Ballet Mécanique
(Phillips) Used LP $8.00 (Out-of-stock)
The notorious title track has a now-predictable history as a provoker of violence within the papered seats of the symphony hall, though it started as a soundtrack for a film by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy. This 1982 edition predates any performance of the piece as written, since the tools to synchronize all the instruments weren’t readily available until the 1990s (plus, its New York performance in 1927 was so godawful, fifty years had to elapse before anybody wanted to touch it). Includes “Jazz Symphony” performed by Netherlands Wind Ensemble, “Violin Sonata No. 1 Finale,” and “Violin Sonata No. 2” performed by Vera Beths (violin) and Reinbert De Leeuw (piano). Dutch pressing.
l’Homme à Tête De Chou
(Phillips) Used LP $75.00
“The gravel-voiced Gallic lecher goes X-rated here — albeit without sacrificing his poetic élan,” explains All Music Guide. “In this morbidly comic song cycle the narrator’s muse is Marilou, a black shampoo girl: during their ill-fated fling, he descends into unhinged obsession, beats her to death with a fire extinguisher and ends up in a psychiatric hospital (convinced his head has turned into a cabbage). The title track retains something of Melody Nelson’s cool Baroque pop gravitas, but the album draws on an adventurously varied palette, spanning rock, country, disco, jazz, reggae, and funk.” French pressing from 1976
Remixe Sa Dixième Symphonie
(Phillips) Used CD $6.00
Hyper-contemporary album in which the master reconstructs Beethoven’s 10th symphony as a collage.
Intérieur Extérieur
(Phillips) Used CD $6.00 (Out-of-stock)
Recorded in 1996 “in the middle of Henry’s incredible museum of contraptions and machines of all kinds, and the tens of thousands of magnetic tapes accumulated over the years, rows by themes, which line all the walls of the house. Gurgling, choking, howls of terror, hoarse and monstrous cries, mad laughter; this journey into the depths of a subconscious which could also be ours is not easy. On some tracks, the rhythm is given by the distortion of samples from the Violent Femmes. In the second part of the work, the atmosphere calms down somewhat, but the listener remains lost in a dark landscape.”