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avestin View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Emmanuel Booz
    Posted: October 13 2007 at 16:16
BOOZ, EMMANUEL
 
With Emmanuel Booz, the four studio efforts in his resume can’t help you pinpoint this musician’s style, and you are forced to appreciate his eclectic output and creativeness. It’s true that with each album, the sound changed but, moreover, within each album you face quite diverse influences that reveal his talent and his affection for varied sounds. There is also the avant-garde edge to his music. He did like to experiment, play with the listeners and tease them, but not to a point of becoming unlistenable or annoying. The assorted end result deserves the art-rock moniker.
His first release was actually the French version of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant - Au Restaurant D'Alice in 1969. However, our interest in his music begins with his 1974 album, Le Jour ou les Vaches. In this album, there is a special mood, and as said varied styles, some oddities and also a sort of theatrical approach and a tad of chanson Francaise. The arrangements and instrumentation on the album (the strings in particular) contribute much to the slightly melancholic and the somewhat “spacey/trippy” mood. In 1976 came out his album Clochard (Hobo) in which Joël Dugrenot plays bass. In 1979 arrived his chefs-d’œuvre – Dans Quelle Etat J’erre with its 3 lenghty tracks. Much more guitar oriented, and still the theatrical side is still there. Dynamic complex and engaging, changing often, this album is a very enjoyable ride. You also get a fair amount of electronic and spacey parts. The vocals range from regular singing to a sort of narrative style to fast and loud speaking. The focus here should be also given to the musicians which do a great work, whether it’s the bass or the drums and guitars. Jean-Louis Mahjun plays alto violin on Ode Aux Rats. When speaking of Booz, you’ll usually receive references to this album and for good reason. I find somewhat of a similar approach between this one and the release of the same year by Ma Banlieue Flasque. If you try just one of his albums, listen to Dans Quel Etat J'Erre!
Nowadays, Booz is an actor and has appeared in both French and American movies.
 
 
 
I have only Le Jour où les Vaches...  and the magnificent Dans Quel Etat j'Erre  (and I recommend both but especially the last one).
Of the two others, Au Restaurant d'Alice  and Clochard - has anyone heard them and recommend them? Are they worth tracking down?
 
 
Anyway, at least for his last album, worth getting.
 
 
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2007 at 16:18
I listened, once, to "Dans Quel Etat j'Erre" and i was very impressed. Experimental, even avant-gardist, still progressive with a special touch and with a deep music in all its corners and moments. Terrific. Clap

I want more. Embarrassed
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2007 at 18:44
Originally posted by Ricochet Ricochet wrote:

I listened, once, to "Dans Quel Etat j'Erre" and i was very impressed. Experimental, even avant-gardist, still progressive with a special touch and with a deep music in all its corners and moments. Terrific. Clap

I want more. Embarrassed
 
Well said and I share your sentiments.
 
He too, at least in Etat J'erre has some of the theatrical characteristics of French rock-progressif which I find so lovely in the various bands manifesting it in their music (both old and new).
 
But in this album, the main virtue is in its eclecticistic nature, the varied sounds and styles incorporated into it and the melodiness and accessibility of it all, while you could suppose it wouldn't necessarily be the case.
 
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2007 at 19:27
Bumpy Bump....
 
This should be re-issued.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2007 at 21:28
 I own 2nd, 3rd, and 4th albums. He was one of the most creative progressive singers in 1970s! Anant prog fans must listen his music. 2nd album Le Jour Ou Les Vaches ... is my most favorite French prog album. Great!!Wink
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2007 at 21:31
Originally posted by honganji honganji wrote:

 I own 2nd, 3rd, and 4th albums.
 
What do you make of Clochard?
 
Originally posted by honganji honganji wrote:

He was one of the most creative progressive singers in 1970s! Anant prog fans must listen his music. 2nd album Le Jour Ou Les Vaches ... is my most favorite French prog album. Great!!Wink
Really? Good to know. I'll probably give that more listens, as I tend more towards Etat J'erre...
 
