Jean Claude Vannier - L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches (1972/2006 Remastered Expanded)
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Album: Jean-Claude Vannier - L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches (Remastered Expanded Edition)
Released: 1972 (2005)
Genre: Art-, Jazz-Rock, Avant-Prog
Finders Keepers / B-Music - FKR001CD
"This kind of record could not be made today: who would pay for this brilliant suite of instrumental concrete madness?" - JIM O'ROURKE (SONIC YOUTH)
The debut release from Finders Keepers Records, we present the seminal 1972 album from Serge Gainsbourg’s right-hand man Jean-Claude Vannier. Recorded during the same sessions as Gainsbourg’s highly acclaimed masterpiece "Melody Nelson" it follows in a similar avant-garde rock-opera vein. "L’Enfant Assasin Des Mouches" (The Child Fly-Killer) is a supernatural tale written by Gainsbourg depicting the journey of the young child travelling through a nightmarish "Fly Kingdom". Vannier narrates the story with sparse music concrete sounds coupled with choirs, funky beats, cowbells, wah-wah guitars and ethnic strings. Comparisons could be made with some of Frank Zappa’s "Hot Rats" material and Alain Goraguer’s creepy "Le Planet Sauvage". - Album Description, Amazon
The seminal 1972 album from Serge Gainsbourg’s right-hand man Jean Claude Vannier. Recorded during the same sessions as Gainsbourg’s highly acclaimed masterpiece "Histoire De Melody Nelson" it follows in a similar avant-garde rock-opera vein.This CD (The Child Fly Killer) is a supernatural tale written by Gainsbourg depicting the journey of the young child travelling through a nightmarish 'Fly Kingdom'. Vannier narrates the story with sparse music concrete sounds coupled with choirs, funky beats, cowbells, wah-wah guitars and ethnic strings. Comparisons could be made with some of Zappa’s 'Hot Rats' material and Alain Goraguer’s creepy 'Le Planet Sauvge'. At the time this was released as a promo only in ridiculously small numbers (around 100) and is regarded as the Holy Grail among French psych and prog collectors. Also included on the CD are the obscure funk instrumentals taken from equally rare 7" issued to accompany the T.V drama series"Point D’Interrogation". - Freak Emporium
"It's the holy grail of psychedelic orch-rock, a crazy concept LP about a small boy who drowns enormous sentient flies in a lake of jam while an array of alarm clocks, a ghostly 140-voice choir and random bursts of accordian create aural mayhem... With the proper release, 33 years late, of "L'Enfant", Vannier finally emerges from Gainsbourg's shadow." - MOJO
Rarely does a record hit you the way L’Enfant Assassin Des Mouches will. The work of French orchestral architect Jean-Claude Vannier, the man responsible for the strings on Serge Gainsbourg’s timeless L’Histoire de Melody Nelson, this timeless record defies any simple tags that attempt to explain it. Trying my best to do so, it’s an exotic, psychedelic explosion of crushing strings, fluttering guitars, freak beats and skronking brass of all types... and that’s just scratching the surface. A treasure chest filled with moments screaming to be sampled, it’s no wonder hip-hop hounds have hailed it a source of inspiration, and the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Jim O’Rourke and David Holmes, who all grace the album cover with their drooling praise, find it a work of many wonders. Dug out of the dusty crates by Twisted Nerve impresario and ardent DJ Andy Votel, this little known soundtrack created for an imaginary film (Child-Fly Killer) has finally been updated with two additional tracks. By comparison, Vannier’s involvement with Gainsbourg’s music feels restrained; L’Enfant is the sound of a man’s madness unfurling in brilliant Technicolor clarity. The acidic guitar solos will melt your mind, the cinematic drama will accelerate your heart rate and those blessed gospel choirs will save your soul. Rarely is an album so outlandishly whimsical, yet so easy to love; this is a carnival of absurdity and one of the greatest things you’ll ever hear. I’m not kidding. - Cam Lindsay, Exclaim! Canada's Music Authority
Jean Claude Vannier is a French Composer /arranger and most famous for his fantastic arrangements for Serge Gainsbourg's 'Melody Nelson'. In 1972 he composed a long suite for Rock Orchestra, percussion, a string qatuor, a brass section and a choir. Once recorded he played it to his friend Serge Gainsbourg, who wrote a little story inspired by Maurice Ravel's 'L'enfant et les sortileges', about a kid that kills the king of flies and is punished. Unfortunately the record never saw the light of day and had to wait up to 2003 when Vannier finally could release the record.
