Philippe Doray

Under normal circumstances you would have read my usual 13 on Sunday this weekend, but I got sidestepped by a lingering addiction for the new Junior Boys, which has been on almost constant rotation since Sunday morning and which I'm starting to think is the best record I've heard since the beginning of the millennium.

Nevertheless I just have to post this one, because it's a truly gripping record that gets under your skin and stays there.

I haven't found out much about Philippe Doray, except that he got drafted as synthplayer in Thierry Muller's Illitch for a while, and that an orginal of this album fetches about 180$, which is, I must admit, a fair price for such an incredible record (of course I'd be delighted if someone had the brains to reissue this on cd, but if I had the money, I would buy it without hesitation).

The music is a bit difficult to describe because it's pretty diverse. Doray delves, as you can deduce from the title, into industrial sonics, but there are also a lot influences of pop music, free jazz, funk and new wave on Nouveaux Modes Industrielles and the sound of the beatboxes and synths is pretty amazing for that time (it was released in 1977). I guess you could call it perverted pop music, because it's as if Doray made a normal pop record and then decided to fuck it up real good.

He sings quite a lot but his voice is sometimes warped into a sort of nagging screech, which makes it all sound pretty dirty and unhealthy, like a Captain Beefheart who has gone electronic. When his voice is not treated he sounds pretty arty, but that doesn't disturb a bit. A possible reference, though still pretty far removed, could be Cluster's Zuckerzeit, if that record had vocals on it, but the electronics are far less rhythmical, more freeform. Amazing record, though incredibly hard to find, even through the usual channels. Recommendation of the week.