SPACE ART

Space Art - self titled album

What? They're bad? Come on, if you're here, you already want cliche analog synth music, you filthy man! Space Art self-titled album, or Onix, engages a cheesy, but somehow pretty sympathetic musical environment. The music isn't complex to undestand. Much like Trip in The Center Head, but a little better. The sixth track (Ode a Clavius) took my interest after the first two minutes. Actually, the intro of this track, my favorite from all Space Art's work, it's a classical wannabe composition for oldschool electronics. The late minutes get's pretty interesting. OK, it's catchy. A little catchy. I'm sad there aren't too many minimal synth fans nowadays, and I can understand why Space Art remains underground in the progressive territory: they're cheesies than cheesy enough. I listen to loads of electronic vintage tapes and even the cliche ones are more inventive than this! But you know, it has some charm.

The '70s Space Art team of Dominique Perrier and Roger Rizzitelli should have attracted a much larger audience, but their albums never enjoyed the same degree of promotion and distribution mobilized by kindred synth-rock rival Jean Michel Jarre (who effectively neutralized a potential competitor by hiring the duo as his backing band in the early 1980s). The two acts shared strong common ties of geography and style, but Space Art would always be non-starters in any sales contest, despite an equal flair for melodic hooks, and the stronger muscle provided by a live drummer.

Their self-titled 1977 debut LP was located squarely on the Jarre/Vangelis axis, light years closer to home than the drifting interstellar explorations of other electro-prog pioneers (Schulze, Froese, Pinhas et al). The opening 'Onyx', which gave its name to an earlier CD re-release of the album, is still the perfect introduction to the Space Art sound, boosting the group into orbit on the afterburners of an incredibly catchy riff, and presented with enough wide-screen grandeur to make Cecil B. DeMille sit up and take notice. There's a motif of sorts in the contagious opening melody, recurring at the start of Side Two ('Aquarella', on the original vinyl), and in the more ominous, escalating atmospherics of the album closer 'Laser en Novembre': in musical terms the sound of our local star going supernova and obliterating the inner solar system.

But the album more often borrows its cues from the quasi-classical synthesized arrangements of Walter/Wendy Carlos, almost verbatim in the long 'Ode a Clavius', named after the lunar crater where Stanley Kubrick's enigmatic monolith was uncovered. Imagine the faux-baroque soundtrack to 'A Clockwork Orange', updated with state-of-the-art equipment (circa 1977) and fortified by heavy drumming. After more than thirty-five years it sounds better than I remembered (in a retro sort of way), enough to certainly warrant a second look, and better late than never.

A hopelessly dated yet alluring and pretty little album full of analogue synths played in the style of Jean Michel Jarre. As soon as you see the cover you know you're in for one hell of a 'bag of cheese'...

Acoustic drums, albeit heavily treated, are played over an entirely electronic score throughout this '77 recording. The drums contribute to the 'cheese factor' dramatically. 'Space Art' are an artefact of the mid 70's electronic scene. There's nothing ground-breaking or original here, but it does sound pretty cool in this - the smelliest of 'Stilton Cheese' productions.

Tracks such as 'Axus' actually stop you recoiling in embarrassment momentarily as some thudding drums take control. Still, it's not one to play on a first date, unless you own a pair of 'milk bottle glasses'.

There are a few comparisons with Tangerine Dream's "Force Majeure' from '79 but unfortunately this is more tacky, with as much threat and intimidation as a warm cabbage.

At times this recording sounds like a really poor 'Video Nasty ' soundtrack from the early 80's.

Thankfully things improve with 'Ode A Clavius' - Strangely I can't help but be taken back to 1979 when I was 9 years of age. This is SO Christmas day - with presents lying all over the floor, with scrumpled up wrapping paper lying in living room corners. It really is weird what music can do to your mind...

I've probably been unduly harsh on this recording as it actually sounds pretty good if listened to from beginning to end. At the time it must have sounded super and genuinely ground- breaking.

I'm afraid to say it's a bunch of rubbish really, with no artistic comparison to the 'Berlin' branch of electronics that existed at the same time.

That is one of the coolest album covers I have ever seen. Who came up with that? SPACE ART were a duo of electronics and drums forming in France in 1977, and releasing this, their debut that same year. The key for me with the music here is the real drums, and the man is good. We get a 34 minute album with seven tracks. I find it interesting that jean- Michel Jarre who released his two acclaimed albums the year before and the year after SPACE ART's debut, actually asked this duo to go with him to China and play live, which they did. They were one of the first international acts to play there as well.

That opener "Onyx" is a favourite of mine, the way it builds, and when the drums join in around a minute, it's really good. The second track is more mellow, an almost mysterious piece of music with melancholy. Another winner. "Interlune" is just that, and it's dark and quiet. "Axius" has some energy and power right off the hop. Amazing sound after a minute but it will change. "Aquarella" is the closest thing to berlin school but not quite. The longest track is "Ode A Claviius" at 8 1/2 minutes, and while it has it's moments it also isn't one of my favourites. A lot of high pitched synths here. The closer at just over 6 minutes rivals the opener as my favourite on here. Powerful stuff including the atmosphere. Drums are more to the fore here as well.

A very solid debut that is just a little different from the rest.