Musique D’art
An album guide to Art Zoyd.
Génération sans Futur
(1980)
Featuring the sometimes unsettling topography of uneven time signatures, caustic harmonies, unexpected chordal emissions, shrieking notes and skronking brass, it’s this wild, haywire eclecticism that exemplifies Art Zoyd’s singular approach to music-making. An undoubted standout moment, however, comes in the title track. Adding fire and devastating precision bombing to thierry Zaboitzeff’s brooding, complex piece is guest drummer daniel denis, best known for his percussion and keyboard work with fellow rio comrades univers Zero. the contrasts in tight control and energetic freedom may seem unlikely, but it’s pulled off with an exhilarating panache.
Phase IV
(1982)
the band’s fourth release and their first double album is a favourite of Zaboitzeff’s. Beginning with the alarmed screaming of a distant crowd and a doom-laden fanfare, the irregular march underpinning Zaboitzeff’s
État d’urgence forms the basis for this unflinching essay regarding the nature of oppression. the austere movements are tempered with intricate arrangements for Jean-pierre soarez and didier pietton’s brass section, especially on the exquisite Ballade. the final side, composed entirely by hourbette, marshals some markedly warmer, consonant themes, with the ponderous la nuit eventually coalescing into the sparse, gently undulating piano and yearning cello of les larmes de christina. it’s about as romantic and as melodically accessible as this band get.
Berlin
(1987)
Alongside keyboardist patricia dallio and André mergenthaler’s cello, sax and vocals, Zaboitzeff and hourbette continue exploring brain-jolting repetition through extended works such as hourbette’s frantic epithalame and the meta-collage A drum, A drum, whose growling, manic vocals, sampled typewriters, massed chthonic choirs and insistent call-and-response melodies sound as though they belong to part of an obscure performance art ritual. it remains a favourite of thierry Zaboitzeff’s. “For me, i consider this to be the most artistically successful album because we had finally found at that time, in my opinion, the perfect synthesis between the rhythmic complexities; the vocal parts; the grandiloquence; the intimate; amplified acoustic sound mixed with the synthetic.”
Metropolis
(2002)
Art Zoyd certainly weren’t the first group to provide a bespoke score to Fritz lang’s visionary silent movie classic, but theirs could well be the most ambitious in scope and scale. grafting together abrasive synth textures and contrasting movements that seem to represent the disparity between the elites and the exploited workers, the dense music is occasionally illuminated by a series of luminous themes that perhaps hint at a sense of hope shimmering, albeit in the distance. “metropolis was a real adventure,” recalls hourbette. “i superimposed the music of three composers – Kasper t toeplitz, patricia dallio and myself – to create a kind of ‘metamusic’. it was a real challenge.” SS