Now don't judge the record by his cover, this is not a record for kids! The record is 200% Prog, a mixture of Magma (dark brooding athmosphere with a heavy bass line Zappa , for the extraordinary percussion work plus some exotic inspired string arrangements (arabic scales) and some more lighthearted melodies + assorted soundeffects.A Prog masterpiece! - Prog Recommendations/Featured albums : Jean Claude Vannier
The soundtrack to your strangest-ever evening in. It's prog! It's easy listening! It's jazz! It's mental! The spaced-out kitchen-sink production jumps from sitars and brass bands to celestial choirs, synthscapes and wah-wah wigouts, snapping from waltz time to shattering pots and pans along the way - RIP & BURN
Vannier scored the arrangements to Serge Gainsbourg's 1971 classic 'Histoire de Melody Nelson' before recording this; 'The Child Assassin of the Flies'. Judging by his intense psych-funk-choral vision, he is the 'French David Axelrod', albeit Axelrod in an insane asylum. Bells ring, people mumble and yes, flies buzz, while the music's dizzy extremity recalls such European astro-travellers as Aphrodite's Child - Q MAGAZINE
Celebrity endorsed discs too often tend to veer between utter claptrap or deeply average music elevated way beyond its level by virtue of extreme rarity. With names like Jim O'Rourke, Jarvis Cocker and David Holmes plastered all over the front you may start to think this might be something different. And you'd be right, this fantastic slab of 70’s exotica from Jean Claude Vannier is the kind of album they most definitely don’t make ‘em like anymore. It has a picture of a naked guy on a beach on the cover ferchrissakes, how could it fail?.
Vannier was most famous as Serge Gainsbourg’s arranger on the classic Histoire de Melody Nelson. There he managed to seamlessly integrate Gainsbourg’s louche vocals with moody string arrangements and funky rock backing. L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches takes that sound to its extreme conclusion in a suite of instrumentals that runs the gamut of out there styles, cramming strings and choirs against funk backbeats, eastern melodies, clattering percussion, psych wig outs and music concrete.
It’s like getting a quick glimpse of another universe, one where the worlds of popular and experimental music have collapsed in on each other: Where the chopped up found sounds and abrasive tone clusters of Edgard Varese and Pierre Schaeffer sit next to acid guitars: where Harry Partch’s microtonal percussion is welded to blaring horns: where the rules of standard composition and arrangement are bent out of shape, thrown off course by pointillist, pizzicato strings or sudden juxtapositions of music concrete to end up in insane waltzes or full-on choral blow outs - White Noise Reviews
Jean-Claude Vannier is the unsung French hero behind countless string-laden records for other artists. Although he's often associated with Serge Gainsbourg's productions (he arranged L'Histoire De Melody Nelson), Vannier also released solo material showcasing his unique arrangement skills. L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches (Child Assassin Of The Flies) is lazily lumped into the concept album bracket by those who haven't heard it concept meaning 'will scare the unwary and appeal only to people who like ELO'. There's some truth in this: it's thoroughly dark listening. But ELO fans will be very disappointed.
Over a leisurely 45-minute stroll, Vannier scratches beneath the shiny gloss of popular French music, revealing a stark monochrome of musical meltdown: the opening sounds of distant church bells and footsteps barely hint at what lies beyond. Alongside psychedelic attitude and classical musings married to Eastern sounds, sky-high strings and flowing jazz provide the soundtrack to a sojourn that never pauses to look out the window. Choirs, children's voices and electronically-enhanced atmospheres tug you deeper into a vortex of sounds. Musique concrete could never have been so all-encompassing, yet contradictory - RECORD COLLECTOR MAGAZINE
The newly launched B-Music affiliated reissue label Finders Keepers has been something of a vinyl collector's dream, especially for those who've awaited it's delayed arrival since rumours spread of it's formation last year.
As the label's epic first release, the chosen subject is sometime Serge Gainsbourg collaborator Jean-Claude Vannier. Vannier was responsible for assisting with Gainsbourg's most respected and inspiring album 'Histoire De Melody Nelson', arranging the strings on the influential masterpiece.
'L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches' is a concept album like no other; a soundtrack created for an imaginery film entitled 'Child Fly-Killer', reissued here in it's original glory and featuring Gainbourg's strange, bit fitting sleeve notes that were penned after Gainsbourg heard this disturbing music.
