Jean-Claude Vannier is probably best known for arranging the orchestral backing music of Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson. That album is a hotchpotch of baroque pop strings, funky bass lines and jazz-inspired guitar arpeggios, all underpinned by Gainsbourg’s trademark gravelly spoken word vocals. If you’ve not heard it I recommend doing so, since it’s an essential classic of the 70s.
Vannier’s own solo work goes into even more avant-garde territory. His 1972 album, L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches (The Child Killer of Flies) is a cornucopia of fractured, carnivalesque arrangements, few of which reach the point of becoming full "songs" or "compositions," and which are interspersed among short, dark, and bizarre sound collages. But as deranged as the music is here, it has been constructed with as much sensitivity and feeling as that given to more emotive, accessible symphonies, and it has its share of powerful moments. For example, the second track, L’Enfant Au Royame des Mouches, begins with a sort of call-and-response session between an arcane choir and a fairly plodding prog-rock riff. About a third of the way into the song, all the choirs, electric guitars and drums suddenly collude into one deafening, satanic song of praise, devoid of lyrics but absolutely rife with passion and terror; it’s one of my favourite moments in music. Click the youtube video below to hear it.
If you’re even remotely interested in experimental, avant-garde music you must give this album a spin or two. It’s a hugely underappreciated classic. I was really bummed out when I found out that Jean-Claude Vannier actually put on a live performance of the album at the London Barbican in 2006. If only I had known about this terrific gem back then.
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