Cuneiform
Records is
proud to announce the first-ever vinyl reissue of Chronolyse, the
masterwork of 1970s analogue electronics that French electronic musician and
guitarist Richard Pinhas created in tribute to Frank Herbert’s
sci-fi classic, Dune. This special reissue, pressed on 180 gram
white vinyl and featuring the original album artwork, celebrates Chronolyse’s
conception nearly 40 years ago as well as the 50th anniversary of Dune,
the first volume of which was published in 1965.
[Richard
Pinhas]
Back in 1974, Pinhas received his PhD in Philosophy from the
Sorbonne, where he had studied with French philosopher Gilles Deleuze
and written his dissertation, “Science-Fiction, Inconscient et Autres
Machins”, on the intersections of time, time manipulation, science fiction
and analogue electronic music. That same year he founded Heldon. a band
that fused his searing guitar with experimental electronics to revolutionize
rock music in France. By 1976 Heldon had released several albums on Pinhas’ Disjuncta
label (one of France’s first independent labels), and began working on a new
album, Interface. Simultaneous with the Interface sessions,
Pinhas immersed himself in a highly personal and heartfelt solo project. He had
been deeply affected by Frank Herbert’s Dune novels and the
complete universe that they contained, and wanted to dedicate a full album to Dune.
Acquiring a Moog P3 and a new Polymoog to accompany two Revox
A700s he had installed in his home Heldon Studio, Pinhas now had the
perfect analogue electronic arsenal to weave his own sonic and philosophical
universe in response to Dune’s.
Between January and June 1976, he recorded his Dune tribute on Moog and
Polymoog direct to tape; he recalls that the music flowed to him easily, “like
a dream”. He used his “Big MOOG P3” and the two Revox (one for recording, one
for a delay) to record side A of the album, which included 7 tracks dedicated
to “Variations Sur Le Theme des Bene Gesserit” and one track named after
“Duncan Idaho”. For side B, he used his Polymoog and the two Revox to
record a “Tronix” base for a single, lengthy track, “Paul Atreïdes”.
Originally, he had thought to do an all-Moog album. But instead, he went into
the Davout Studio with his guitar and his Heldon colleagues, Didier
Batard (drums) and François Auger (bass) to record their instruments
over the Polymoog track. All the track names derived from Dune. "Bene Gesserit" is a name of the race of the woman who has ESP. "Duncan
Idaho" is a military aide of the clan of Atreides; the name
also was similar to that of one of Richard’s sons, Duncan, who was then
a little more than one year old. "Paul Atreides" is a boy who
corresponds to the hero of the story. But Pinhas did not want his album to be a
too “commercial” Dune tribute, and thus chose his album’s name, Chronolyse, from a work by French science fiction novelist, Michel
Jeury, whose writings dealt with time manipulations.
[The
first-ever vinyl reissue of this classic, which has been unavailable on vinyl
for 35 years]
Chronolyse came out on vinyl in 1978, released by Cobra only in
France. Although it was his first solo recording, it was his second solo album
release, as Rhizosphere had come out the year before. As
completed, it included one side of solo, live Moog
synthesizer pieces, notable for their wide, stereo field and unique sound - a
product of the weeks he spent setting up and programming the sounds on his huge
Moog P3 modular synthesizer. The other side was a lengthy, stormy,
drone-filled, epi of mellotrons (Polymoog), electronics, guitar, bass and drums
by his Heldon colleagues. In Chronolyse, Pinhas not only explored new
synthesizer technologies, new sonics and materials, but also the philosophical
concepts that he held dearest, such as timeless repetition and the
superimposition of events. In Chronolyse, Pinhas wove his separate worlds of
music, philosophy, science fiction and literature, physical reality and family
life into a single sonic and philosophical universe.