'L'Enfant...' is a genre-twisting and thought provoking pyschedelic rock-opera; the sublime piano of 'Danse Des Mouches Noires Gardes Du Roi' slides into the schizophrenic child samples of 'Les Garde Volent Au Secours Du Roi', and the opening horn-heavy, wah guitars and impressive beats conflict with the broken detuned noise of the inspiring title track. The latter of which, sounds like a bull let loose upon an instrument shop.
A musical experience like you'll have never encountered before, taking nods to jazz, hip-hop, orchestral, funk, ambience and experimental rock along the way. Only a label with as much balls as Finders Keepers would release an album so absurdly eclectic and astonishing in this day and age - AngryApe
rance has had a long and undeserved bad reputation when it comes to pop. One of the primary reasons is that French pop continually mixes codes and doesn’t aspire to authenticity. Listen to a mid-sixties Jacques Dutronc song and you will hear disparate elements brought together-a chanson vocal style, fuzz guitar, military drums playing a soul beat. Where a song by an English group of the time like the Rolling Stones works to be heard as part of a tradition, even if one from another country, the French music is like an assemblage in which the separate parts are still clearly visible.
Although this tendency in French popular music has led to its dismissal outside France in the oft repeated, and little examined, claim that the French just ‘don’t get’ pop, it is now what has led to its rediscovery and belated appreciation. In a world where sampling, interpolation, ironic appropriation and genre straddling are the norm, this approach begins to seem natural and in tune with what has become the dominant mode of cultural production. It now makes sense that this release of an obscure 1972 French instrumental concept LP comes with a cover sticker full of hip celebrity plaudits as the LP inflates the bolted together bricolage approach to a macroscopic scale.
Vannier began his career recording Arab musicians before working with maverick sixties pop stars like Brigitte Fontaine, Michel Polnareff and, most famously, Serge Gainsbourg. He collaborated initially with Serge on film scores before arranging Gainsbourg’s paedo-funk masterpiece L’Histoire de Melody Nelson. Following Nelson Vannier was given the chance to make a record of his own by a music publishing company aiming to break into the LP market and L’Enfant Assassins des Mouches was the result.
Although ostensibly a concept album, each track being accompanied by a gnomic text from Gainsbourg that eventually tells an Edgar Allen Poe like story of a war between a child and a fly, there is little in the way of continuity or repeated themes. Instead the key pleasure of the album lies in its discontinuities and the continuous invention of the combinations of sound presented. The album begins with musique concrete, with the sound of the tolling of bells, traffic on a road and the striking of a match, but the influence of concrete composition can be heard throughout in the disorientating cuts, absurd contrasts between tracks and the extreme dynamic shifts, which the remastering on this CD is thankfully good enough to keep. The transitions between and within pieces are almost as jarring as those on The Faust Tapes.
The structure also has the feel of a DJ mix tape, something compounded by the sounds on offer-crunchy drums that often move with the heavy lope that appeals to hip-hop producers, descending chord sequences of the type that Portishead jacked from Isaac Hayes, insolent lounge piano and woozy horn blur that reshapes itself into modernist dissonance. These are enveloped by Melody Nelson-esque choirs and molasses thick strings, apparently created by a multitracked quartet. This is an album that is still modern in form and execution but whilst the post-hip hop musics that it could be compared to almost inevitably even out all difference in a thick fug of blunt smoke, here the sound is red raw and dripping violence. - Patrick McNally, Stylus Magazine
Composer and producer Jean-Claude Vannier has spent much of the past few decades writing scores for French television and cinema, most of which have gone largely unheard outside Europe. Along the way he has also worked with pop artists such as Brigitte Fontaine and Francoise Hardy, but he remains most widely celebrated for his lavish arrangements on Serge Gainsbourg's classic jailbait concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson. Throughout his work, Vannier has displayed a fearless ambition to communicate a coherent narrative, primarily-- or even exclusively-- through his carefully programmed music. And never were Vannier's grandiose ambitions given freer reign than on his jawdropping 1972 solo debut L'Enfant Assasin des Mouches (The Child Assassin of the Flies). On this bizarre and astonishing album, which B-Music has now given its first official domestic release, Vannier uses every weapon in his considerable arsenal to craft a turbulent soundscape that deftly mirrors the endless commotion and confusion so peculiar to childhood.
