En Avant
Encyclopedia
Ferdinand En Avant, Huit Chansons en Huit Langues (Ferdinand Forward, Eight Songs in Eight Languages), often referred to as En Avant, is the second solo album
by French avant-rock bass guitarist
and composer
, Ferdinand Richard
. It was recorded in 1983 at Sunrise Studios in Kirchberg
, Switzerland
, and was released on LP
record by the Recommended Records
affiliated Swiss independent record label
, RecRec Music
the same year.
En Avant consists of eight avant-rock songs sung in English, Vietnamese, Arabic, Polish, Dioula
, Spanish, French and German. The music was scored for two bass guitars and a cello by Richard, who also wrote the lyrics for, and sang seven of the eight songs. The lyrics for the songs on En Avant are printed in the album liner notes in English, French and German.
In 2001 the French independent record label, Orkhêstra reissued En Avant and Richard's previous solo album, En Forme!! on a single CD
.
was the founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan
in 1973, and was a member of a number of other musical ensemble
s, including Gestalt et Jive
, Bruniferd and his own band, Ferdinand et les Philosophes. Richard also collaborated with English experimental
guitarist Fred Frith
from the English avant-rock group Henry Cow
to record Dropera
(1991), a "twisted rock opera".
Richard's first solo album, En Forme!! (1981) featured some of the members of Etron Fou Leloublan, which was still active at the time. On En Avant Richard explored his interest in language and culture, which developed during his studies of Medieval Literature at Grenoble
in south-eastern France in the early 1970s. In the song "Victoire", sung in Arabic, Richard reflects on his childhood in Saint-Malo
in north-western France. "Monsieur Blanc" (Mr. White) is a "surrealist fable" sung in the Dioula language
of West Africa
.
En Avant features Tom Cora
from Skeleton Crew on cello, with Rick Brown from the V-Effect on drums on one of the tracks, and Christiane Cohade from Virgule 4 on bass guitar on two of the tracks. German poet and publisher Urs Engeler wrote the lyrics for, and sang the last song on the album, "Alltägliche Dinge".
Andrew Jones in his book Plunderphonics, 'pataphysics & pop mechanics: an introduction to musique actuelle praised En Avant saying that the texts "show a deft juxtaposition of culture and tongue, and a poetic heart at work."
Side B
Solo album
A solo album, in popular music, is an album headlined by a current or former member of a band. A solo album may feature simply one person performing all instruments, but typically features the work of other collaborators; rather, it may be made with different collaborators than the artist is...
by French avant-rock bass guitarist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, Ferdinand Richard
Ferdinand Richard
Hervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
. It was recorded in 1983 at Sunrise Studios in Kirchberg
Kirchberg, St. Gallen
Kirchberg is a municipality in the Wahlkreis of Toggenburg in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland.-Geography:Kirchberg has an area, , of . Of this area, 59.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 30.9% is forested...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, and was released on LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
record by the Recommended Records
Recommended Records
Recommended Records is a British independent record label and distribution network founded by Chris Cutler in March 1978. RēR features largely "Rock in Opposition" and related music, but it also distributes selected music released on other independent labels.In 1982 Cutler established November...
affiliated Swiss independent record label
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
, RecRec Music
RecRec Music
RecRec Music was a Swiss independent record label created in 1983 by Daniel Waldner. The label was modeled on, and affiliated to, the British independent record label Recommended Records, but remained financially independent...
the same year.
En Avant consists of eight avant-rock songs sung in English, Vietnamese, Arabic, Polish, Dioula
Dioula language
Jula is a Mande language spoken in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali. It is one of the Manding languages, and is most closely related to Bambara, being mutually intelligible with Bambara as well as Malinke. It is a trade language in West Africa and is spoken by millions of people, either as a...
, Spanish, French and German. The music was scored for two bass guitars and a cello by Richard, who also wrote the lyrics for, and sang seven of the eight songs. The lyrics for the songs on En Avant are printed in the album liner notes in English, French and German.
In 2001 the French independent record label, Orkhêstra reissued En Avant and Richard's previous solo album, En Forme!! on a single CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
.
Background
Ferdinand RichardFerdinand Richard
Hervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
was the founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan
Etron Fou Leloublan
Etron Fou Leloublan, also known as EFL, were a French avant-rock band founded in 1973 by actor and saxophonist Chris Chanet. They recorded five studio albums between 1976 and 1985, and released a live album, En Public Aux Etats-Unis d'Amérique recorded during a tour of the United States in 1979...
in 1973, and was a member of a number of other musical ensemble
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
s, including Gestalt et Jive
Gestalt et Jive
Gestalt et Jive were a multinational avant-rock group founded in West Germany in 1984 by multi-instrumentalist Alfred Harth, comprising Steve Beresford , Anton Fier , Alfred Harth , Peter Hollinger , Ferdinand Richard and Uwe Schmitt .In 1980 Harth produced the LP Es herrscht Uhu im Land on...
