ARACHNOID

A quite experimental effort that draws inspiration from avantgarde, King Crimsonique 70's dark prog rock and vocal theatricity of Ange and original ingredients that I could not attribute to other bands or artists.

Rhythm section with bass guitar and drums sound well and it is the guitar and keyboard textures in the background that offer remote comparison to King Crimson.

French language is much more convincing than English in one song.

I like most instrumental parts with aggressive guitar and subtle keyboards such as the second part of "Le Chamadere".

"Piano Caveau" has logically much binding to a solo piano and is very different from the first song but turns into an irregular perfectly gloomy pattern with bass-guitar solo and ominous

percussions. Organ mixed with synth having a sound of digital piano offer a nice sound mixture. Not sure if it is a Melotron but more like an organ in the background.

"In the screen side of your eyes" sounds like a balland in the beginning before turning into a speedy and Crimsonisque organ. Noteworthy is flute enrichment.

"Toutes ces images" has a Genesis guitar in it and evolves into a jazzy Canterbury fury in the end.

"La guepe" combines nice instrumental passages with edge-sounding vocal experimentation.

"Final" is a breathtaking intensive progressive rock workout sounding so much French (compare to Shylock).

For the brave experimentation and solid musicianship, this album deserves 4 stars.

This late-1970s self-titled release from Parisian unit Arachnoid finds the band walking a spidersilk-thin tightrope, on the one hand juggling dark zeuhl and avant-prog influences whilst the other crafts the music into a more accessible (but no less ambitious) tapestry of symphonic space rock. You have the hypnotic chants and intonations of zeuhl combining with cosmic overtones that, whilst not absent from the zeuhl playbook, feels much more in line with the work of symphonic French bands like Pulsar or Ange, all taking place under a shroud of darkness that could have come from the deepest depths of Van der Graaf Generator. Wild, daunting stuff.

Arachnoid came from the suburbs of Paris, a band which only earned some cult status over the years, struggling to find stability due to series of line-up changes, financial limitations and a slow development.They started in 1967 as the duo of Patrick Woindrich (bass, guitar, vocals) and Michel Pilot (guitar), evolving through the years to a Prog Rock band and adding members to the line-up.One proof of their slow development was the fact they hit the stage only in 1975, at a time when Pilot had quit due to lack of time.Woindrich then gathered a new line-up with Francois Faugieres (already a member since 1972) and Pierre Kuti on keyboards, Nicolas Popowski on guitar/vocals, Marc Meryl on vocals and Bernard Minig on drums, the band recorded an album in late-70's, released only on the newly established Divox label in 1979, an organization searching for new groups for its roster.

Arachnoid played a mysterious, very French-sounding and pretty unique Progressive Rock, which had its roots in Classical Music, but borrowed elements from a wide spectrum of tastes, only to showcase that this group was experienced enough and had a pretty long career, before launching this record, as their debut not only contains the early spirit of French Prog Rock but was flavored by jazzy, psychedelic and even some light Zeuhl moves.I can only compare them to ACINTYA in terms of originality and a heavy keyboard-led sound, although the two bands are far from similar.Arachnoid created muti-themed lengthy tracks with irritating vocals, slow moving guitars, Classical orientations performed on synthesizer and organ but also some strong jazzy passages with soft electric guitar and electric piano, revisiting the dark vibes of KING CRIMSON pretty often, producing some theatrical branches with narrations and keyboard experiments and somewhat getting lost in a labyrinth of complex ideas and poetry.There are even some evident links to PULSAR and CATHARSIS throughout the listening, featuring haunting spacious themes and obscure psychedelic acoustics, the album is far from consistent, but the band managed to produced some serious intensity and sinister atmospheres through these diverse influences.Actually I find myself struggling to catch up with all these mood variations, going from romantic lyrics and acoustics to a progressive mysticism with full-blown intstrumental interactions in a doomy execution, based on long keyboard plays and irritating electric guitars.

Of course Divox was not the right choice for a heavy promotion, but apparently the band found only closed doors when dealing with other labels.After some further line-up shakes Arachnoid became Color in 1980, sweetening their sound to more simplistic Rock formats, recording also an alnum, which was never released.Marc Meryl passed away in 1987 and Francois Faugieres died a few years later, battling for some time with a disease after getting wounded in a trip to Brazil.