Originally made available in only 100 promo copies, L'Enfant Assasin des Mouches has long been the stuff of legend amongst serious vinyl collectors, and it isn't difficult to hear why. In conducting the album's unruly pastiche, Vannier seems equal parts Van Dyke Parks and Carl Stalling, drawing impulsively upon multiple classical and soundtrack traditions, sleazy Euro-funk, Middle Eastern modalities, proggy hard rock, and what sounds like the full sound effects library of a large radio theater troupe. The piece's loose narrative structure is provided in the liner notes, written after the fact by Gainsbourg. This macabre little libretto-- which involves a young, fly-torturing child who receives his just desserts when lured down into the underground fly kingdom-- might be screwy enough to make Tommy read like Ibsen, but it does provide a suitably dramatic context for Vannier's violent, often jarring musical juxtapositions.
It seems a great understatement to say that L'Enfant Assasin des Mouches is exactly the sort of extravagant 1970s period piece that simply couldn't get produced today, even if someone had the studio resources and the sheer chutzpah to try. Without access to any of today's sampling technology, Vannier was forced to make all of his wild stylistic leaps in multi-tracked real time with real musicians-- employing a string quartet, the Jeunesse de France choir, a full horn section, and special effects ranging from billiard balls to a model helicopter. By using these live sound sources, Vannier was able to give the piece an impression of enhanced physical space and mass, as evident on the opening "L'Enfant La Mouche Et Les Allumettes" which shifts abruptly from an audio verite intro of traffic and tolling church bells into a queasy, vertigo-inducing fog of reeds and roiling percussion.
Later, on the majestic "Danse Des Mouches Noires Gardes Du Roi", Vannier combines lush, Morricone-like orchestrations and jazz piano in a manner that suggests something of the child's ability to retreat unseen into the world of imagination, an effect further amplified by the playful calliope of "Danse De L'Enfant Et Du Roi Des Mouches". Soon, however, events take a darker cast on "Mort Du Roi Des Mouches", with the protagonist's unwholesome treachery effectively conveyed via the intrusion of raunchy wah-wah guitars and overcast prog-rock atmospherics. By contrast, the closing miniatures "Le Papier Tue-Enfant" and "Petite Agonie De L'Enfant Assassin" appear tranquil and practically organic. The flies in their kingdom have apparently chosen to celebrate their eventual victory by indulging in a brief interlude of flute and French cafe accordion, bringing the tumultuous album to a remarkably peaceful conclusion, as though the world has been returned to a more natural state of order in the child's absence.
The music on L'Enfant Assasin des Mouches can often seem so agitated and chaotic that it can become difficult to discern the figure of Vannier himself, unless the meticulously balanced discord can itself be taken to be his true signature. Occasionally the clouds do part enough to seemingly catch a recognizable glimpse of the artist, as when the choral passages of "Les Gardes Volent Au Secours Du Roi" provide a brief echo of Melody Nelson's "Cargo Culte". By and large, however, Vannier best expresses himself by drawing hidden links between outwardly incompatible musical vocabularies, a strategy later to be reflected in the syncretic concepts of artists like Matmos, dj/Rupture, or Matthew Herbert. That Vannier was able to do so with such a high degree of melodicism, manic invention, and a contagious sense of wonder seems just so much extra frosting. - Pitchfork Record Review
A collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches (The Child Fly-Killer) is one of those releases that you really have to hear to believe. Originally released back in 1972, this French "pop" album is one of the most strange, yet oddly-compelling things that I've heard in some time. Vannier and Gainsbourg worked together on several releases, including some film scores and the more popular L’Histoire de Melody Nelson, but this collaboration between the two is truly the most trippy.
Containing everything from musique concrete to blistering psych-rock freakouts to glorious symphonic pop and even carnival-esque moments, the album is even blended together with even more experimental segues that include everything from found sound samples to avant garde theatrics. I guess one should expect no less when the written text accompanying the music deals with a child who stumbles upon a land ruled by flies, only to kill their leader and then finally be killed in revenge by the flies themselves.
Album opener "L'Enfant La Mouche Et Les Allumettes" starts with the clanging of bells, the striking of a match, shuffling movement, and traffic noise before morphing into something that shifts between strutting, funky rock and horn-driven playfullness. "L'Enfant Au Royaume Des Mouches" is even more strange, with bombastic drums and dirty guitars riffing over vibes while a huge chorus adds even more soaring dynamics. As if that weren't enough, things shift dramatically again on "Danse Des Mouches Noires Gardes Du Roi" as the piano-driven orchestral rock track sounds like much more typical french pop of the time.
