LOGOS

The first beautiful, intense and avant gardist effort from Igor Wakhevitch. "Logos" perfectly oscillates between modern classical music, organic electronic soundscapes and psychedelic rock. The album starts with a serie of interlocking cinematic, acoustic pieces that could be written as a score for theatre or contemporary dance performance. The amtospheres are nice, evocative and strangely abstract with haunted sustained drones, mysterious operatic female / male voices, manipulated tapes and a wide range of noises, drums, cymbals, violin echoes and electronic intermittences. "Danse Sacrale" is a tense & transcendant psychrock "trip" that culminates the album. Good guitar sections and monolithic, cavernous drums. This is the most progressive rock release of Wakhevitch with the alchemic "Docteur Faust". A so amazing listening!

Logos is the debut album from this bizarre, wonderful man Igor Wakhevitch. This album made up of stark, enigmatic and ritualistic percussion and choral chanting all put together on an avant-garde electrical base. The electronics don't usually stand out as obviously as they do on Wakhevitch's later albums; they're used here mostly to set a smooth and dark atmosphere, and to add accentuating experimental noises to the bleek choral and string arrangements. There is a wonderful marriage of 20th century classical and avant-garde experimentalism that would sound like one of A. Berg's slower vocal works performed under K. Stockhausen's direction, and doesn't sound much different from the material found on Hathor. There is occasional electric guitar on this album, but it doesn't stick out until the last couple of tracks, which almost serves as a foreshadowing to Docteur Faust.

Another piece of highly recommended avant-garde electronic album from Wakhevitch.

Another brilliant album from this obscure artist who's ratings are surprisingly high in the P.A. It's just a pity so few folk have heard of him.

The opener 'Ergon' sounds like that bit in 'The Ten Commandments' where the Red Sea is split in two by Charlton Heston from where he scarpers to safety. Full of reverbed female vocals that are enough to give you the heebie-jeebies.

Talking of reverb - there's a lot more of it in 'Mineral - Vegetal - Animal' with wailing male and female singing reminiscent of the monolith scene in 'Space Odyssey'. Sorry about the film comparisons, but they ARE accurate!

This ain't no cheapo first outing recorded onto a home cassette. It's well recorded and sounds BIG! The array of instrumentation is fantastic and there isn't a dull moment - it's far too intense for that.

There are very few pop or rock instruments utilised. From what I hear it's all orchestral drums, electronic whines and drones, treated classical instruments and hugely echoed vocals. Most of 'Logos' sounds like it belongs in a British 'Hammer' horror film.

Towards the end you get quite a lot of mid section Floyd 'Saucerful of Secrets' and 'Ummagumma'

Almost five stars marred somewhat by the one use of electric guitar near the finish.

I just wish I'd discovered this years ago. Great album.

An Olivier Messiaen pupil, Igor is one of the more esoteric artistes of the French 70's, with his legendary six avant-garde (almost musique concrète) albums, of which Logos is the first. This first project was actually the music for a modern ballet of Schmuki to be performd at the Avignon Festival of that same year. Oddly enough, despite the highly experimental nature of his music, all six albums of his were released on major labels, but I doubt that they hardly exposed to the mainstream public. His debut was released on the Pathé major label (for France, anyway) and featured an "atomic or molecular artwork, on top of also gusting the entire Triangle pop-rock group (also on the Pathé label) as a back up band.

Opening on a very 2001 Space Odyssey piece with eerie choirs and electronic music that could be labelled as "concrete", Ergon gives a good idea of Igor's fascination and fixation. The following piece describing the three reigns (Mineral-Vegetal and Animal) is no less abstract a description, when one could've imagined more organic soundscapes. Only sporadic drumming holds you back from sliding into insanity. If you can imagine Floyd's studio disc of Umma Gumma soundscapes on acid, you're getting close to Igor's fantasies. The HS Ignorabimus is closer to a space rock with a classical violin. The following Initiation (cut in two parts for time constraint reasons on the vinyl) is no more accessible, resembling to some bizarre sect initiation done by a drugged out shaman. The album-longest Danse Sacrale is definitely where you hear that Igor was thinking "rock" as well, because you finally get the full Triangl group for a few minutes, with Jeanneau's piano, Lorenzini's guitar and Fournier's bass on top of Prévotat's drums. They sound a bit like a cross of Magma and the future Art Zoyd band. The short closing Omega piece is an extremely doomy rock piece as well.

