unusual atmosphere. Tacky and clichéd it seems at times but it works out quite fine. Maybe because there are some cliché's in here, but also some more unusual aspects, that it all makes up for something strange and estranged. A most enjoyable album, I thought. A fine introduction indeed." [FdW/Vital Weekly] "Das Duo mit dem exotisch klingenden Namen Geins’t Naït entstand irgendwann im Dunstkreis der legendären Coldwaver von Kas Product und existiert nun bereits seit fast dreißig Jahren, bei denen allerdings eine lange Pause mitgerechnet wird. Hierzulande überwiegend frankophilen Kennern ein Begriff, ist die Band auf der anderen Rheinseite kein Geheimtipp mit ihrem eigenwilligen Stil an der Schnittstelle von Punk- und Industrial-Einflüssen, Songs und Soundscapes sowie technoiden und klassischen Arrangements. Der Sänger und Komponist Laurent Petitgand arbeitet auf “Je vous dis” zum zweitenmal mit GN zusammen und bringt klassische, v.a. akustische Elemente ein. Das Label zieht Vergleiche zu den Neubauten, Coil und Test Dept., was natürlich eine respektable Messlatte darstellt. Wollte man in dem ausgesprochen welchselseitigen Album so etwas wie einen roten Faden benennen, so ließe der sich eher noch in einer immer leicht aufgekratzten Wehmut finden, als im Sound, der leicht retrolasigen Akustikklängen ebenso Raum gibt wie hallunterlegter, leicht housiger Elektronik, bei der ich tatsächlich an Coil-Werke wie “Love’s Secret Domain” denken musste. Viele Songs wecken filmische Assoziationen und versprühen einen nostalgischen und oft auch ein wenig naiven Charme. In den Passagen vor dem Einsetzen zum Teil vertrackter Rhythmen lockern reichliche zitathaft integrierte Klangbrocken den Wohlklang auf und versetzen die Szenerie an einen nur schwer zu ortenden Schauplatz, den Petitgand mit seinen mantraartigen Stimmbeiträgen, die teilweise wie versoffenes Bellen klingen, dominiert. Oft entfalten sich mehrere musikalische Erzählstränge simultan, und selbst da, wo es schlicht auf die Schönheit der Unordnung hinausläuft, entsteht nie der Eindruck, dass es um bloßes Muckertum geht." [U.S./African Paper] africanpaper.com/2015/03/28/geinst-nait-laurent-petitgand-je-vous-dis/