Steve Feigenbaum, Cuneiform’s founder and CEO, had long admired Pinhas’
work; he calls Chronolyse “absolutely one of Richard’s very
finest works: half live Moog electronics that make fantastic use of stereo
imaging and mix aggression with the repetitiveness of Phillip Glass or Terry
Riley, and half with Heldon in a 30' King Crimson-ish stormy
drone-epic of mellotrons, electronics, guitar, bass, & drums.” 25
years ago, after months of communicating across the Atlantic, he took the train
from Washington DC, Pinhas flew from Paris, and the two met in person in New
York City to discuss a collaboration. Cuneiform and Pinhas signed a contract
for Cuneiform to reissue on CD and distribute internationally all of Pinhas
early solo and Heldon recordings, originally released on LP in France. They
decided to reissue the back catalogue in groups of two. The first Cuneiform
CD reissues, Chronolyse and East/West, came out in 1991
with a Cuneiform press release written by NYC-based science fiction novelist Norman
Spinrad. Now, Cuneiform is doing the first-ever vinyl reissue of Chronolyse,
35 years after it last appeared in that
medium.
[Richard
Pinhas]
Composer,
electronics innovator and guitarist Richard Pinhas is one of France's major
experimental musicians. He has long been recognized
as a pivotal figure in the development of combining rock music with
electronics. Years before MIDI existed, Richard was creating sophisticated
electronic music using vast walls of the available components of the day. Both
as a solo artist and with his band Heldon, he released a number of
advanced and classic albums in the 70s that set the stage for much of what is
thought of as 'contemporary music'. A ceaseless innovator, he continued to
experiment and expand his music over the subsequent decades and into the
present day, releasing dozens of solo and collaborative recordings that
continue to expand the parameters of rock. In a 21st century creative surge,
Pinhas has released numerous new recordings on Cuneiform in recent years, including
collaborations with such artists as Merzbow, Tatsuya Yoshida and Oren
Ambarchi. His work has been discovered by new generations of fans, some of
whom have sampled his music (Four Tet). Pinhas also performs live, solo
or in various groupings, and frequently performs at festivals of rock,
experimental and electronic music. In 2015 he’ll do a three-night appearance at
London’s TUSK festival.
PROMOTIONAL TRACK //
If you'd like to share music from this release with your readers/listeners,
please feel free to use the following track:
"Sur Le Theme De
Bene Gesserit VII":
PURCHASE LINKS //
ARTIST WEB SITES //
HIGH-RES PROMO PHOTOS //
RICHARD PINHAS - TOUR DATES: 2015 //
|
October
9
8:00 pm |
Paris,
France
|
Le Triton
11 Bis Rue du Coq French Lilas (Les), France, 93260 http://www.letriton.com/ |
trio
with Yoshida Tatsuya and Ono Ryoko (Sax Ruins) + with Pascal Comelade
- € 20 Normal/ €15 Reduced/ €12 Member/ €8 Junior |
|
October
10
6:00 pm |
Newcastle,
UK
|
Tusk Festival:
Day One
Stepney Bank, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear NE1 2NP, United Kingdom http://tuskfestival.com/artists/ |
trio
with Yoshida Tatsuya and Ono Ryoko (Sax Ruins)
- €55 Full Weekend Pass/ €20 day pass |
|
October
11
6:00 pm |
Newcastle,
UK
|
Tusk
Festival: Day Two
Stepney Bank, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear NE1 2NP, United Kingdom http://tuskfestival.com/artists/ |
duo
with Stephen O'Malley
- €55 Full Weekend Pass/ €20 day pass |
|
October
12
7:30 pm |
London,
UK
|
Corsica
Studios
4/5 Elephant Rd, London SE17 1LB United Kingdom http://www.corsicastudios.com/ |
trio
with Yoshida Tatsuya and Ono Ryoko (Sax Ruins)
- £11 Advance |
|
October
14
9:00 pm |
Poitiers,
France
|
Planetarium,
Espace Mendés France
1 Rue de la Cathédrale, Poitiers, France 86038 http://emf.fr/ |
trio
with Yoshida Tatsuya and Ono Ryoko (Sax Ruins)
PT: € 6; TR: € 3.50 |
|
December
17
|
|
Toulouse, France 31300 http://www.lesabattoirs.org/en/ |
Richard
Pinhas & Arthur Narcy
|
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