PART I Flash and the Pan "Walking in the rain" 1978 In the 60s Harry Vanda and George Young became known as the Australian version of Lennon and McCartney with their band the Easybeats, a bunch of kangaroo-jumping Mods that whipped up a planetary storm with the hit "Friday on My Mind." In the 70s the boys helped Angus, George's younger brother, out by producing the first album of his band AC/DC. On the verge of the 80s, their testimony to New Wave was Flash & Pan. Bitchy and bucolic, just like "Walking in the Rain". The Earlies "Morning Wonder" 2004 Something you already knew: psychedelica is the music of the future. Together with the Flaming Lips, Granddaddy or Olivia Tremor Control, The Earlies are the most promising artists of this movement out of control. Scattered between Western Texas and Northern England, the band's members sometimes get together over the rainbow to honour, as they do here, the ritual powers of repetitive beats. Wilco "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" 2004 Wilco is the only band today to reconcile incorrigible Americana fans with inconsolable Lennon fans and the untiring fans of Sonic Youth. Here, Jeff Tweedy and his gang (with an indispensable Jim O'Rourke at the wheel) interlace the urban folk of Velvet Underground and the hypnotic rhythms of Can with some uncommon grace. Animal Collective "Leaf House" 2004 Curious pseudonyms such as Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deaken and Geologist make up Animal Collective, a polymorphic band from New York that prove that it is still possible to compose new forms of music with an acoustic guitar, vocals and three bells. This tribal choir deploys Shaman powers to carry us along, without falling into the Devandra Banhart hippy trap. Innovative and accessible, strange yet simple, this little number from the album "Sung Tongs" could just be the amber of a new utopia. Brooks "Red Tape" 2004 Andrew Brooks born in the turmoil of '79 was influenced by his father's collection of 'gay' records. He combines samples of Barbara Streisand with strange rythmic loops, he releases 12 inch records of deep on the Mantis label, but haunted by Berlin bohemia and images from the Soft Cell gay cabarets, his music begins to cross dress. Herbert was wise enough to sign Andrew on his Soundslike label. "Red Tape" is a left-field house tune where clarinets sound out the bells and where Eno and E-dancer dance….alone on the dance floor. Robert Wyatt "Shrinkrap" 1998 Soft Machine's ex-drummer is too often remembered by "Rock Bottom," an introspective and melancholy piece. "Shrinkrap" shows us instead a playful Robert Wyatt that takes over the flow of rap in a rather sensational jazzy trance. Originally recorded and released in 1991, the album "Dondestan", from which this track is taken, was revisited and remixed in '98 by a dissatisfied Wyatt. That's the version you're listening to. Caribou "Bees" 2005 Ex Manitoba, Caribou embodies today's ideal of a certain electronic music. Renewing its inspiration with the pioneers (such as Silver Apples), it frees itself of machines to develop a free and educated music, organic, but brainy. The minimalist psychedelic in "Bees" is a perfect example. Power to the pipe (pipeau). Turzi "Derrick Starter" 2005 Love child of Neu! and Morricone, the Frenchman Romain Turzi has composed his first ep, the aptly-named "made under authority". This opiate-coloured and oppressive ballad is a dream soundtrack for a slowed-down chase scene between Inspector Derrick and the forces of evil through the retro-futuristic streets of Milan. Vade retro satanas. Kevin Ayers "Soon Soon Soon" 1976 Original bass player for Soft Machine and central figure of the Canterbury school, Kevin Ayers has elevated hippy nonchalance to the level of art, a fact that will certainly not make him History. We couldn't care less, we just like Ayers for his humour and the marvelously lighthearted way he creates genial tracks such as "Soon Soon Soon". It is called elegance. Margo Guryan "California Shake" 2001 Destined to be a jazz pianist, Margo Guryan's future takes another direction the day she listens to "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys. This New York girl has celebrated a phantasmic California ever since through her music. After her one and only album (Take a picture 1968), praised by critics but ignored by the general public, she retires to soak in the Los Angeles sun. Only in 2000 were her unreleased records such as the timeless "California Shake" made available. Mazzy Star "She's My Baby" 1993 A lost gem from the mid 90s, Mazzy Star is still an enigma today. The duo kept quiet on the subject (lazy Hope Sandoval and indifferent David Roback), but so much the better. With three albums Mazzy Star managed