KOSMOSE First Time Out

This bunch didn't arrive on the same day, so in the past weeks I have been hearing these in various

combinations. I was thinking where to start the review and decided to start with the closest outsider

of the Insane Music family and that is M.A.L. Daniel Malempre, as his real name is, is one of the

main musical collaborators of Alain Neffe, the man behind Insane Music, once a cassette label and

a family of bands and projects, most of which are subject of this review. Malempre was the guitarist

of Kosmose, more about that later, of Human Flesh and Subject. Very early on, somewhere in the

mid 80s probably, I already heard the story of a demo he send in the mid 70s of his solo guitar and

reel-to-reel compositions, which concept was 'stolen' by Manuel Göttsching on his 'Inventions For

Electric Guitar' and since then I was always curious to hear M.A.L.'s own music. There has not been

a lot of that, but EE Tapes released 'Eighties' (see Vital Weekly 585) which included pieces he

recorded in those years, but this new CD contains his 1972 to 1976 recordings. The cover tells you

the technical side of the story, about one guitar and a four-track recorder, bouncing of tracks and

recording at higher/slower speeds. And of course I too went to the Göttsching 1975 record (look for

it on YouTube) to compare both albums. It is not difficult to hear that both tap out of the same book

of ideas; guitars, lots of delays and both are cosmic trip. I am not the sort of guy that can rightfully

say if Göttsching stole the idea for this from Malempre, or simply was simultaneously developing

his own brand of working with reel-to-reel recorders. As did Brian Eno and Robert Fripp at the same

time; all building on working with reel-to-reel machines like musique concrete composers did since

the fifties. M.A.L. has sixteen pieces here and range from a minute miniature to over fifteen minutes.

There is indeed a lot of music on this release, seventy-seven minutes and not all tracks are equally

great, but you get a very good idea of how M.A.L. worked. It works best if he keeps his drones and

loops together, spice with some bass notes and a small, repeating melody or phrase, as in

'Cassiopee' or 'Betelgeuse'. Sometimes a song is merely an idea and that's it, but then it doesn't

work that well, especially when it is a long piece, such as in 'Thor'. I am not deciding the fight over

originality here. I enjoyed hearing these pieces after all the rumour for all these years and all

Göttsching fans should hear this too and make up their own minds.

Malempre was together with Alain Neffe part of Kosmose in the seventies and up until a few

years ago I never knew that Neffe did any music before 1979/1980 when he surfaced with Pseudo

Code. Back then, when I first heard his music, I knew that I Scream was a solo project with some

older recordings, but I didn't think he would be part of a band. Sub Rosa released a double CD by

them some years ago and that was the first time I heard about it. That one wasn't reviewed, but EE

Tapes did one as well (see Vital Weekly 1111) and the archives of Kosmose are delved into further

with this double release (and I happen to know there is more in case someone is interested). Here

Kosmose is Neffe on monophonic synthesizer, flute, primitive rhythm box, cymbal, bell, clumpsy

voice, tarang, Malempre on electric guitar, 112 string acoustic guitar and Francis Pourcel on bass,

bass with violin bow, electric guitar. Kosmose went through various stages with differing line-ups

and this is the first version and contains a recording of their only concert. The absence of a

drummer makes them even more spacier, more kosmische than on the previous recordings I heard

from them. Malempre's guitar sounds at times like it does sound like the work on his solo CD. I quite

enjoyed those previous releases, but they reach for a sound here that I like even more. It is hippie

trippy music of course, vast and spacious, free and wild, but it is very much away from the beat

driven krautrock that was also part of the scene and of which Kosmose also had a bit. But these live

recordings, recorded with two microphones and reel-to-reel deck ("recorded by Alain while playing"

says the cover; bravo!), makes that this is also a bit of rough diamond and it exactly that roughness

that I like very much. There is nothing polished about this music and we are witnessing an all out

space jam. Close your eyes and float away; play loud and you could believe you are right there

and then, present in the audience. No incense required but it could help (I wouldn't know; I dislike

