LES CHATS RENAISSANCE-HERMAPHRODITES, LP, 1972, FRANCE

With an aesthetic remit that's taken in everything from acid psych to dadaist kitsch to avant prog to cosmic disco over the years (the last of which he can pretty much claim to have originated), I for one would be willing to nominate producer/arranger/ instigator Jean-Pierre Massiera as the patron saint of this blog. This French mad hatter has been the guiding hand behind some of the most inspired pieces of audio dementia to have emerged from France during the 70's (Les Maledictus Sound, Horrific Child, Visitors and Venus Gang, to name but a few). Here's one of his rarest. The material on Les Chats Renaissance is more analogous with the psych/prog dimension of his work found on the first Visitors album, but Hermaphrodites' thrust operates in a rather more raw proto-prog, glam trashy and raucous dimension than the finely honed psychotropic prog machinations he'd go on to pioneer with Visitors. The wildly fun rock histrionics are often pitched sky high here, with massed choruses keening and wailing through the bombast while somehow managing to keep their tongues firmly wedged into their cheeks. This is some really jaw dropping work my friends, and though this might go a tad lighter on the wild grotesquerie usually found in Massiera's work, this is still rife with the wonderfully bent strategies that are his hallmark.

***************NEW LINK POSTED SEPTEMBER 2012***************

Get it here   

***NOTE: THERE'S A MIRRORED MEDIAFIRE LINK IN THE COMMENT FIELD***