• Limited Edition Cassette

  Cassette

  • 
  • 
  • 
  Nothing creates itself, everything is trans- formed, more or less. Sometimes, during the process, certain things get lost and struggle to metamorphose. That is to say they remain in a completely lost state, resigned to never exist, despite their undeniable physical existence. This is how certain books are published, certain records are issued but are instantly forgotten, their very existence threatened, even before they are put on the market. Often, as a result, they are almost immediately destined to the bar- gain bin or even worse, to the warehouses of the distributor, who doesn’t know what to do with them. The American musician Loren Connors self released his compositions in a series of albums issued at the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s.
  
  He entrusted these to a distributor, to supposedly sell them. But to Connors huge surprise, whilst visiting this distributor, who on the point of bankruptcy, wanted to return all the LPs to the musicians, Connors discovered then that practically none of his LPs had been sold. He also realized he wouldn’t have the strength to carry all this stock home, where he didn’t have the storage for it any- way. As a result, he binned it all. Forty years later, these records are among some of the most sought after by modern Blues and Experimental music aficionados... Did the same thing happen to the musicians of the French group Rupture? We’re probably not far off... This band only made one record, entitled Israel Suite, which disappeared so quickly off the radar, that until recently no one even suspected it existed. Released in 1974, this album probably experienced the same fate as many other recordings of the same period, a period accustomed to one hit wonders released in 33rpm or 45rpm for- mats, with a life span of a few weeks, months in some cases: records that exploited a trend, surfing the wave of the times, bouncing off what people were familiar with musically. Often hatched up by producers, who have now become mythical (Massiera, Estardy... those type of flamboyant personalities), it is only because of the special affection of a few listeners having rediscovered them and finding something particular in them, that these records have survived the test of time. Israel Suite is situated exactly in this kind of logic. A record of a particular period, rediscovered (probably in a bargain bin with many other mint copies), or by crate diggers (that breed of explorer who appeared sometime in the 90s), who spend most their spare time uncovering unknown records and unveiling their misunderstood qualities. Fundamentally, this discovery is a reinvention, a renaissance. The only record made by the French group Rupture has reappeared thanks to a chance discovery.
  
  But who found it? A dealer reputed for his discoveries, uncovered a batch and has been selling them to discreet buyers? Could
  it be a Japanese collector visiting Paris who stumbled upon this strange blue cover, took a gamble and when home, fell in love with it to the point of re-issuing it on CD? Whoever it was, one thing is certain, as the drummer Sylvain Krief of Rupture, relays to us from his home in Canada a few weeks before the official re release: “The record was released in a total void, nothing happened, it was point- less, until many years later, it suddenly re- appeared on the internet.” Saved by the net? Anyhow, Israel Suite could have remained compartmentalized in its primary function: a record of a certain era, at the turn of the 1960s and 70s. Initially, it was a record with a political edge, as its title suggests. “We felt concerned about the Israeli problem” explains Krief, but without wanting to get into the details of the problem or even express the visions or political positions of the musicians. What he does acknowledge however, is that the person at the beginning of the project was Boris Bergman, better known as one of Alain Bashung’s most important songwriters. At the time, Bergman was the songwriter to many well known French pop singers: Richard Anthony, France Gall, Dalida, Juliette Greco, Mireille Mathieu, Nana Mouskouri, Nicoletta... “The LP was made because Boris Bergman had the idea of doing something about what was happening in Israel” specifies Krief. “Saying that, it was also done on a whim, we didn’t really know what we were going to do going into the studio”. “In fact, we spent many hours there. The recording was spread out over a long period of time. We were practising whilst recording. Deep down, we were doing what we wanted.” At the time Sylvain Krief was playing with Michel Fugain’s Big Bazaar. “It wasn’t always fun with Fugain, we were playing over tapes... next to that, Rupture was paradise!” Krief was above all interested in jazz. “But you had to do pop music to work, to eat... I was listening to Miles, Herbie Hancock, George Arvanitas.
  
  I was going to the Club St-Germain, that scene was more interesting but jazz paid little or not at all”. This is how Krief found him- self playing with the best of the American musicians passing through Paris, people like Clark Terry, Bud Powell or even Rhoda Scott. They came alone and were politically engaged because of the racism they experienced. Krief would end up being their drummer for a night or a handful of dates. Around the same time, he was touring with big names of French Chanson, like Charles Aznavour, schizophrenic? Without a doubt or rather the consequence of a time when everything was a little more idealistic, a little more politicised too and certainly a little more naive. That’s the feeling that emanates from the LP recorded by Rupture: a recording at the crossing of genres, mixing jazz improvisation with funk colourings, pseudo militant songs, with a hippie thumbnail. “We were all hippies for sure admits Krief, the period dictated it. We listened religiously to musicians like Coltrane but also Earth Wind and Fire, Blood Sweat and Tears, records by Herbie Hancock at the start of his electric period when he was doing more binary things with Rock themes, already close to fusion. Swinging stuff”.
  
