AKsAK MABOUL Un Peu De L’Âme Des Bandits
Fiercely playful Continental prog, wild yet rigorous
ONE of the great acts aligned with Rock In Opposition (RIO), Belgian duo-cum-quintet Aksak Maboul both perfectly exemplify the movement’s intent, while taking all kinds of brave, risk-taking moves that positioned them to one side of their fellow conspirators. Rock In Opposition, initially, was a festival, held in London, that English prog group Henry Cow organised after discovering, during their European tours, they had far more in common with their peers from the Continent. They invited four groups to play – Univers Zero, Etron Fou Leloublan, Samla Mammas Manna and Stormy Six. The show even had a motto – “the music the record companies don’t want you to hear”.
Soon after, RIO became a collective, replete with guidelines and criteria, which revolved around musical excellence, critical distance from the music industry and a “social commitment to rock”. Aksak Maboul were one of the first beneficiaries of the new collective. The music made by these groups shared an intensity and rigour that, at its most extreme, made for bracing, alienating listening. Some of Henry Cow’s improvised music was tough-as-nails, and many groups who followed in their wake amplified these tendencies. Aksak Maboul, though, seemed to be coming from somewhere that was quite different, however sympathetic. On their first album, 1977’s Onze Danses Pour
Combattre La Migraine, they had a playful, surrealist sensibility, the original duo of Marc Hollander and Vincent Kenis bringing in new members for the album’s sessions, including the wonderfully vibrant improvising vocalist, Catherine Jauniaux. That sense of play was amplified on Un Peu De L’Âme Des Bandits, even as things got more serious – Henry Cow members Fred Frith and Chris Cutler were now on board. There’s great, classicist prog interplay on Bandits, but also plenty of sideways moves: the opening “Modern Lesson” has Jauniaux at her gravity-defying best as the group rides a clattering Bo Diddley riff; “I Viaggi Formano La Gioventù” reels out a low drone while the group play raga moods; “Inoculating Rabies” feels like a wild punk-out, before chamber brass bleats loudly, the song falling into thrilling disarray.
Elsewhere, jazz meets avant-classical, while brittle electronics spray delirious nonsense into the air – these were more ‘typical’ RIO moves. And at its worst, RIO could be almost insufferably smug in its sureness of itself, particularly when considering the possibilities of pop. But Aksak Maboul didn’t really seem to have such a problem; soon after the album was completed, they joined forces with another Belgian group, Les Teurs De La Lune De Miel, to form avant-pop gang The Honeymoon Killers. But Un Peu De L’Âme Des Bandits is, perhaps, their finest moment: fierce yet friendly, poetic without being po-faced. Extras: 8/10. This LP reissue comes with a compilation of outtakes, Before & After Bandits, that traces an alternative, every bit as compelling history of Aksak Maboul.