Extremely serious progressive music with a dark and muddy sound and links to the more atmospheric French Prog bands like Carpe Diem, Shylock and Acintya.Not an everyday listening, but trully imaginative, psychedelic and instrumentally captivating.Recommended.

More tentative, reserved and creeping than most symphonic prog, Arachnoid melt down and break up the symphonic idiom into a more oppressive, suggestive and spacey world of their own.

Focusing on dynamics and obtuse atmosphere-driven instrumental passages, regardless if they are more rocking or ethereal, it has a fairly unique, vocal-sparse sound and a vigorous hybrid identity that is instantly recognizable. You will find some attention-grabbing outbursts of angular and buzzing guitar and full-on symphonic assault, but that's not really what it's about. It is rarely pretty, the sounds coming together in swirling, wavering and rumbling madness, but maintaining a rather strong melodic integrity. Often, the tossing and turning liveliness takes place in a cocoon of thick, bleak and sticky atmosphere that manages to be very intense and commanding while only hanging on to reality by a tread. It feels pleasingly confused and unstable in how it all comes together, without ever really disintegrating. That balance act might just be the best thing about the album, making it feel very much alive and pleasingly surprising in a twisted organic fashion. Occasionally there is a smidgen or two of dark lite-fusion and cold, snarling and wheezing avant tendencies that sets it apart from the symphonic mainstream and nudge the album further into wonderful asylum territory.

You will often find a bubbling concoction of keyboards and guitar that simmer like hot black oil beneath the compositions, often enough with a feeling of rapidly impending doom. Shape-shifting keyboards whirl and hover alongside a similarly busy but indefinable guitar. Lucent electric piano notes and chords come and go like bright spots here and there, enriching as well as undermining the whole harmonic and melodic structure of the pieces. A discordant, fuzzed-up guitar riff or some naked and idiosyncratic picking get working on making the experience a bit more physical and edgy and things then build upon that via involved, but very disciplined and somewhat low-key percussion. Fire-and-brimstone keyboard attacks come and go, at times bouncing a contrasting and rather beautiful melody against unforgiving guitar onslaught. Their main focus can just as easily be to stir up trouble in spacey insanity. At times the mist lifts, revealing some beautiful and sombre rollicking piano or even a bit of flute and more gentle and forgiving guitars and keys, but that's more of an exception than a rule, being just shorter interludes in the menacing whole. They rarely let go of the reins completely, focusing on generating a disciplined chaos with a keen sense of dynamics, letting the compositions develop in a cleverly and nicely dysfunctional way.

A thoroughly good album, but a few lows and the scarcity of proper highs in the generally high-class and genuinely exquisite atmosphere keeps it from achieving greatness. Should be a very welcome addition in any collection that prefers symphonic prog as something dirtied up, twisted and dark.

4 stars.

//LinusW

A strange freaky album by a band that released this one sole album and then disappeared into the nether world. A highly addictive symphonic take on the darkness of Univers Zero mixed with zeuhl and influences from King Crimson and the spaciness of Pink Floyd, it's one of those albums that you can hear influences but the sum of the parts results in a sound that reminds you of none other partly because of the multiple keyboards in use and the eerily spooky symphonic effects that would surely be appropriate for haunted houses!

Mostly instrumental but some French vocals similar to Christian Decamps from Ange do pop up occasionally. This album is predominantly about keyboards whether it be symphonic or dark and sinister sounding piano runs but there are also some good guitars. Very interesting and unique and demands several listens for it to sink in. The tracks are long and take their time to fully play out. I have the CD with bonus tracks and they are well worth having. It says on my CD and the band's website that this was released in 1978.