incense). One hundred minutes of pure bliss,

The '4 in 1' series are a sort of progress report/archive of Insane Music bands, but also allowes

outsiders into the family. The first one is a legendary cassette from the early 80s, followed by a LP a

little later. Volume 3 (CD; see Vital Weekly 846) and 4 (cassette; see Vital Weekly 1043) are more

recent and now there is a volume 5, again on LP, with three Alain Neffe projects and M.A.L. is also

present. There is a CD version included with bonus tracks for all four projects, one for each. The

archival function is for the pieces by I Scream (1975) and Human Flesh ("late 80s-early 90s")

whereas from Bene Gesserit and M.A.L. the pieces were recorded in recent years. Those two

projects are on the first side, with four Bene Gesserit pieces that display their Dadaist version of

electronic music in a very fine way. The voices are fed through a vocoder in 'Ceci N'est Pas Une

Chanson...', or with Benedict G singing mysteriously in 'Les Fourmis', or the all out fun (?) of 'Half

Hyserical Mid Tempo Sort Of Rock', being a very classic and funny Bene Gesserit piece. M.A.L.

has expanded his old style with drum machines and synthesizers and his music has a fuller flavour

now. A bit orchestral in 'Trinity Will Kill Again', Middle Eastern inspired in 'Turkish Morning' or raga

in 'Indian Song', all of which come with M.A.L.'s trademark guitar loops. Human Flesh here is in full

collaborative modus here, with people supplying sounds on tape and Neffe adding his music and

sounds to it. Some of these pieces are with M.A.L. or Xavier S of Pseudo Code but also words

supplied by Lena Torgrimsen. Human Flesh is always a bit moody and atmospheric, with string

like drones and loops of saxophones, flutes and guitars and with these pieces reach for a more

poetic approach, not unlike Cortex, even if that was more minimal. I Scream remain one of the

more obscure Neffe projects, his earliest solo music from the mid 70s. Here he experiments with

old synthesizers and reel to reel machines, rhythm machines and "Elka strings" and the music is

the most experimental of the whole record, with weird synthesizer sounds, especially on the CD

bonus track '(Maybe) I'm Slowly Going Insane', but also cosmic in 'Saved By The Synth'. Hearing

this I think it should be about time there is a double CD with all of these early I Scream pieces.

Excellent compilation and with only four bands one has a clearer idea of what they are about

should you be a novice to this music.

And then Pseudo Code. I can't reveal my personal hierarchy in liking bands from Insane

Music, but I can tell you that Pseudo Code is my favourite band. It is, perhaps, also the first I really

heard and read about; no doubt in a fanzine called 'BoH' and a Dutch music magazine 'Vinyl'.

Early on I picked up their second 7" 'Moon Effect' and it was a band that stood out on compilation

cassettes, very much like The Legendary Pink Dots, but differently. I guess the voice of Xavier S

plays an important role here, as it is very much a recognizable voice of what seems at times a very

troubled singer. A voice of pain and anger maybe. Alain Neffe plays synthesizers, rhythm machine,

strings organ and saxophone while Guy Marc Hinant plays pianet (also a very uncommon

instrument in the world of 'industrial' music, and yes, I know they hated that word), percussion, or

guitar. The rhythm machine keeps the music together, while everybody, singer included, more or

less freely moves around that. Sometimes this may result in a proper song, certainly when Neffe

plays a melody (or Hinant on guitar in the title piece), but it can also be a rather free form music

piece of loosely connected sounds, such as the beautiful 'Lament', which seems to be more the

result of improvisation, but around some guidelines. All of the pieces, save one, which now appears

in a longer form, were previously unreleased. I have no idea how deep the Pseudo Code vaults are

as we have seen quite a bit of recent archival releases. I am very happy with all this new/old music,

as it expands the already rich history here with some further releases and none of these recent

releases show any sign of weaker songs. There is most certainly not a scraping the barrel idea

here. Is there more? Give it to us! Is this it? What a heritage!