Customer Reviews

L'Enfant Assasin Des Mouches

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm trying to be a more educated and wary rare-groove connoisseur. I can recall being burned time and again by reissues that promise you Thomas's but can't even make toast when the smoke clears. So, even though I've come to trust Andy Votel's recommendations a lot more over the past year, I was a little uncertain when I looked over the albums he's putting his weight behind on the Finders Keepers label--namely, this one.

But, ya know something? This would have to rank as my first favorite discovery of 2007--the hype turned out to be worth it. "L' Enfant Assassin des Mouches" is just as twisted, graceful and psychedelic as the liner notes and tons of hipster critics say it is--it most definitely qualifies as the "psychedelic symphony" it claims to be on the cover.

If you need an idea of what to expect, loosen yourself up with some music in a similar vein--music like Aphrodite's Child's "666," the "Fantastic Planet" soundtrack and (of course) Serge's "Melody Nelson." If you can get down with those three albums, this one'll take you on yet another tour through those same trippy landscapes. Votel's picked another gem...check it out.

You can take it as a good sign going into my review of Le' Infant Assasin De Mouches that I have no idea how to describe it to you. When you buy and listen to music by the box, a piece this unclassifiable is refreshing.

Who needs labels when we have sound, tons of it. Jean Claude Vannier
s 1970 aural skyscraper is filled with holy cross guitars, LSD courses, music concrete', a huge post-psychedelic mess of an album: the strings here are particularly rich, and if you have heard Vannier's arranging on Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson, you'll hear this and understand why he was hired.

I can't find a lot of logic in how this is sequenced, but that may be the idea. After you play this for two or more minutes, you surrender, lay back and go where the sound takes you. If the journey is random, the impact makes it more than worth taking.

Well, I am one of those who bought this CD years ago not because of Jean-Claude Vannier's connections to the better-known Serge Gainsbourg but because of a review I read in an English music magazine that lauded L'Enfant Assasin des Mouches as a fine example of French avant-garde music. And as it turns out, the article was quite right.
This is an album you have to be in the mood for but when your mood is right, the music will carry you away. It is useful to the listener to read the outline of the story of the child fly-killer contained in the accompanying booklet while listening to the album. That helps you to understand the progression of the music and its various discordant sounds. The album begins cacophonically and dissonance abounds as the child enters the fly kingdom. The dance of the child with the king of the flies is a whimsical number that segues into a middle-eastern mood. One of my favorite cuts is the title cut on which the percussion evokes the thrashing of the fly-king by the child. The next movement exudes a bit of mystery after which the fly-king's death is portrayed in elements of prog and psych rock. A stereotypical French musical motif then closes the story as the fly community takes its revenge on the child. Oddly enough, two of my favorite cuts are the bonus tracks which sound like they could have come from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western and are in fact from a French film.
If you like an occasional musical journey into the bizarre, you are almost bound to like this excursion into the music of Jean-Claude Vannier. The CD comes with an attractive booklet containing the story outline, a Vannier career bio (in English), and pertinent album information. Check it out while it is yet available.

This is not an easy album to review. I don't agree that this is a difficult album. This is an amazing album. I love Melody Nelson, but i don't think there are any similarities, these are totally different albums, don't compare them. If you want something nice that creates an atmosphere to play in the back round don't get this. When you listen to this be ready to be torn out of your present reality and plunged into something you've never experienced. L' Enfant Assasin des Mouches, plays like a genius concept album. Buy this buy this buy this, holy crap buy this. Way ahead of its time. Buy it!

Just a warning to listeners coming to this album because of Vannier's association with Gainsbourg (which is probably most people). The music on this doesn't resemble the music on Histoire de Melody Nelson in the slightest, save for some of the choral arrangements. There's none of the funky spaciousness that characterises Gainsbourg's classic album and it's also entirely instrumental which means that it comes off almost as some kind of film score.....from a very bizarre, avant-garde film.

What I'm trying to say is that this album is a pretty difficult listen and offers few rewards for the casual listener. Make sure you listen to some of it before you make the purchase.

If you thought Melody Nelson was too short at a sublime 28 minutes, here is the remedy. Not in the Melody Nelson league, so 4 stars, but a sweeping mind-expander of a 1972 album. Funky, soulful, unself-conscious soundscapes. Yeah baby.