Please note that if you're familiar with Triangle's pop-rock discography, you'd have a hard time recognizing the same band. One can only dream about what the band would've achieved had they been more artistically ambitious rather than commercially ambitious. Anyway, Igor's Logos is a highly-lauded experimental affair, but it is mostly bound to remain in the shadow of obscurity. I guess the present album would b vn more interesting when viewing the ballet it came with, but it doesn't hurt the music if it stands alone.

Logos by Igor Wakhevitch reminds me of Tangerine Dream's Electronic Meditation - a dissonant spooky jam session whose lukewarm production values add a "found music" overtone to proceedings. It's like someone happened to catch this weird Igor-helmed cult in the middle of some sort of strange ritual and happened to have a tape recorder handy. As I understand it, this was the soundtrack to a ballet, and like other freakout dance tracks from the era such as Soft Machine's Spaced I think it loses something from not having the dancers there to perform for you whilst you listen to it; on its own, it lacks a certain frisson which some freakout albums from this period manage to capture and some, sadly, don't.

The French thickens

Talking about experimental albums from the past century and France - you're bound to wind up at the mad eccentricities of Igor Wakhevitch. With a musical upbringing many of us only can dream of, this cat studied under the majestic hands of both Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Schaeffer before the vastness of the outside world hit him over the head with a shovel: Stockhausen, Soft Machine, Varese, The Floyd - everybody was experimenting, trying to use the musical language in ways it had never experienced before.

One might be tempted to say, that Wakhevitch took this lingo evolution the furthest. Trust me, most people who encounter his music either run screaming for the hills with faces full of confusion and disbelief, or they start building large plinths on public squares in his honour.

Whereas most of the music claiming to have artistic leverage and refined haute couture trickery infused in its arteries more than often is based in ludicrous lyrics and mystical stage costumes, you sense that you're on an entirely different planet with Wakhevitch. His debut Logos is a sonic collection of poems reflecting a contemporary ballet's finer inner workings......This is stage blood, creaking window panes, dusty cobwebs vibrating to the age old world of the theatre. If this is a soundtrack to a ballet, I'd love to see the dancers....

The music is ritualistic and deeply fascinating. It shimmers and lurks with strange hovering almost static segments, where polyphonic musical voices pop up in the most odd of places. Unlike post rock where the crescendo is nigh on foreseeable, you DAAAAAAWWW get the DOOOOOUUMNM feeling BAAAAAAAAAAHHH with DOOOOOOUMM Igor that he seeks to highlight other moments in his music. It's perplexing at first - it even gets annoying - I seem to remember getting furiously angered with myself and the music, because it didn't behave as 'normal' music did. "AAAARGGGHHH!!!!!! Follow the Goddamn rules why dontjah!?!?!?!!"

I had long conversations with myself, trying again and again to prepare my mind to let go of its mental levies and let it all fall down. Surrender to the madness I say!!!! I succeeded in nothing however, and the feeling of being left on the side of the road every time I put the album on, only grew with subsequent attempts I had. I felt lost.

Some place around summer time, some 7 or 8 months after I'd burned it over to my I-pod and gladly forgotten about its existence, I obliviously pushed play whilst lying down on the beach. I think it was the sun that had blinded me, but I'm eternally grateful for its bright lights of the day. Nothing happened at first, mostly because I was expecting something different - but then at the flick of the switch the music ran over me with complete utter grace - a word I dared not associate with it the first time around. With the erratic movements of waves beneath my feet and the everchanging pulses of wind huffing and puffing at my parasol - Logos started to make sense.

Like a weird dream of reptiles and shadows a slow theatrical music emerges. Droning voices flickering on the air together with a delirious Saucerful of Secrets sheen that permeates the organs. The sudden jolts of choirs shooting up like involuntary bean-sprouts now feel more integrated and purposeful, and you see why it has to be this way. I finally understood the irregulars that needed to exist for the music to work properly.

It was like Zeuhl music had dropped its throbbing rhythms and melted into an old ancient electronic Indian chant. This is truly the stuff the Navajos call prog...

I believe Wakhevitch is a genius. With just under a half hours worth of music - Logos manages to interweave modern classical music into a ritualistic polyphony of metal hissing, choral magnitude, galloping percussions, musique concrete and fidgety jello-like shadings from the experimental rock world.

