HELDON II - ALLEZ TEIA

Simply judging from the album cover art in the modern era, HELDON's second release ALLEZ TÃ?IA could be mistaken for some lost black metal demo of Bathory or even an indie anarcho-punk act angrily acting out in the late 70s UK in musical form but in reality this 1975 release was HELDON's most accessible and easy listening of the seven albums of the band's initial run from 1974 - 1979. After the groundbreaking debut "Ã?lectronique Guerilla" which showcased a newfangled French flavored approach to German inspired progressive electronic, ALLEZ TÃ?IA feels less confident and unsure of itself with an overindulging tribute to Fripp & Eno's classic "Pussyfooting" along with a rehash of the many approaches first encountered on the debut.

A noticeably truncated cast of supporting musicians this time around, this sophomore album featured project leader Richard Pinhas rockin' his ARP & VC53 synthesizers with Georges Grünblatt returning on synth, mellotron and guitar. Alain Reanud and Alain Bellaïche added some extra guitar work but limited to one track each. The opening "In the Wake of King Fripp" makes no bones about the King Crimson worship on display and also showcases a new feature not present on the debut: the use of acoustic guitar and a foray into the world of psychedelic folk. The album immediately starts out feeling a bit clumsy, with a repetitive cyclical acoustic guitar loop almost in the spirit of modern post-rock along with the electronic wizardry already established on album #1. Of course the Frippian guitar sweeps dominate the soundscape as the track continues but all in all it sounds a bit too close to source and lacks the innovative spirit of "�lectronique Guerilla." Not a good start really.

Pinhas continues his newfound interest in acoustic guitar folk on the following "Alphanisis" but comes off as more of a tribute to John Fahey's American Primitivism as if Pinhas had totally jumped shipped and become enamored with the world of psychedelic folk. It seems the entire album has followed suit when the same guitar style opens the third track "Omar Diop Blondin" but lo and behold the "Pussyfooting" worship makes a reprise as the electric guitar sweeps join in as do subtle electronic embellishments which slowly but surely soldier on for 7 1/ 2 minutes until i'm convinced that i will not really find anything redeeming about ALLEZ TÃ?IA at all. But then just as i'm ready to declare defeat the fourth track "Moebius" suddenly shifts gears and steers the album back into the world of multi-layered textured Berlin School inspired electronica. The short track cedes to the two-part "Fluence" which breaks down into two separate thematic progressions. The album at last has become what everyone expects from HELDON.

"Fluence" delivers a darkened cyber-punk style of droning dread with a cold yet trance detached menagerie of synthesizers, moog and mellotrons. Gestating at a snail's pace, the repetitive industrial grit eventually discovers a Philip Glass inspired musical motif of arpeggiated chords in a faster tempo that sprawls on for over 12 minutes. The dark and gloomy oscillating cosmic space electronica continues with " St-Mikael Samstag am Abends" before the album ends with the same acoustic guitar worship that began it with the closing Michael Ettori" which immediately pulls your sensory overload out of orbit and grounds you once again in a flowery down to Earth approach that derails any moment the album gained once it got its footing. PInhas has admitted that ALLEZ TÃ?IA was one of his earliest pre-band offerings that hasn't stood the test of time and i'd have to agree with him on that one. The album lacks cohesion, focus and the original brilliance that scintillated so brightly on "Ã?lectronique Guerilla."

While not a horrible album by any means, personally i find this to be HELDON's weakest moment where Pinhas was grasping for straws on where to embark on the next journey of his novel industrial electronica that immediately made a splash. Perhaps it was the pressure to evolve the project into something completely new but in the process left the best aspects of what made HELDON so unique behind. In retrospect Pinhas quickly regained traction and returned to the dystopic dueling electronic impulses that put HELDON on the map of French progressive electronic. The following "Third (It's Always Rock And Roll" would find HELDON return to form and commence to carve out an ever-increasing evolution of far out electronic fusion mojo that wouldn't stop its self-correcting process until the band's grand finale "Stand By." ALLEZ TÃ?IA is a perfectly listenable album but sounds like a bunch of leftover tracks that lacked the same music magic as what came before and what would come after. A more meditative affair, ALLEZ TÃ?IA at times actually comes across as a prototype of what would become new age music.