BARNEY WILEN & DIESE 440 - Live In Paris-8 Janvier 1983

French saxophonist Barney Wilen is perhaps best known for his work on Miles Davis’s soundtrack for Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows from 1958. A restless visionary, the Frenchman later experimented with tapes of a car race, and in 1972 released the colossal Moshi, an ambitious spiritual jazz travelogue of his two-year journey through Africa. Ten years later, he hooked up with the hard-edged atonal electronic ensemble Diese 440 for a set of whirring and pulsating improvisations. It’s an unlikely combination but is utterly convincing and miles ahead of what Wilen’s former leader was doing at the time.