Ghedalia Tazartes - Repas Froid

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5...according to our Ant on Fri 05 Aug, 2011.

I only discovered previous works by this artist two weeks or so ago and it really twisted my head to say the least. Now this one comes, opening with what sounds like a French husband and wife having a massive domestic blow out. Then huge looped tape sounds offer up a trombone refrain from who knows where, still the voices disagree and it's very unsettling. I'm given the feeling I've stumbled across a part of someone's life that I shouldn't be experiencing. Then the sound of what I imagine it would sound like if I was to trash the Ikea furniture I was building. Total frustration at the lack of words in the instructions!!! Now it sounds like someone kicking in cupboards or wardrobes with some french dialogue pasted over the top. Then some tribal/ritual chants take over. I'm assuming these are from the artist's personal recordings. They get very hypnotic and then some crashing sounds take over like a very pissed off artist exiting a session of recording while we hear movements of chairs. Then just as I thought things could not be stranger...a child's voice emerges, singing and repeating. Meanwhile birdsong plays. Now it's very much unclear to me as whether the bird song is inclusive to this recording or an overdub but either way it's glorious...Aha, now it's the child talking and then a swift breeze through type sounds; channel hopping/radio/collage/plenty of chanting... I got totally tranced out for ages on this record and it's a good place to be so indulge fully!! All good. : )

An extraordinary combination of culled found and taped fragments juxtaposed against drums, field recordings and mystery noises, sound loops, birdsong, keyboards and emanations of his own throaty drones and voice propelled by hypnotic, ritualistic rhythms balanced on a razor sharp edge.

This is the complete work of Repas Froid; previously released on cd as brief tracks of source material and palette of various sounds. It includes archival and as of yet previously unreleased recordings from the late 1970s and early 1980s, strung together to form two long compositions.

A French musician of Turkish parentage, Ghédalia Tazartès is an uncompromising character who defies categorization. Born 1947 in Paris, is one of France's most idiosyncratic talents. He has spent over 30 years within musical practice and experimentation, letting his musical work wander from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. Utilising magnetic tape recorders into a rough collage and loose ethno-instrumental mulch, he paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker. He traces vague landscapes where the mitre of the white clown, the plumes of the sorcerer, the helmet of a cop and Parisian anhydride collide into polyphonic ceremonies.

The Lp is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 500 copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silk screened pvc sleeve with artwork by Kathryn Politis & Bill Kouligas.

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