LE JOUR OÙ LES VACHES...

After EB's stunning debut album, where the album's cornerstone was based on a remake of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant, overseen by Arlo himself, EB's second album is a rather different piece of music miles away from its predecessor, yet many of the facets of that album are still somewhat evident here. Of course, it's been well over three years since the debut album, but Le Jour Où Les Vaches. (the day where the cows.) is such a change that one has to wonder where EB got his musical paws into. EB's vocal style reminds me of beat poets such as Pete Brown and others, which of course necessitates a fairly good command of the French language to get the essence of this album, but you would still find the album rather interesting even if you know one single French word. This album's incredible music is much owed to the strings, arranged by one of Chanson Française's master in the genre, William Sheller, having often arranged Aznavour's superb strings.

It's rather amazing that in 74, EB was right on the dot in predicting the planet's woes, even offering a prophecy of soooo many kg of CO2 versed by your car's engine into our atmosphere some 35 years before it did become a preoccupation. Where EB goes wrong is he figures that mankind will have worried about this in the early 90's, when it wasn't too late. With two ex-Alice members and violin player Ripoche, Booz had chosen some of the best back up musicians, but by having singer extraordinaire William Sheller not only playing piano, but orchestrating the album, EB strikes gold, and adds a great choir section for a memorable (but unfortunately sole) intervention. While the opening side of this concept album had a Zeuhlian feel, the flipside has a more symphonic rock with plenty of strings, but even deeps in opera.

The album starts with a monologue about parental alienation in the first two tracks, then the album plunges into a spacey Zeuhl-type of music (Réveillons-Nous), as if Gong and Magma were sharing the same stage. But the gloomy lyrics sung in a sinister almost declamating tone make the album closer to Vander's tribe and ends fairly abruptly. With a child opening the stunning and grandiose Donne (give), EB takes a completely different dimension, a vast symphonic one where Booz sings like another rare (but outstanding) poet Gerard Manset (and a tad of Tim Buckley), which already is awesome, but with the absolutely delicious strings below enhancing the depth (excellent dramatic drum rolls from Doudou "Alice" Weiss) of the whole track. . The following "Je Ne Peux Pas Te Dire" (can't tell you) and "L'homme au milles clés" are both a bit in the same style, but there is an unsettling madness creeping in the lyrics and vocals, but also musically as the track slowly evolves from symphonic to crescendo to near chaos, which never comes as EB chooses to fade out. Angoulème (a mid-Southwest provincial city) and the title track are still different yet both enjoy Sheller's gifted string arrangements. The closing 8-minutes pastoral Nous Les Enfants (we, the children), starts with Hackettian guitar arpeggios, before soon going operatic, before veering paranoiac ala Buckley-style: you can just feel EB's thick layer of angst-laden madness into the closing section.

It's also amazing that EB's albums are still lacking a proper Cd reissue, and the fact that EB's vinyls are starting to command hefty prices, which is a pure shame because Booz's works merit a full and easily accessible exposition to find its much-deserved spot in the sunshine. Even if your French is not good, this album shouldn't be a deterrent, as the music is astoundingly beautiful, therefore not losing too much, because there isn't another album coming close to this album's strange universe. With your eyes closed.