ALTAÏS

It never ceases to amaze me how many French bands followed in the footsteps of the legendary Magma and jumped onto the zeuhl bandwagon only to exist for a mere blip on the timeline and fall into obscurity. Many of these bands either released a single album and some didn't even get the chance to release anything at all. While the 70s saw its fair share of zeuhl bands emerging, the 80s generated a darker, more angular group of artists who took the music into more experimental realms.

ALTAÏS from the Normandy region of France was one of many such bands that haunted the French underground. This band that consisted of Sandrine Fougere (vocals), Philippe Goudier (vocals, percussion), Patrick Joliot (drums, percussion), Isabelle Nuffer (vocals, piano, synthesizer), Michelle Puttland (synthesizer) and Jean-Marie Sadot (bass) never released a complete album but did manage to squeak out one amazing 3-track vinyl EP that appeared in 1986.

This band was existed on the darker side of the zeuhl spectrum and although those instantly recognizable Magma inspired bass grooves and zeuhl bombast is immediately apparent, this band like many others of the era crafted more haunting atmospheres in a manner that was probably best represented by the phenomenal releases of Shub-Niggurath which crafted a style of eerie atmospheric zeuhl which was the antithesis of 80s commercial music.

With only three tracks this EP barely gets fired up before its over but it definitely ranks high on my list of zeuhl creations due to the eerie haunting mood of the mere 14 minutes of playing time. Opening with the spectral vocal works of Sandrine Fougere, the opening title track (yep, "Altaïs" by ALTAÏS on the EP titled ALTAÏS!) generates a beefy bass groove but never loses that ethereal otherworldly effect. The longest track on board this one adds a few curve balls including a Halloween ball type of vocal interaction while fortifying the heft with that martial rhythmic drive.

"Promenade" sort of connects with the opening track but offers a more avant-prog approach in the Henry Cow sense of angular instrumental workouts without any vocals at all. Hypnotic grooves are embellished by creepy tones and timbres with rather frightening scales-in-opposiiton on various instruments. The closing "Gravitation Zero" is a short 2-minute space drift with chanted drones and nebulous progressive electronic sounds out of the Klaus Schulze playbook. Many vocalists join in and create a very creepy conclusion to a dark forbidding three-song run. This last piece would certainly make an excellent horror flick soundtrack sequence.

Practically lost in the vaults for decades, this tiny artifact was rescued by the admirable Zeuhl Soleil label which released the split album "Archives - Concerts été 1983 / Altaïs" in 2015 which featured five live tracks from the band Apsara along with the three tracks from ALTAÏS. I absolutely love this short little musical freakery! This is my kind of creepy dark eerie dread music and i really, really wish that ALTAÏS could've at least released a full album's worth but that was not meant to be and what we are left with is this tiny remnant of the 1980s French underground that can only hint of what could've been. Excellent stuff here!

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