It simply doesn't rest from there, and while the constant changes might seem a bit maddening to some, the release keeps tugging at you throughout with what are simply outstanding arrangements and instrumentation. "Le Roi Des Mouches Et La Confiture De Rouse" adds some eastern instrumentation to the symphonic pop stew, making for a heady track that melts into clambering alarm noises and playground noises while "Pattes De Mouches" is all freaky horrorshow plucked strings, chopped-up horns and choral moans. At times, the release truly sounds like it could easily be music pulled from the soundtracks of six or so completely thematically different films, and yet that's part of the joy of listening to the release as it keeps you guessing throughout. Endlessly inventive, sometimes abrasive, and at other times downright hilarious, L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches is one of those releases that I'm glad has been saved from the forgotten record bins of lore. - Jean-Claude Vannier - L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches - almost cool music review
In recent years the resurgence of sixties and seventies gallic pop, once known as Ye-Ye music, has escalated beyond an inter-stellar dizzy-height. What might have been a waning, embarrassing genre destined for a shelf life/death gathering dust amongst the Eurovisions of yesteryear, the 'jerk-beat1 psychsploitation of the latter day French-disco has quickly found new fioor-space in some of the most credible night-spots in London and Japan. Without a shadow of doubt, the flagship LP with best odds on becoming a discerning household item is the album 'HISTOIRE DE MELODY NELSON' by one Serge Gainsbourg. An inimitable, 45 minute concept LP handcrafted by a bass-driven psychedelic rock-groop and a heaven-sent, 1001 string orchestral and choral symphony After one listen the album has left music lovers, from Hip-Hop producers to progressive rock aficionados crying out for more and more, but musically 'Melody Nelson' has always been a record in a league of its very own. Suitably, rumours amongst French record dealers about a "Rare Melody Nelson follow-up LP" became a legend of psychedelic-folk-lore. Further Chinese-whispers about 'Melody Nelson's out-takes being used create a promo-only experimental rock LP' left sample hungry producers and DJs in turmoil.....For those in the know, however, the answers to these mysteries lay flat between the anonymous gatefold sleeve of an undiscovered conceptual album bizarrely entitled "L'ENFANT ASSASSIN DES MOUCHES" by a custom-built avant-rock entourage called 'Insolitudes'. The rocking-horse manure treasure-hunt began. The seldom-sung musical arranger for Melody Nelson has since become one of the most enigmatic names in French-funk, lorded by many as 'The French David Axelrod' Jean-Claude Vanniers name is the lesser-spotted, tell-tale seal of quality when it comes to crate-digging 'en Français' Born in 1943, in the midst of a bomb scare, a self taught musician and self-exclaimed "bad engineer", Jean-Claude ran into trouble after being demoted from an early session at a commercial recording studio; as punishment he was made to record music for Arabic clients. The punishment, however, was greeted with open arms and gave J.C.V. his first opportunity to experiment with ethnic musicians. Vannier would then travel to Algiers to play piano in hotels as alternative entertainment, "I had to sign a contract as a dancing-girl because the manager didn't have a live music contract". When he arrived back in France he was given a unique opportunity to arrange music for an exciting new avant garde cabaret performer called Brigitte Fontaine, these recordings soon became the album 'Brigitte Fontaine Est... Folle". Vannier, who was never allowed an education in music, picked up his rudimentary skills listening to arrangements by George Martin, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach and French flute player and good friend Roger Bourdin as well as Stravinsky and Bartok, he would also learn tips from cheap self-help music manuals called "Que sais-je?". As a composer Vannier's eclectic tastes in Jazz, Baroque, Klezmer, Oriental Music and Rock forged a unique and unorthodox approach to his symphonies. Unlike other up-tight arrangers, Vannier had a great appreciation of alternative culture and amateur and non-musical methods, I've always been interested by the wrong side of the music, the wrong notes." he explains "I love beginners, recorders and school orchestras. It was great when musicians made mistakes". This maverick attitude won Vannier a healthy reputation amongst film makers (scoring Jacques Poitrenaud's 'Mais Qu'est-Ce Qui Fait Courir Les Crocodiles?') and young French pop-stars riding the waves of the up and coming Ye-Ye scene, such as Johnny Halliday arid Michel Polnareff. Within a year the Vannier family tree had turned into a small forest and the 'J.C.V ' C.V read like a who's who (and who's cooler than who) of Gallic pop. It wasn't iong before Jean-Claude would meet the coolest customer of al! French music, who was now shopping for a new arranger to help him with a weighty schedule composing film music.