  The recording of Israel suite was done over a long period of time but in chronological order, the pieces on the album are heard in the order they were composed and put on tape. “We spent a lot of time on them but we were enjoying ourselves. Bergman had a plan of action: a chronology of Israeli’s history that corresponds to the unfolding of the album”. During the recording, special guests joined in: Michel Fugain, Nicole Croisille... But mostly, Rupture led by Sylvain Krief, is a unique record that brings together a group of musicians nearly unrivaled in the French musical landscape, Jean-François Jenny-Clark on double bass, Jean-Pierre Mas on keyboards, Georges Locatelli on guitar, as well as Jean Louis Chautemps who came to play flute on a track. These names alone should have given the record a perennial shelf life, a more assured reputation. Yet, the band didn’t last long. Krief just about remembers a few gigs, one at Bobino, “...in a venue that was far from full... After that we lost touch, until the record began to exist again years later, but without us”.
  
  Deep down, it’s no surprise the album struggled to emerge and stand out during a period when a lot of political records were released, all with post 1968 connotations. In hind- sight, the events of May opened the floodgates, provoking the emergence of a plethora of recordings, all a testimony of the political preoccupations of the period. A period stuck between the end of Gaullism, the wavering Pompidouism and the emerging Giscardism. And the left wing roots of the underground, ready for anything to start the revolution. In such an atmosphere, a record about Israel which wasn’t pro Palestine, was destined to disappear or at least not interest a music loving public addicted to spiritual flights (From those by John Coltrane disciples to spacey Krautrock a la Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream), or experimental excavations strongly rooted in France, questioning the country (I’m obviously thinking of records by Francois Tusques and those by Colette Magny and of the Futura, BYG, Shandar labels, to a handful of more or less folky albums released on Occitan labels, to post psychedelic, post surrealist records by Catherine Ribeiro and Brigitte Fontaine). Even Serge Gainsbourg who had attempted a pro-Israelian track, was quickly disillusioned: “Le sable et le soldat” (The sand and the soldier), recorded in 1967 by request of the Israeli cultural attaché in France, during the 6 day war, was never released at the time. The track was then sent to Israel where it was lost in the archives of the local radio station.
  
  Deep down the possible reason why Israel Suite is a record that was instantly lost, which fell into a black hole to the point that we wonder whether it was ever really distributed, is because it was resolutely utopic. Beyond its theme, it positions itself in the utopia of wanting to capture a large moment of history, seeking to narrate in the manner of a children’s fairy tale, the story of a country. It also places itself in a kind of aesthetical utopia, which was rare during this period, by attempting to mix genres, trying to bridge and unite different forces to create a new
  and original synthetic form. Beyond its cover that is reminiscent of a Free Jazz LP or a propaganda LP, the only LP by Rupture is start- ling, because it is “elsewhere”, somewhere between hypnotic pop, militant song, proto funk, jazz and spiritual depth. The record seems to invent itself, attempting to go beyond appearances, like a real adventure, that of a band which risks taking steps to the side, trying an oblique trajectory. A band which collectively, took a completely different path to the one each individual member would usually take.
  Strangely enough, one of the records closest to it, is another political, utopic record, the only one recorded by another ephemeral formation, also led by a drummer, the late Claude Delcloo: “Crowded with loneliness” by the Full Moon Ensemble (1970, re-issued recently on the Superfly label of the Parisian record shop). On both albums, tentative trials are played out to put political positions into music but in the end, they chronicle more the utopia, poetry, naivety of the period rather than its reality.
  
  Released in 1973, Israel Suite rarely shows up on the Internet. When it does, one or another indiscriminate collector makes its price rocket sky high. A re-issue appeared on CD in Japan in 2011. Nevertheless, the record is amongst those extremely rare objects that are qualified as “unGoogleable”. Meaning, a Google search brings up practically no information about it. As if it had escaped humanity’s recent numerical memory. Sylvain Krief, who experienced other musical adventures, had success with Airto Fogo, a more overtly Funk project, sees it like that too: “My spirit refuses to remember”. Thank good- ness, objects survive their makers and the injustice of the period, and end up being found again as if the artefacts came from another time. In the end, we always remember and the objects that we thought lost for good, even those that we forgot existed, end up resurfacing out of the blue. Rupture is not the story of a record about Israel or of a lost record but one of a resurrection. The resurrection of a music that still holds up, that is still standing.
  
  Liners Note : Joseph Ghosn Translation : Sacha Dieu
  
  ... more
  ships out within 5 days

  edition of 40 

  Buy Cassette   €16 EUR or more 

  Send as Gift 

about

credits