I finally got me a copy of this album, an original LP on Divox, no less! I've been aware of this group for many years, probably since about 2000. This French group put out their one and only album in 1979, but the original LP is extremely hard to find, and it's been said only 300 copies were made. Hans Pokora, who published a series of Record Collector Dreams books gives a one to six disc rating to all titles listed, one disc meaning a rare LP that's really not impossible to find, and you might be lucky to find it at a reasonable price, to six disc which are so rare that you likely don't own a copy (usually LPs that rare are test pressings, acetates, or very limited amount of pressings, maybe 50 or so copies). The Arachnoid LP is given three discs from Pokora, on the same league as Museo Rosenbach's Zarathustra, Jose Cid's 10.000 Anos Depois Entre Venus E Marte, L'Uovo di Colombo's only album, Jumbo's DNA, and so on (I have no LPs in my collection Pokora rated higher than three, which means image finding LPs rated higher!). But years later Musea reissued the Arachnoid album, and for good reason, to let more progheads get the chance to hear this without having to bend over backwards trying to find an original LP. For some reason, there seems to be that certain characteristic common within French prog. Like theatrical vocals, angular King Crimson-type guitar riffing, spacy synthesizers, and odd sounding phased organs. Arachnoid has been frequently compared with the likes of Ange, Pulsar, Shylock, and King Crimson, which sounds about right. It's strange how several of these French albums I've heard feature that same fuzz lead guitar Gilbert Gandil used in Pulsar, like this group, as well as Archaia. This album also has some nice use of Mellotron. Synths appear to be a Korg, as it definitely does not sound like MiniMoog or an ARP Odyssey. Although there are vocals, they don't dominate, although there's one passage where the vocalist starts screaming. This is the kind of prog that would cause the regular Huey Lewis & the News (or any other such similar ultra-mainstream pop/rock act) fan running and screaming for the hills. I am not too surprised this was Arachnoid's only album, given it was released in 1979, when there was a declining interest in prog by the public, not to mention the limited amount of copies pressed of the album meant it was obscure right from the start (if Arachnoid recorded a few years earlier, they might have had a bigger label backing them up and a probable chance of recording more than one album). For all the years I've heard great stuff about this band, well they are right! One of the best prog albums I've heard from 1979, and is essential.

By the way, since I own the original LP, just to let everyone know, the mix differs from the reissue on Musea. The opening cut, for example, around the part where you hear a little girl speak something in French and those synths kick in, on the original Divox LP, you hear these "Ahhhh" choruses in the background. The Musea version omits those "Ahs" and replaces them with some sort of organ or harmonium. It's luckily not as drastically altered as Neuschwanstein's Battlement, but enough to warrant seeking out the original LP (if you can find and afford a copy, that is).

France's eclectic progressive rock scene produced a handful of impressive groups during the 1970s, the likes of Pulsar, Atoll, Ange and Magma each cooking up of their own distinctive brew of Gallic art-rock to usually excellent effect. However, whilst those groups managed to cultivate long(ish) careers and loyal fan-bases, the little-known collective Arachnoid were one of the many who belong that large club of groups who made just one album before disappearing into rock 'n' roll obscurity. A difficult, arty, overly-complex affair, Arachnoid's addition to the prog canon is a typically European concoction, both heavy on atmosphere and intricate wordplay yet light on melodic hooks and fist-pumping riffs. Ignored during their prime, Arachnoid are just one of the thousands of European acts who have gained from the creation of the French label Musea, an imprint designed to house groups as un-commercial as these. As a result, the group's one-and-only release is now regarded as an important part of the French scene, though just why it is remains(to this reviewer at least) a bit of a mystery. Unlike, say, 'Halloween' by Pulsar or Ange's first two abums, this high-brow courting collection lacks any real punch, proving a decidedly impenetrable and tedious listen. Certain tracks, such as the gothic opener 'Le Chamadere' occasionally flex the group's instrumental muscles, yet all too often the slow pace and overly fussy arrangements merely frustrate. This is deliberately obtuse prog-rock featuring the very essence of why so many people find the genre pompous and unfathomable, whilst also showcasing exactly why many European acts struggle to find any kind of audience outside of their homelands. Yes, there's talent behind 'Arachnoid', and yes, the album does suffer from poor production values, yet plenty of groups have overcome these barriers to create complex and accessible music. A fundamentally flawed release, this is one of those overly-praised items that has remained obscure for a very good reason.

STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012

Arachnoid is a 1978 anachronism, an album that was definitely not well-adapted to its time, but nevertheless it's a remarkably solid one, probably one of the best classic Prog albums from the end of the 70's, with an eclectic style reminiscent of the symphonic dramatics of Ange and the dark and chromatic chord progressions of King Crimson. It also has a slightly spacey approach to the keyboard playing, which are much more upfront then the guitars, but even for a "keyboards-in-rock-skeptic" like myself the result is entirely pleasing.

Everything holds together very well, the compositions are lively and dynamic, and there's no soloist detracting the attention from the essence. All performers play very fluently and intuitively, with a nice organic and very rocking sound. In other words, an album with an edge. Recommended for fans of prog hybrids with elements from Symphonic Prog as well as Avant and Space-rock. The band called it quits after this album. Had they released this 5 years earlier the future might have looked a lot brighter for them!

PS. If you want to check a more modern French album with a similar vibe, I'd recommend Nil's "Nil Novo Sub Sole"

A lot of great prog albums come from France and this is one of them. Their self-titled only album from 1978. This music on this album is similar to both the theatrical rock of Ange and the darker, mysterious vibe of Art Zoyd. This band features two keyboardists, which is usually a good thing in my book(but not always). None of the vocals or individual instruments really stand out on their own. I feel this benefits the music; the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts kinda thing. This is under 'Symphonic Prog' here on PA, but I think it would be of interest to those who like artists in Eclectic and RIO/Avant as well.

The beginning of the album starts with a very brief but strange annoying buzz sound. Unless the CD I listened to had a defect. If that was done on purpose, then it was interesting but ultimately unnecessary. "Le Chamadere" is the longest and best song on the album. Some eerie synth sounds that gets more jazzy before chorused guitar comes in. Then bass, drums and more synth. Vocals in French. Later some fuzzy guitars. Drums drop out then you hear a child's voice. After some angry vocals and chanting. Then great wah- bass and military style drumming. Some whispering. Music stops and more whispering before music comes back.

The music changes halfway through the song to a more symphonic part. Synth makes bird- like noises. Later hi-hat and fuzzy guitar with some electric piano. A synth solo before tempo changes with military drumming. Near the end it gets more symphonic with talking. Ends with weird synth noises. "Piano Caveau" begins with talking and piano. Later drums, bass and what sounds like organ. There is also a unique sounding percussion instrument that I'm not sure what it's called. After some phased synth which sounds like vocoder. Then a wah guitar solo. More phased synth or vocoder. Back to just piano.

"In The Screen Side Of Your Eyes" has lyrics in English. It starts off a fairly straight forward ballad with some flute. A more energenic section before it goes symphonic rock. More flute. "Toutes Ces Images" starts with what sounds like the last song played backwards. French vocals are back. Easy going before fuzzy guitars and drums come in. The drumming in this song is really good. A synth solo. Music calms down again and goes into a symphonic part. The song gets louder and more intense before it ends.

"La Guepe" goes into a jazzy part before some good drumming. Another jazzy section with strummed guitar and a synth solo. Some people talking, then laughing and theatrical singing. You hear what sounds like "meta-leak" over and over. Tempo gets faster then another synth solo. Then guitar solo. Music calms down then picks up with "huh" vocals and another synth solo. "Final" starts with drum roll. The bass sounds really good in this song. Basically just synth and guitar solos.

This is one of the better prog albums from 1978. The bonus songs on the CD have bad sound quality and are generally nothing special. Overall, great French prog. 4 stars.

A fairly ordinary Zeul / Prog album with some definite highlights followed by many lowlights. Fans of Univers Zero will really like this, guaranteed.

It's quite like 'King Crimson' in parts with lots of stops and starts and moments of silence. About 60 percent of "Arachnoid' is instrumental.

Not nearly as dark and heavy as Magma on who's genre they decided to infiltrate, but it's still quite good.

Just too normal to strike fear into the hearts of us Zeuhl people. This may be a bit unfair, as 'Arachnoid' is actually ok. It scrapes three stars by the skin of its teeth.

I must admit, I do like the sleeve which reminds me of the time I punched a pile of paper instead of a customer at my work in a printing factory, breaking my knuckles.

Stupid boy!