Before I stop, I'd like to mention that for some remarkable reason all Wakhevitch albums seem to have red music on them. When I hear his repertoire, almost instantly a ruby red colour starts to emanate from way back in my subconsciousness. Like a wound unattended it bleeds its way through the entire record leaving a strange morbid trail of just how far and wide I got with every bewildering listen.

Considered one of the lesser known underground geniuses of the 20th century, IGOR WAKHÉVITCH started out as a humble child of Russian immigrants who who settled in the south of France but rose to prominence at least n the 1970s amongst the world of the avant-garde. Born in 1948 in the town of Gassin, WAKHÉVITCH's attraction to music led him to become a child prodigy under the tutelage of French composer Olivier Messiaen and spent his teen years at the Conservatorie de Paris later finding guidance from Pierre Schaeffer. Inspired equally by the modern classical sounds of composers like Igor Stravinsky as well as the burgeoning psychedelic rock and jazz-fusion of the 1960s, WAKHÉVITCH's explorative nature landed him in the forefront of musicians exploring the amalgamating effects of merging the world of 20th century classical sounds with the sounds of progressive rock, electronica and psychedelia.

WAKHÉVITCH released seven albums throughout the 70s and also scored the role as chief composer for Salvador Dalí's opera "Etre Dieu" in 1974. Crafting a mishmash of sounds so weird and alienating, WAKHÉVITCH remained an outsider but found a cult following after he was included on Bible of weirdo music, namely the Nurse With Wound list composed by Steve Stapleton. After writing numerous compositions for dance schools and winning a slew of accolades for his musical inventiveness throughout the 60s, WAKHÉVITCH began releasing his own albums which began in 1970 with this debut LOGOS. The music was originally recorded for a Norbert Schmucki ballet which premiered at the Festival d'Avignon 1970. The album showcased WAKHÉVITCH's haunting darkness that forged a bridge between the orchestral, the psychedelic and the newer sounds that electronic instrumentation were offering.

A veritable intermingling of taped electronics and the psychedelic prog rock courtesy of the French band Triangle backing it up, LOGOS mixed hypnotic percussive beats with ghostly choral parts that once manipulated electronically and loaded with spliced recorded parts became the what sounds like thesoundtrack for a house haunting. In addition to the rock and electronic aspects, an uncredited classical section provides haunting violins and other instrumentation however the spectral choral vocals are what leave the most long lasting impression. The album itself is relatively short playing with a running time of only 33 minutes and features eight tracks that alternative between ethereal minimalist classical moments such as the opening "Ergon" and then gradually incorporates more rock elements which by the time the seventh track "Danse Sacrale" begins features more robust guitar parts and energetic drum rolls however even that track quickly nosedives into an avant-garde frenzy.

A true underground gem of avant-garde mind f.u.ck music, LOGOS is the equivalent of Pink Floyd's "Saucerful of Secrets" hooking up with a classical composer like Gyorgy Ligeti along with a psychedelic prog band (Triangle in this case). Add to that the obscure rarity given the album was limited to 500 copies and is impossible to find. Only a box set that features many of the original albums is accessible in physical form. A veritable journey into tripper's paradise, LOGOS was too freaky, too dark and too outside the parameters of even what was considered outsider music of the era to have made a significant impact. While classical purists will frown upon the liberties taken, for lover's of psychedelic rock and electronica, this one will simply fly over their heads as it features the tight-knit compositional structure of the abstract nature of 20th century classical albeit fortified with the more contemporary sounds that were emerging in the late 60s and early 70s.

LOGOS is utterly unique even within WAKHÉVITCH's own solo canon as it was primarily constructed as a classical ballet and had not yet committed fully to the world of prog rock and the newly emerging progressive electronic. A comparison with the following "Docteur Faust" will reveal LOGOS as a true anomaly that defies any comparisons. LOGOS truly is one of the darkest and most freakiest albums ever to have been recorded and the true soundtrack for an apocalypse. One listen and it's little wonder why Salvador Dalí, one of the greatest surrealists of all time chose WAKHÉVITCH to compose for his ambitions in the world of opera. This really is one of those unrecognized masterpieces of the era and a true highlight in the world of abstract outsider weirdo music that takes you on one of those alternative reality rides.

4.5 rounded UP!