Thursday, January 25, 2007

Ilitch:10 suicides,LP , 1980, France (NWW List)



(reproduction of booklet)
Like other 1970s European electronic rock artists from Heldon to Conrad Schnitzer, Ilitch owes more to the avant-garde experiments of Stockhausen and Xenakis than to the rock and roll of Chuck Berry or even the Beatles… Ilitch came out of France, was the work of mostly one person, Thierry Muller, using unconventional guitars as well as keyboards and other electronics to create strange textures and sounds. Muller was a photographer and graphic artist from Paris who started making recordings in the early 1970s using prepared guitars, harmonium, and even using the tape recorder as another instrument. Initially he worked completely solo but by late 1975 he was being helped by Ruth Ellyeri. In 1976 his brother Patrick Muller on EMS synthisizer and treated guitar joined Ilitch, for a live performance at the Cafe La Manille, in Paris, and the duo also played there the following two years as well. In October and November of that year, Ilitch recorded the material for the LP "Periodikmindtrouble", but by the time the LP was released, in 1978, the original second side was scrapped for other more recent material. This album featured abstract music that was completely instrumental and with a heavy use of electronics. Though this is considered the first Ilitch LP, in fact a year earlier Muller released "Portraits" in an extremely limited edition of one with hand painted cover. By 1980 Ellyeri, on guitars, vocals and electronics, became more integral to the Ilitch sound, and Muller occasionally added in synth player Philippe Doray and saxophonist Patrick Dubot into Ilitch as well. They released a second LP, "10 Suicides" that year, a more varied album that included some heavily processed vocals as well as a sixteen page booklet with many of Muller's photo-collages. The same year under the Ilitch name Thierry released the cassette only "PTM Works"(Eurock), as well as the one-sided EP "Culture", which was credited to him and Edouard Nono. After this Muller took a break from music for a couple years, but in 1982 he began work on a new project. The project eventually became the group Ruth (though Ruth Ellyeri wasn't a part of it), as Muller began collaborating with many more musicians for recordings done in 1984 and 1985. Ruth's music was far more polished and accessible, adding a quirky new wave twist to Muller's textured guitar and synth treatments. The Ruth LP "Polaroid/Romans/Photos" came out in 1985 with a 12-page booklet. That same year Muller released an EP with Doray called "Pile on Face". Muller stopped pursuing music for the most part to devote more time to graphic arts after the Ruth album, though he did release three more extremely limited records, "D. Prune Tributes" Volumes 1 through 3, under his own name between 1989 and 1991. Though his records had limited releases and have long been out of print, much of his music has recently been made available on CD by the Fractal records label with Bonus tracks.
Extracts from Rolf Semprebon's article, All Music Guide


10 SUICIDES is one of the greatest amalgamations of guitar textures, electronics and twisted avant-pop you’ll ever hear. His treatments of all sound sources create a striking pastiche of styles. Quite unlike anything I’ve heard, it stands as a landmark recording .
IMHO

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

great obscure posts - too many to handle at once! This one comes up as .ogg files, what's that? Can't read 'em, unfortunately. thanks for the rest

mutantsounds said...

if you have the latest edition of winamp ,it can read .ogg files....on any other way you hve to download the codex for ogg files in the winamp webpage(don't worry it's a very small file)...other suggestions is to use foobar player (it's free and you can find it with simple search in google or other search engines)

musicgnome said...

As noted in previous posts...a flutter, flutter my heart goes.

Anonymous said...

absolutely unbelievable record. It reminds me about the early Savage Republic. I have never heard about this artist but you definitely expand my horizon. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

The tracklist is different than what I found on-line :
Discogs
AMG
You know why ?
You should include tracklist info with your uploads.

mutantsounds said...

discogs/amg have the tracklist of the Cd reissue...that's why....

Anonymous said...

Sorry, the second link is not AMG, but french-new-wave.com . And both are listing the LP, not the re-edition.

mutantsounds said...

THE THING I KNOW IS THAT I HAVE THE LP AND THE TRACKLISTING IS THE ONE I MENTIONED>>>IF YOU THINK IT"S WRONG DELETE WHAT YOU HAVE DOWNLOADED OTHERWISE STOP PLAYING THE SMART ASS AND PLAYING IT ANONYMOUS

Anonymous said...

is there a way to convert .ogg files into .mp3? thank you!!!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous,
I tried the other day to convert these ogg's to wav's using a program called Super, which normally converts just about anything to anything, but it didn't work. A re-post as mp3's would be wonderful if you have the time. On the other hand if I could find a copy of the cd reissue I'd be even happier ;-)
best wishes
Chris

Anonymous said...

hey Anonymus , use Foobar prog - it reads everythin you can imagine , just make a search in google and you will solve all your problems

Disco Rough said...

Can any one tell me what track radio on is. or is it off the re issue

tom s said...

According to the internet and the tags, radio on is track 1.

Thanks for the upload!

spmertalz said...

bogus vinyl rip.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps if we were allowed to at least take a listen to the LP, many of us would decide to purchase the CD with the bonus material. I am an avid music collector, but I prefer to listen first to avoid wasting my money on stinkers, especially with this economy.

Anonymous said...

I found the comments on this page particularly annoying, so I decided to place the comment I've been saving here to possibly brighten things up.

You're site is a screaming goldmine. I consider it one of the seven wonders of the world wide web. The artists collected here are of another class of human. Mystical beasts back beyond the gray horizon of the 1980's. Freak composers. I never knew how many they were!

I had been hovering around for the last few months, digging some Gong, grooving some Hawkwind, exploring some Kraftwerk, when I stumbled across the Nurse With Wound list... and then you.

I feel anointed in the plasma light of this shrine to experiment, explosion, and trance. And I thank you. Thank you.