EN FORME !!

FERDINAND RICHARD (born Hervé Richard) has had a bountiful and productive career not only as a founding member of the French avant-prog band Etron Fou Leloubain started in 1973 but as a member of a whole slew of bands including Gestalt et Jive and Bruniferd. Add to that he founded two record labels, Stupeur et Trompette! and AMI. While still in Etron Fou Leloubain, RICHARD released a few solo albums as well as in conjunct with the groups Ferdinand et les Philosphes and Ferdinand et les Diplomates. EN FORME!! was his 1981 debut.

Etron Fou Leloubain was one of the founding members of the Rock In Opposition movement along with Henry Cow, Univers Zero and similarly minded artists but as a solo artist FERDINAND RICHARD delved more into the dadaist jazz and art rock world of avant-prog with a twist of herky jerky zolo typical of early 80s post-punk bands along with the unconventional quirkiness of crazy artists like Frank Zappa and fellow French freakster Albert Marcoeur. This one is completely a French insider style of art rock as all lyrics, spoken and otherwise are completely in the French language.

EN FORME!! features the typical vinyl playing time of the 1980 timeline when this was released and features 13 tracks that are all on the rather short side with a couple tracks exceeding the five minute mark and many hovering or dipping below the three. The music is an interesting blend of fuzzy guitar chords, jittery jazzed out drumming, zolo infused post-punk grunginess and a distinct French singing style out of the Serge Gainsbourg chanson playbook but also not too far off from what Ange what doing a decade prior. RICHARD's vocals range from straight out singing to spoken word narration but often falls somewhere in between much like a Francophilic Leonard Cohen might have.

After this album RICHARD released his second album "En Avant" in 1983 before hooking up with Alfred Harth and his multinational avant-rock group Gestalt et Jive in 1982 all the while still in Etron Fou Leloubain and in 1991 released an album with Fred Frith titled "Dropera," which was an avant-prog opera of sort. As far as EN FORME!! is concerned, for non-French speakers this won't be very satisfying as it contains an abundance of spoken word dialogue and although the references to Zappa and Albert Marcoeur are valid, RICHARD doesn't come close to excelling to the level of those creative freakazoids. This is an interesting little artifact of the early 80s that sounds more like it emerged from the tail end of the avant-prog 70s but relies too much on spoken words segments and not taking the musical performances to the level that i want. Good but nothing more.