, Bruniferd and his own band, Ferdinand et les Philosophes. Richard also collaborated with English experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
guitarist Fred Frith
Fred Frith
Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...
from the English avant-rock group Henry Cow
Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...
to record Dropera
Dropera
Dropera is a concept album by Fred Frith and Ferdinand Richard, credited as "Fred & Ferd". It was their first collaborative album as a duo and was recorded in Zürich, Switzerland in August 1989. It was released on both LP and CD by RecRec Music in Switzerland in 1991...
(1991), a "twisted rock opera".
Richard's first solo album, En Forme!! (1981) featured some of the members of Etron Fou Leloublan, which was still active at the time. On En Avant Richard explored his interest in language and culture, which developed during his studies of Medieval Literature at Grenoble
Grenoble
Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère...
in south-eastern France in the early 1970s. In the song "Victoire", sung in Arabic, Richard reflects on his childhood in Saint-Malo
Saint-Malo
Saint-Malo is a walled port city in Brittany in northwestern France on the English Channel. It is a sub-prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine.-Demographics:The population can increase to up to 200,000 in the summer tourist season...
in north-western France. "Monsieur Blanc" (Mr. White) is a "surrealist fable" sung in the Dioula language
Dioula language
Jula is a Mande language spoken in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali. It is one of the Manding languages, and is most closely related to Bambara, being mutually intelligible with Bambara as well as Malinke. It is a trade language in West Africa and is spoken by millions of people, either as a...
of West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
.
En Avant features Tom Cora
Tom Cora
Thomas Henry Corra , better known as Tom Cora, was a United States cellist and composer, best known for his improvisational performances in the field of experimental jazz and rock...
from Skeleton Crew on cello, with Rick Brown from the V-Effect on drums on one of the tracks, and Christiane Cohade from Virgule 4 on bass guitar on two of the tracks. German poet and publisher Urs Engeler wrote the lyrics for, and sang the last song on the album, "Alltägliche Dinge".
Reception
In the September 2002 issue of Paris Transatlantic Magazine, Dan Warburton said in a review of the Orkhêstra CD reissue of En Avant, En Forme!! that it "stand[s] out a mile" in the "predominantly insipid if not downright dull world of French pop." He added that anyone "interested in how the intricacies of prog rock fused with the raw punch of punk" should investigate this album.Andrew Jones in his book Plunderphonics, 'pataphysics & pop mechanics: an introduction to musique actuelle praised En Avant saying that the texts "show a deft juxtaposition of culture and tongue, and a poetic heart at work."
Track listing
Side A- "Contribution to Anglo American Culture" (RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
) – 0:41- Sung in EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
by Ferdinand Richard.
- Sung in English
- "Histoire des Meilleurs" (RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
) – 4:29- Sung in VietnameseVietnamese languageVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
by Ferdinand Richard.
- Sung in Vietnamese
- "Victoire" (RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
) – 3:53- Sung in ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
by Ferdinand Richard.
- Sung in Arabic
- "Boire en Silence" (RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
) – 3:29- Sung in PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
by Ferdinand Richard.
- Sung in Polish
Side B
- "Monsieur Blanc" (RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
) – 5:17- Sung in DioulaDioula languageJula is a Mande language spoken in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali. It is one of the Manding languages, and is most closely related to Bambara, being mutually intelligible with Bambara as well as Malinke. It is a trade language in West Africa and is spoken by millions of people, either as a...
by Ferdinand Richard.
- Sung in Dioula
- "Hombre de Lodo" (RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
) – 5:28- Sung in SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
by Ferdinand Richard.
- Sung in Spanish
- "Saint Malo" (RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
) – 2:38- Sung in FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
by Ferdinand Richard.
- Sung in French
- "Alltägliche Dinge" (RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
, Engeler) – 2:12- Sung in GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
by Urs Engeler.
- Sung in German
Personnel
- Ferdinand RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
– Fender 6-string bass, 4-string Music Master Special, vocals - Tom CoraTom CoraThomas Henry Corra , better known as Tom Cora, was a United States cellist and composer, best known for his improvisational performances in the field of experimental jazz and rock...
– cello - Christiane Cohade – bass guitar on "Histoire des Meilleurs" and "Boire en Silence"
- Rick Brown – drums on "Boire en Silence"
- Urs Engeler – vocals on "Alltägliche Dinge"
Production
- Recorded by Michel Engeli and Robert Vogel at Sunrise Studios, KirchbergKirchberg, St. GallenKirchberg is a municipality in the Wahlkreis of Toggenburg in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland.-Geography:Kirchberg has an area, , of . Of this area, 59.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 30.9% is forested...
in SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition.... - Mixed Sunrise Studios, Kirchberg and Studio THC, GenovaGénovaGénova may refer to:* Spanish spelling of the city of Genoa, Italy* Génova, Quindío, a municipality in the department of Quindío, Colombia* Génova, Quetzaltenango, a municipality in the department of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala...
in Switzerland - Produced by Ferdinand RichardFerdinand RichardHervé Richard , better known as Ferdinand Richard, is a French avant-rock bass guitarist and composer.Richard was a founding member of the French avant-rock group Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973, and remained with them until they broke up in 1986...
- Artwork by Peter Bäder