to impose a supernatural vision of blues, like a hard drug with no equal. Loaded. André Herman Düne "Smalltown Boy" 2005 André Herman Düne is a member of one of today's best French bands: Herman Düne. Every morning wherever he wakes up in the world (he travels a lot), André eats tofu, drinks tea and records some tunes. He puts them together under themed homemade compilations, available on the web (http://www.hermandune.com). This overwhelming cover of "Smalltown boy" by Bronski Beat is one of his treasures. PART II François de Roubaix "Plongée de Glace" 1974 In France in the 1970s there was no petrol, but there was François Roubaix, one of the most brilliant composers of movie soundtracks. Encircled by keyboards in his home studio on rue de Courcelles, he was a real pioneer for electronic music. "Plongée de Glace" is a piece ordered for Captain Cousteau's television series on the Antarctic, which testifies to a double passion, sea and music. Cousteau turned the composition down; De Roubaix died the following year deep sea diving. Life is unfair. Cristian Vogel "Somewhere in the Waves, we will find you" 2005 Born in Chili, Christian Vogel escaped the Pinochet dictatorship in the 80s by moving to England with his family. He soon began experimenting with composition alongside Si Begg in the Cabbage Head Collective. He studied contemporary music at Sussex University in Brighton, where he met Jamie Liddel. Together they founded Supercollider. As a distant echo to the piece by Francois de Roubaix, this underwater fresco proves that the Chilean, exiled to Barcelona, is one of the rare contemporary producers of electronic music that avoids sacrificing emotions for sound design. The Emperor Machine "How To Build a Super Computer" 2004 Back to the future. Andy Meecham (half of Chicken Lips) has reactivated the time machine. Back to the 70s then, where the future was envisaged while tunes were played on keyboards with robotic rhythms. Can, Silver Apples, John Carpenter, Tangerine Dream and of course Kraftwerk were inventing their future : our present. Soft Cell "So (Extended)" 1982 Carried by the success of their cover of "Tainted Love" by Gloria Jones, Marc Almond and Dave Ball managed to make sodomy popular among students in 1981 via the international renown of their first album "Non-stop Erotic Cabaret". Their popularity grew even more a year later with the release of the remix collection "Non-Stop Ecstatic Music" from which the kinky "So" comes. Supermax "Lovemachine" 1977 At the end of the 70s, moustaches were mandatory in Frankfurt. Kurt Hauenstein wore his proudly, as he did his wiener-molding tight pants when he formed Supermax. It is fantasy crossed with hedonistic disco and an ideal cocktail of Chic's New York and Moroder's Munich. "Lovemachine" was a hit and gave everyone in Germany at the time the unstoppable urge to make love all over the place. It has lost none of its power. Isolée "Enrico" 2005 Rajko Muller, born in Frankfurt, was raised in Algeria. This explains some of the tracks on his first album "Rest", such as "Djamel et Jamshid" and "Beau mot plage" his hit (in homage to Bomo beach near Oran). His name remains associated with the minimalist scene in Germany, but his music is vibrant with a multitude of variations, hidden structures and poppy take-offs which make him an original man of the moment. "Enrico" proves that house lives on. Nico "Afraid" 1970 After escaping Velvet Underground, Nico's solo career embarked upon the path of failure. After a poetic fist album, "Chelsea Girl", she rids herself of both mentors and lovers (Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Lou Reed, Tim Hardin) and plunges alone into the gothic abyss "Marble Index". The movie director Philippe Garrel picks her up again and leads her to the wandering "cicatrice intérieure". Discovering love and desert inspires her to compose with John Cale a timeless and meditative album, "Desertshore" from which "Afraid" is taken. Her next album was called "The End". Ennio Morricone "Symphonie Pour l'Attentat" 1972 Of the 23 soundtracks composed by Ennio Morricone in 1972 (is that all!), this symphony, written for "l'Attentat" by Yves Boisset, is one of the master's best that is often forgotten. A demented fresco, with an orgy of paranoid sounds (no less than 17 minutes and 12 seconds of angst reproduced with cruel precision) testifies to the total genius of Morricone at the height of his artistic career. Silence is required. Skeeter Davis "The End of the World" 1963 Shooting star of country pop from the 60s, Skeeter Davis never had the same success as Peggy Lee or Patsy Cline. She was however queen for a day thanks to this hymn made to every broken heart. "The End of the World" is our way of bidding you farewell.