V.A.-FOUR FRENCH FORMS, LP, 1985, FRANCE

A vital and highly obscure anthology, Four French Forms culls together a thrilling array of wayward French experimentation. The most conspicuous of the four participants here is probably Luc Marianni, whose albums both as solo artist and as a member of Rock Critics have been posted here in the past. His contribution is a gorgeous conflation of overlapping and vaguely systemic abstract vocals and percolating synthetic percussion that ultimately consolidates into a web of Woo-like acoustic art pop wobbliness. X factor Zex Pitron's contribution really makes you wonder what other guises this cat operates under, as his surrealistically advanced offering is a miracle of hermetic strangeness straight out of the Ayaa label school (shades of everything from Video-Aventures to Szentendre here) and yet there's not a blip of info to be found on anything else under this moniker. The remaining two cuts are by members of NWW-listers Pataphonie, their contributions standing in stark contrast to one another; Andre Viaud superb "Les Materiaux Impressionnistes" cutting a rich and commanding Francois Bayle-like arc of electroacoustic phenomena across a 12 minute swath of the vinyl, while his former bandmate Pierre Demouron's sombre and somewhat lackluster neoclassical musings result in the only non-starter of the bunch.

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