The first collaboration between Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vannier was the soundtrack for a film about the active mind of a young painter. Robert Benayoun's 'Paris N'Existe Pas' was one of many films in which Gainsbourg was hired as a principal actor as well as score composer. From-here-on-in a creative relationship burgeoned and J.C.V. would accompany Serge on some of his most acclaimed, and sought after, musical adventures. J.C.V. would compose a 45 single, and reams of commercially unreieased music, for Pierre Grimblat's 'Slogan', the film in which Serge would historically fail in iove with his delightful co-star Jane Birkin. Two further film scores (for movies which would also star the celebrity couple) were Pierre Korainik's "Cannabis" and Andr? Cayatte's "Les Chemins De Katmandou" which along with music for Pierre Granier-Deferre's "La Horse" would exemplify the genius of Serge and Vannier's trade mark combination of Clavinette, plectrum-plucked Fender bass, pulsating organ, a funkified back-beat and luscious orchestral arrangements.
Bizarrely, these records would never give J.C.V. his deserved stab at the french hit parade. The INCREDIBLE music for les Chemins De Katmandou' was never released as a record in any form and a 45rpm taster single of 'La Horse' was only released as a cinema giveaway by the publishing company 'Hortensia' 'Cannabis' was however released in limited numbers with little promotion ensuring the original LP would go on to command big figures amongst collectors. This new found winning formula would inspire Gainsbourg to begin work on a new, non-film related project A concept album for the commercial market which was originally intended to be credited to 'Serge Gainsbourg & Jean-Claude Vannier', similarly to the previous 'Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot' and 'Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin' releases. It seems that Serge got cold feet.
In the months that Gainsbourg took to prepare the story of 'Melody Nelson' (available as a rare paperback novella) Jean-Claude continued to arrange for French pop stars, score movies ('Un Petit Gar?on Nomme Charlie Brown' along with Serge) and released some self-penned instrumental material on the
'Magellan' label As part of the 'Patchwork Orchestra', alongside such Gallic luminaries as Claude Boiling and Bernard Estardy, J.C.V released "Road to Cuba"and "Theme 504" (which he would re-record for film in later years) as well as variations on a theme called 'G?raldine' released on a double A-side E.P called 'Point D'Interrogation'. It wasn't long before Jean-Claude was summoned to London to begin the recording of 'Histoire De Melody Nelson' at the infamous
Marble Arch Studios. With Serge in the vocal booth, Vannier playing Clavier and organ and a 5 piece rock rhythm section, including axe wielding legends Vick Flick and 'Big Jim' Sullivan on fuzz-guitar (and chess tournament) duties, the seven tracks of bass-heavy progressive-orchestral-funk-poetry went down to tape and changed French pop-history for ever, pre-dating Rap music and in turn becoming one of the most imitated and plagiarised European records in contemporary music. The idea of a concept album was becoming very prevalent in the France of 1970, albums such as Michel Polnareff s "Polnareffs", and Nino Ferrer's "Metronomie" typified the burgeoning trend as former teeny-bop cover-stars transformed themselves into 'artists' and progressive-rock poets. Gainsbourg had wanted to have a crack at the increasingly popular genre for some time and with Vannier's help he created one of the greatest theatrical rock records you are ever iikely to hear. (The literal story foilows the story of a Frenchman who fails in love with a teenage English girl and culminates in her boarding a plane which is willed out of the sky by a mystical cult of cargo pilfering druids) Vannier would return to France to record the strings with an orchestra which was used for Operatic productions.
