ZNR

ZNR released two very different albums with the debut being more of a keyboard album, especially the synths standing out. While this record I'm reviewing is more acoustic and more like chamber music. It is chamber music! We get a lot of short pieces here with nineteen tracks worth over just 34 minutes. There are many reviewers and the like who know way more about music than I do who rave about this record. I personally don't get it. But then this is quite slow moving and acoustic for the most part and I have little patience for that. Some even call this a beautiful album, but again I am missing the boat when it comes to these opinions. Over my head, or my tastes in music are just that different.

The lineup shown here on the site is not right. They are a six piece and they're showing the lineup from their debut and three of those members aren't on this one including the drummer, as there are no drums on this one. We get the two keyboardists, two horn players, violin and guitar. This album is often quite slow moving with sparse sounds. The violin sounds acoustic and traditional sounding and I'm not into it or this record at all. Apologies to chamber music fans. The cover art on ZNR's debut by the way was done by Captain Beefheart. Who knew?

Google says the title of this fine record means 'treaty of popular mechanics'. I prefer to believe it means 'popular mechanical treats'. ZNR's second album is collection of perfect tiny mechanisms, more recognisably chamber music than their first, gentler, with fewer of the surreal sonic shocks. It is again a series of miniatures, this time much more like Racaille's 'Six Petites Chansons' EP. Fred De Fred (Yes, that Fred) does some subtle, quiet spray-canning here and there, and there's also some free jazz sax, but otherwise, no WTF moments. Again, Satie is everywhere. Out of time, durable.

A most peculiar group. Not too far from Julverne, they've practically nothing to do with rock, altho' this album does use some synth / electronic keyboards, and Dalek voices too. This debut LP (like their second) is a collection of beautiful, strange, surreal miniatures. Not for nothing have they been called Satiesque. It's undeniable stuff, completely outside the main currents of the time, in its own indelible space. Gentle, unassuming, but careful, precise, unpretentious, and extremely intelligent. With a few WTF moments. Like Julverne it has a fin de siecle feel. Transportive, meditative. Music for a quiet, peaceful day, on which intriguing things may happen.

The album shows the desire of the two musicians to produce some dreamy, deep and highly intellectual musicianship, influenced by the fundamentals of Chamber and Electronic Music as well as Jazz, for which they were helped by several musicians on violin, clavinet and sax parts with just a lone guitar/rhythm section appearance.The original release was split into two pieces, ''Face Rat'' (side A) and ''Face serpent'' (side B), offering some very esoteric minimalistic atmosphere, always driven by the Zazou/Racaille duo and their performances on pianos and analog synths like the VCS3 and the ARP 2600, under a very Chamber/Electronic mood.Most of the short pieces included in the album features an occasional appearance of either violins, clavinets or saxes, making the sound very close to the RIO movement of the time.Some of them even contain vocals (sung either by Zazou or Ricaille) in a tremendous poetic and very French way.Just a few of them sound rather dull, as if coming out of an 80's computer game, due to the monotonic beats and the sometimes surrealistic sound of synths.

The description of the album might suggest a very abstract and free-approached release, but the truth is ZNR's ''Bariccade 3'' is a rather tight and flat album with no particular mood changes and the minimalistic approach of Zazou and Racaille has often plenty to offer, if you are into this stuff.Overall recommended.

ZNR was founded in the mid seventies by Hector Zazou, who was soon rejoined by Joseph Racaille. They could be qualified as the core of the band, as they played the most important role in the compositional process of ZNR's albums, even if they were helped by André Jaume on saxophones, David Rueff on violin and Patrick Portella on clarinets. Louize Alcazar, herself, took care of all the arrangements. ZNR's music, often wrongly labelled as avant-garde even if it should appeal to admirers of the genre, is one of the most accessible band defined as such. Traité de mécanique populaire was released in 1980 on Scopa Invisible label. Pretty much in the same vein as its predecessor, but lead more by classical instruments played by Hector Zazou and Joseph Racaille, this album consists of a collection of short pieces, all of which are directly related to each other.

Zazou and Racaille were both clearly influenced by modern composers, notably Ravel, Debussy and Satie. The impressive compositional level of ZNR's music, often based on counterpoints, polyphony, modality and dissonance contributed to make it as renowned to the lovers of chamber rock as it is. ZNR always achieves to rouse the listener with the touching melancholy of its music. Traité de mécanique populaire is recommended to anyone who likes progressive music with a classical sensibility and a tad bit of jazz thrown in it.