 
 
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2007 at 06:05
Originally posted by avestin avestin wrote:

[QUOTE=honganji] I own 2nd, 3rd, and 4th albums.
 
What do you make of Clochard?
 
Cochard is unlucky album. 2nd and 4th are too great!! In comparison with two greatest prog albums, Clochard is apparently weak. It is inevitable. However it doesn't mean Clochard is boring. If you don't think about them, it keeps more than average rating. It has been frequently estimated ''somber album''. Of course, 2 peaks make Clochard feel as somber. Unlucky....Cry  
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 21 2007 at 06:47
excellent artist
 
I'm still discovering him, though
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 04 2008 at 11:29
Excellent review from Hugues:
 
BOOZ, EMMANUEL — Dans Quel Etat j'Erre
Review by Sean Trane (Hugues Chantraine)
Special Collaborator Prog-Folk Specialist

4%20stars 4.5 stars really!!!

Just by its title (roughly translating to: In What Condition Am I Drifting), the experienced proghead knows this album will be an outstanding and astounding chef d’oeuvre, but by all means don’t go expecting anything close to what Booz (he’s dropped his first name) did before, even if one can tell the artiste’s paw is still called Emmanuel. As there is almost 4 years between the two albums, the cast of musician is obviously quite different, made from a bunch or studio haunts and you’ll probably only recognize Didier Lockwood and JL Mahjun, but likely nobody else, unless being French. The music is extremely different than his first three albums, lost somewhere heavy space rock (think Continental Circus Gong) and some Canterbury (think early solo Hillage) with plenty of tape montage twisting the music rather complex. Fasten your seatbelt; there is a rough and complex but very enjoyable ride up ahead that the astounding artwork can only hint at.

Opening up on the sidelong Ode Aux Rats (ode to rats) with a toilet flush and raw guitars, the vocals take on a silly but sinister tone, depicting the lowest human instincts, EB yelling and puking his rage and attitude like a punk would over a Hillage-sounding guitar, itself riding on a savage punkish Gong theme (think Floating Anarchy, here), a weird Zappa comic passage, and constantly changing metres. By the ninth minute, the track calms down (a bit anyway) on a spacey but not steady ground, where different synth layers intertwine and EB resumes his anger and hatred of dumb rats attitude, but he’s not spitting it out anymore as if he doesn’t believe in denouncing the cause anymore, finishing on a resounding death throe, with synths layers lingering on for its burial.

As you just sat down after the needle hit the wax of the flipside, glass breaks and most of you will jump out of your seat when you’ll hear that your cassette tapes is about to get destroyed until you’ll realize that there is nothing wrong with your turntable. Indeed a shocking entrance to the 10-mins Symphonie Catastrophique, followed by the no-less disturbing almost screaming and filtered voice of EB over late 70’s twee synth lines, but the track settles into a wild brutal groove reminiscent of early Gong over a declaiming and accusatory text, followed by a wild Hillage-like guitar solo. In the closing section comes a very mechanical rhythm dictated by an almost inhuman choir section. The closing Armoire Et Persil (cupboard and parsley) starts on distant thunder and builds up slowly on crowd noise, drum rolls and all a sudden a synth lines gets the ball running, releasing the Hillage/Hackett-like guitar and EB’s vocals and his usual madness. Halfway through the track, EB pays homage to Jacques Brel (obviously by looking at his biting and vitriol-laden lyrics, EB is a fan of the giant Brel) by mentioning in a single text a good deal of his best work. The track ends with the same crowd noises.

While a correct command of French is advisable, it’s not as essential as it would be on Clochard, but this last album is not an easy listen, suffering from an approximate production. But let not these particularities discourage you from acquiring this awesome album, if you love a challenge, this one will be for you.



Posted Monday, February 04, 2008, 08:34 EST
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