By working on a conceptual LP it seemed that Jean-Claude Vannier had found a perfect way to display his talents as an arranger (which in the past was more akin to film scores) to a wider pop orientated audience in the name of progressive rock. 'Histoire De Melody Nelson', solely credited to Serge Gainsbourg, was released to mixed reviews. It was an unusual LP that was especially favoured by the Glitterati (Fran?oise Hardy stili cites 'Melody' as her favourite LP of all time) and extremely ahead of its time. After a couple of TV. specials and a short 'Melody Nelson' film it seemed like Vannier was back to work and he started composing soundtracks to several films under Gainsbourg's instruction, otherwise taking time off to experiment with new instruments and techniques such as 'musique concrete', electronic instruments (evident on the score for 'Trop Jolies Pour Etre Honn?tes' where a Moog synthesiser is used) and toying with the idea of writing a conceptual piece for Ballet having enjoyed recently working with operatic choral and orchestral groups. Harking back to his interest in 'non-musical-music' Vannier began working with a 'Klaxon Orchestra' using car horns to construct symphonies. The orchestra would play at a number of open galas in protest against death punishment, as Vannier calls "The sweet French guillotine". He would soon make use of this experience in his next solo project, an avant-garde ballet production which would later be Christened by Serge Gainsbourg as "L'ENFANT ASSASSIN DES MOUCHES".
In 1972 a relatively unknown publishing company called 'Suzelle' would agree to release Vanniers first ever solo LP. translated as The Child Killer Of The Flies' performed by 'Jean-Claude Vannier's 'Insolitudes'. Recorded at 'Studio des Dames' J.C.V. would play a host of instruments and non-instruments as well as a pair of scissors in the editing room. Harpsichord, piano, flute, recorder, toy pianos, chimes and bells, klaxons, whistles and tape recorders were all used and abused by Jean-Ciaude Vannier on his would-be follow up to 'Melody Nelson' and with the most forward thinking orchestra at his disposal things could only get stranger. The nriysterious personnel for his debut consisted of what would become some of the biggest names in French production music (a once disposable genre which has become highly collectible and respected by discerning music lovers over the last decade). Psychedelic guitars came courtesy of 'MP2000/ Delerius Music' legend Claude Engel alongside Denys Lable and Raymond Gimenez (who would form Guitars Unlimited). Vannier enlisted the skills of free-jazz uber-legend and future soundtrack composer Jean-Pierre Sabar on a second piano while Bass guitar was played by Tonio Rubio who recorded the Tele-Music' club classic 'Bass in Action'. The finai part of the rhythm section was a drummer called Pierre-Alain Dahan who would record library music with Marc Chantereau a percussionist who would also become part of Vannier's group. The choir throughout the album, which sporadically speeds up and slows down and sounds as if it was chopped-up and sampled directly from the 'Melody Nelson' tapes, was apparently a youth group called 'Chorale des jeunesses musicales de France' under the direction of the suspiciously named Louis Martini. The powerful string arrangements were achieved with just a string quartet. Admittedly many of the names in the Insolitudes' iine-up would mean very little if placed alongside some of the leading session men coming out of Britain and America at the time and it would take thirty years until record collectors would start asking exactly what the French had been putting in the water! But with the driving force and determination of a visionary composer such as Vannier the result would, again, be very much ahead of its time. Vannier had taken the idea of an instrumental concept album (with some minimal child dialogue) and presented a surreal, erratic, heart warming, disorientating, heavy, del icate, lavish and unique to say the least, suite of uncategorizabie musical mayhem. The Fellini-esque psychedelic symphony is arguably the most fantastic recording to ever emerge from French pop culture, comprising a variety of oblique influences ranging from jazz, rock, classical, avant-garde and opera spliced with muisique concrete, random field recordings and a delightful sense of humour.
Before the LP was delivered Jean-Claude took his tapes round the legendary Verneuil Street to ask his friend Serge Gainsbourg for his honest opinion of the tour-de-force masterpiece that he was about to commit to vinyl As the story goes Serge listened carefully and was instantly compelled to take his poetic pencil to paper."6ive me the night to work on it" he asked of his maestro Jean-Ciaude. Within 24 hours Gainsbourg would provide a sequence of bizarre, macabre liner notes thus consummating the most extraordinary concept album of al! time. When the finished product came back from the pressing plant Gainsbourg's story of The Child Assassin Of The Flies' was included as the only written information to grace the LFs elaborate concertina gatefold sleeve. A photograph depicting a naked Jean-Claude stood on a beach at "Le Touquet - Paris Plage" was taken in early January, and emblazoned the sleeve inside and out "As you can guess the weather was freezing so I caught a cold" he remembers. But without any form of marketing, the non descript, uninformative package would ensure that the obscure LP would remain incognito in French record shops for years to come.
