Detailed Reviews [Pascal Comelade - 1983/2004 - "Back to Schizo"]

Prolusion. The French musician Pascal COMELADE is considered an adherent of electro acoustic post-modernist music and a follower of Heldon, Brian Eno, Michael Nyman, Robert Wyatt and Carla Bley. Personally, I only remember that he has been connected with Klimperei. This CD, "Back to Schizo", is a kind of "best of" compilation executed by Comelade himself by taking tracks from his first three LPs: "Fluence" (1975), "Parallelo" (1980) and "Sentimentos (1983), and two EPs. The man has also one CD, "Detail Monochrome", and two more EPs.

Analysis. In comparison with the monstrous number of tracks here, the disc's playing time is ridiculously short. The duration of most pieces ranges from one to one and a half minutes. To complement this negative picture, I have to mention that all the tracks are separated from each other by pause, and only four of them run more than two minutes. There is little composed music on this strange outing. All the Sequences are fragments of cycled solos (i.e. just sequences), and Parallels are made up of unsystematic sounds and noises, at times coupled with monotonously droning passages of synthesizer. Some of these sounds feature thundering rubber-like claps of an archaic drum engine. Well, I can call all this nonsense somewhat an avant-noise electronic post-minimalist etc sonic experiment, but not music. Richard Pinhas and Armand Miralles laid some eclectic guitar patterns over the dead synthesizer background on Fluence and Sentimentos-I respectively, without which the pieces would've been completely insipid. Another longer track, Longique du Sens, and also most of Ready-Made and Sentimentos are much in the vein of Klimperei's traditional repertoire, but are worse in my honest opinion. Toy instruments - toy music, extremely minimalist approach - primitive melodies: the stuff, which does not possesses anything attractive, at least in my eyes, and while this is music, it has nothing to do with Prog.

Conclusion. Maybe there was something I've failed to hear? I'd be happy to pay more attention to the compilation, but imagine you listening to an old, shabby vinyl disc! Yes, all the tracks have been transferred to the CD directly from LPs without remixing, not to mention a remastering! The fragmentary nature of the material and its extremely poor sound make it almost unlistenable. If Mr. Comelade wanted to make happy anyone else with his old recordings he had to make them more or less presentable.

VM: March 17, 2005