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ÉLECTRONIQUE GUÉRILLAHeldonProgressive Electronic |
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This first album was definitely a slap in the face of most French rock fans much like Magma's debut had the same effect. But Heldon is nothing like Magma apart for the adventurous spirit of their respective music. Heldon concentrates on minimalism and electronic music and might be compared to Tangerine Dream where Eno and fripp would've joined up also. Throughout most albums , exc ellent and violent, passionate drumming is also of much interest. All albums save one have a very hypnotic, fascinating evolution of a small riff slowly but mercylessly metamorphosing itself constantly. Among the influences here would be Terry Riley , Philp Glass and other masters of the genre. This debut is not as accomplished as future albums (Rêve or Interface) but shows the genesis of one of the wildest artist featured in the Archives.
Much worth the investment and investigation .

The album opens with "Zind", which directly sets the atmosphere up with smooth electronic distortions to introduce the highlight of the record, "Back to Heldon". This track is really groundbreaking for its time and will transport you to another galaxy. Superposed waves of keyboards with floating guitar solos are epic and reminds by moments the end of PINK FLOYD's "Welcome to the Machine" (which will be recorded one year later!). The second part of the song is much more experimental, in the vein of KRAFTWERK's "Radio-Activity". Unique and mindblowing! "Northernland Lady" arrives as a quite ambient relaxing track with surprising sounds. The next track, "Ouais Marchais mieux qu'en 68", (Georges Marchais was a french politician) is rather guitar dominated and features the politician talking over a slow psychedelic riff. Strange... There comes "Circulus Vitiosus", the little brother of "Back to Heldon". Similar in spirit and sonorities to his brother, the tune is the most tortured track of the disc. It ends with "Ballade pour Puig Antich", featuring a small guitar theme over vaporous synthetizers effects.
"Electronic Guerilla" is one of the best albums from HELDON. With their first record, the band clearly establish themselves as true innovative musicians, differing completely from other musical directions that were taken by other electronic acts and in advance of their time. Strongly recommended to spacey and adventurous music explorers!

"Zind" is a fairly straight forward number with synth sounds coming and going while we get this constant hum. "Back To Heldon" opens with what sounds like a sequencer as spacey sounds flood the soundscape.This sounds really good. The guitar is making some noise as well. Interesting sounds after 5 1/2 minutes. "Northernland Lady" is the best of the first three tracks. We get this relaxed rhythm guitar as angular guitar from Pinhas comes in. Electronic sounds also fill out the sound.
"Ouais Marchais Mieux Qu'en 68" is where we get a lot of guests helping out including Patrick Gauthier on piano and synths. Guests also add some bass, drums, spoken words and more synths. It opens with drums and guitar as spoken words join in. When the words stop the elctronics come in.This contrast continues. Love the sound of this tune. "Circulus Vitiosus" builds and then these melancholic synths come in. Just an incredible sound here including the guitar. It gets pretty intense late. "Ballade Pour Puig Antich" opens with what sounds like steam letting off over and over as the electronics twitter.The guitar comes in gently. Fantastic !
This was an important Electronic album in France back in 1974, and Pinhas would go onto become the biggest star of this genre in his home country.

This debut is very much the effort of one man. Their leader and main composer Richard Pinhas: the head, brains and hands of the band. To depict the music that you can expect here is not easy: it isn't as experimental as the early "Kraftwerk" nor is it as spacey and cosmic as TD or Schulze.
The music is quite specific on its own and deserves full attention if you like sonic ambiences and weird conjunction of musical themes. I am not a deep fan of this debut, but one has to acknowledge that the French scene didn't produce a lot of similar bands in these remote days. Jarre being another one, but scoring much higher in the charts and playing a different type of music after all.
The first, and only, song with "vocals" is featured on the flip side of the original vinyl: "Quais Marchais, Mieux Qu' En 68": it is also the most accessible (if only this word can be applied to any of the tracks from this album). Weird text only understandable if you are fluent in French (and even so?).
This album is not easy to approach: somewhat minimalist, somewhat experimental ("Circulus Vitiosus"), but not at all commercial neither melodic for a ?cent. In other words: this album is challenging and will only attract the ones amongst you who are open to discover new paths of electronic sounds.
Three stars.


A few of the track titles boldly proclaimed his activism (one namechecked the head of the French Communist Party; another was dedicated to a Spanish anarchist recently murdered by the Franco government). But the music itself was even more rebellious, at least by 1974 standards: primitive electronica with (King) Crimson-colored guitar embellishment. Like Italy's Franco Falsini (main man of the band SENSATIONS' FIX) Pinhas was outspoken in his admiration of ROBERT FRIPP, sometimes to an almost parasitic degree. But his own musical style was actually closer aligned with the Krautrockers of the time, perhaps more so than a Frenchman would care to admit.
Instead of employing his synthesizer like a steroid-injected lead organ, Pinhas and crew used the new equipment more for texture and atmosphere, although here it sounds like they were learning on the job, while the tapes were rolling. Fully half the album shows evidence of overexcited knob twiddling, mostly during the two longer tracks: "Circulus Vitiosus" and the self- titled "Back to Heldon". By comparison, the understated guitars in "Northernland Lady" and "Ballade pour Puig Antich" hide their age remarkably well. Ditto the hypnotic monologue of 'Quais Marchais...etc", the only selection to feature a drummer.
It's safe to say the album isn't as fresh as it used to be, partly because the cybernetic repetition of all those sequencers was already becoming a cliché in 1974. But looking back from our current age of digital conformity there's still plenty to admire here, beyond the now somewhat charming naïveté of the technology itself. Age and distance may have blunted the album's political convictions, but here and elsewhere the music of Heldon anticipated modern trends in ambient drone culture by several decades.
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