The LP was pressed up in miniscule quantities and distributed sparsely by 'Suzelle', mostly internally amongst media types. The album did appeal to a limited circle of avant-garde jazz enthusiasts but it would take a true fan of Vannier or Gainsbourg to go to great lengths to procure this dose of teen-tonic for those suffering from 'Melody Nelson' withdrawal symptoms By the end of the year Vannier's reputation as a composer and arranger was reaching a wider audience and production work was coming thick and fast By the end of the following year he joined Gainsbourg to record an immaculate debut solo LP for Jane Birkin including all the beloved idiosyncrasies of their previous collaborations, they would also record their very last piece of music together, a song for Fran?ois Hardy from the Fran?ois Leterrier film 'Projection Priv?e' which also starred Jane Birkin but not Serge. 'Insolitudes' however, had seemed to have paled into obscurity. By now Vannier was also arranging new material for an up and coming trench singer called Michel Jonasz, who looked set to become another famous French export, and encouraged Jean-Claude to pursue his skills as a songwriter which in years to come would eventually turn Vannier into a successful solo artist in his own right. With "L'ENFANT ASSASSIN DES MOUCHES" far behind him Vannier would make one last instrumental concept , album, this time a tribute to the great traditional trench composer Georges Brassens. Enlisting the skills of many of the 'Insolitudes' players, the triumphant "Interp?te Les Musiques De Georges Brassens" was far cry from his mind-bending debut LP but retained the same maverick qualities and unique approach to the anthemic music of this national treasure. With a string of original songs and compositions under his belt and some great contacts at WEA, Jean-Claude Vannier would release his first eponymous album as a successful singer songwriter in 1975 with another confusmgly self titled LP the following year. He would continue to score films and television productions on a yearly basis as well as producing the odd instrumental library recording. In time Vannier would also switch labels to the long running independent Saravah, home of the Brigitte Fontaine debut he had recorded12 years earlier Jean Claude Vannier is now himself a national treasure of sorts in France, His eclectic and unblinkered creative nature has never waned and his vibrant appetite for an artistic life has also seen him take the role of an author, a painter, a radio presenter and a journalist. It is difficult to summarise the creative iife of the versatile, open-minded Jean-Claude Vannier before sentences decompose into sporadic lists of words. As a musician, Jean-Claude Vannier has changed and evolved with each and every instrument, collaborator, musician, film director and audience. But to satisfy the needs of 'this' music lover, Jean-Claude Vannier managed to achieve what many contemporary musicians would struggle to achieve in a lifetime with just one bizarre, unruly and creative LP. "L'ENFANT ASSASSIN DES MOUCHES" Light years ahead of it's time . The flies have waited in the shadows for 30 years - Now beware of the warriors swarm. - ANDY VOTEL
1 L'Enfant La mouche Et Les Allumettes 04:22
2 L'Enfant Au Royaume Des Mouches 03:57
3 Danse Des Mouches Noires Gardes Du Roi 03:20
4 Danse De L'Enfant Et Du Roi Des Mouches 02:52
5 Le Roi Des Mouches Et La Confiture De Rouse 06:28
6 L’Enfant Assassin Des Mouches 01:52
7 Les Garde Volent Au Secours Du Roi 06:55
8 Mort Du Roi Des Mouches 03:29
9 Pattes De Mouches 00:51
10 Le Papier Tue Enfant 02:44
11 Petite Agonie De L'Enfant Assasin 00:31
Bonus Tracks:
12 Je M'Appelle Geraldine (Mid-Tempo Version) (Bonus Track CD Only) 01:28
13 Je M'Appelle Geraldine (Up-Tempo Version) (Bonus Tracks CD Only) 01:20
Guitares : Claude Engel, Denys Lable, Raymond Gimenez
Guitare Basse : Tonio Rubio
Batterie : Pierre-Alain Dahan
Piano: Jean-Pierre Sabar
Piano, clavecin, piano d'enfant, bombarde, flute, flute à bec, cloches, direction d'orchestre : Jean-Claude Vannier
Percussions : Marc Chantereau, Michel Zanlonghi
Saxophones sopranos : Jean-Louis Chautemps, Phillipe Mathe
Trombone, tuba : Marc Steckar
Accordéon : Marcel Azzola
Bugle : Pierre Llinares
Quatuor à cordes : Jean et Ginette Gaunet, Pierre Llinares, Hubert Varon
Choeurs : chorale des jeunesses musicales de France (direction : Louis Martini)
Régie cordes : Jean Gaunet
Accordeur : M.Pailleux
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