Pitchfork

We take it for granted today, but not too long ago, integrating electronics into a rock setting was something exotic and strange. Before Kraftwerk, and certainly ages before all manner of modern digitally powered pop, hip-hop and experimental music, the only people interested enough in electronics to apply them in anything approaching rock were mad-scientists like Raymond Scott, Bruce Haack and David Vorhaus. These people were as much engineers as they were musicians, and history has granted them more technological props than musical ones. However, as the futuristic daydreams of the 50s and 60s graduated into the wide-eyed discovery by thousands of young, fearless kids in the 70s, the ideal of electronic interaction with guitars and drums seemed less an abstract, distant concept than a viable alternate reality.

One of the earliest bands to exploit this marriage to its fullest potential was the French outfit Heldon, led by guitarist Richard Pinhas. Pinhas was heavily influenced by King Crimson leader Robert Fripp-- particularly his searing, sustained tone, coming on like an intensely focused acid-rock laser beam-- and a love of epic-length compositions. Pinhas was also very much enthralled by the idea of using programmed synthesizers in his work. His first records with Heldon are direct precursors to the industrial clang of bands like Throbbing Gristle, and later, Einstürzende Neubauten and Ministry, in their uses of menacing synth clusters performing seemingly endless patterns of perpetually churning, lysergic fuzz. However, his major impact wasn't felt until he combined his love of King Crimson's avant-progressive dynamics with his fetish for doom-filled, minimalist tech-core. The apexes of this fusion were represented on 1976's Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale and this album, 1977's Interface.

Pinhas worked with two of the finest musicians of his country on Interface: keyboardist Patrick Gauthier (later of Magma), and powerhouse drummer Francois Auger. With this pair, Pinhas was able to construct massive specimens of metronomic terror while still being able to constantly shift the focus of the sound. In concert, they might stretch five-minute patterns into half-hour death races, never deviating from the pre-ordained settings of an army of sequenced synthesizers. The classic Heldon lineup was like an inhuman mix of Tangerine Dream's otherworldly journeys into space and time and the finely tuned brawn of The Mahavishnu Orchestra, not to mention featuring practically orgasmic guitar solos that would make Makoto Kawabata blush. It was excessive to a fault, but then, any music designed to draw out the darkest demons of an acid trip should've been.

The first side of the original LP consists of several relatively short pieces, each nonetheless in the immediately identifiable Heldon style. Auger's "Les Soucoupes Volantes Vertes" and "Bal-A-Fou" both feature synth-ostinatos under which he pounds like Jaki Leibezeit on triple-dosage steroids. The thick rumble of the latter tune almost makes you forget there was no bassist in the band. Pinhas' "Jet Girl" is fairly similar to his earlier Heldon efforts in that it forsakes typical rock aggression for bleak, apocalyptic soundscapes more often identified with the industrial music that was inspired, in part, by this band. Nevertheless, Pinhas' distant, raging guitar serves fair warning that this music originates from the same psychedelic heart as many other concurrent night-trippers like Ash Ra Tempel and Hawkwind, even if the execution was completely different.

The meat of Interface is its 18-minute title track (also featured in two truncated live versions on this Cuneiform reissue). Beginning with phased, metallic hammering, morphing into a percussive pattern and eventually traveling through a truly intimidating labyrinth of synthesizers, howling guitars and all-around horrific, swirling thunder, "Interface" is the definitive avant-prog nightmare. With each passing minute, it seems more detail is layered into the piece, so that before too long, there's so much going on, I can only really make out a single, lurching beast. Rattlesnake electric drums going off on the right, bass-heavy synthlines threatening to throw me off balance, Auger's constantly mutating drum patterns-- but most of all, Pinhas' absolutely unhinged soloing. He starts out merely deranged, bending lines all over the place, like a strung-out Hendrix taking his wrath upon Silicon Valley. His lines eventually transform into almost pure noise, jumping up just long enough for you to notice that your speakers are about to blow from all the commotion below. It really is an obscene mess, but still a gorgeous one.

This CD is the same issue that Cuneiform released a few years back, but which had gone out of print almost as soon. Anyone with even a passing interest in electronic/rock hybrid music should check it out, as well as those wanting to hear one of the chief precedents for bands ranging from Lightning Bolt to Neurosis to Squarepusher. To many (including me), Heldon and Richard Pinhas are considered building blocks for whole schools of experimental rock music, and one of the few who rarely fail to deliver on the hype.