VA - Dirty French Psychedelics
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 04:00PM
soundscapes in Folk/Singer-songwriter, Prog/Art/Noise, Psych/Garage, Reissue, Soundtracks, World

This is not the 'official' psychedelic sound, but rather a sound that has been overlooked by revivals from the '60s to the '80s, ignored for lacking easy categorization. In 1970s France, moody orchestrations by Jean-Claude Vannier for the epochal Melody Nelson session with Serge Gainsbourg (as well as the less-acknowledged but artistically equal Brigitte Fontaine Est...) combined with the clash of exotic folk and cosmic jazz on the Saravah label to create an atmospheric and far-reaching sound that embraced open-mindedness, come-down grooviness, and the pristine (but definitely not smooth) production techniques of the time. It is a sound that's a purple haze without being “Purple Haze”, if you get my drift. Paris' Dirty Sound System have defined an amorphous genre, a rare thing in the compilations market, and have done it with a flow that betrays some serious mixtape obsession. A creepy and ominous mood is created by soundtrack greats François de Roubaix and Karl Heinz Schäfer, plus freaky pioneers Brigitte Fontaine and Dashiell Hedayat, along with many more.

Article originally appeared on Soundscapes - 572 College Street Toronto (http://www.soundscapesmusic.com/).
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