C'ÉTAIENT DE TRÈS GRANDS VENTS

One of the strangest musical forces to emerge from the 80s French underground was the horrific sounding SHUB-NIGGURATH which derived its name from the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and delivered a morbid darkened world of avant-garde musical soundtracks to the apocalypse to match. The character referred to the Outer Goddess in the pantheon who was a perverse fertility deity and was said to appear only as a "hellish cloud-like entity." Taking a cue from this fictitious nebulously formed goddess of the underworld, SHUB-NIGGURATH continued to craft bizarrely twisted musical forms that emulated the darkened cloud goddess with freaky abstract and oft formless scores that progressively got weirder and more thematically occult as the band continued.

The band started in 1982 and captured the world of avant-prog's attention with its 1986 debut "Les Morts Vont Vie" which deftly blended the zeuhl rhythmic forces of Magma with the creepy darkened avant-prog chamber prog antics of Univers Zero's "Heresie" era. Infused with an equal dose of 20th century experimental classical elements in the vein of Stockhausen, Ligeti, Cage and Varèse, SHUB-NIGGURATH constructed a totally new world of musical freakery with in a magnitude hitherto unknown in the world of avant-prog with some of the darkest and most sophisticated the genre had to offer. After this debut the band would lose both vocalist Ann Stewart and guitarist Frank Fromy leaving keyboardist Jean-Luc Hervé to take on the secondary duty of guitars. Newbie drummer Michel Kervinio also jumped on board.

The band followed with an even stranger musical specimen than what debuted even though that sounds very difficult to fathom. The band's second album C'ETAIENT DE TRES GRANDE VENTS (There Were Of Three Big Winds) seems to refer to the formless nature of the Lovecraftian deity for which the band was named and likewise this sophomore album reflects a more abstract ethereal noisy trip into the world of avant-garde infused 20th century classical music rather than anything in the world of progressive rock. Despite this stripping down of the prog elements and the inclusion of the new vocalist Sylvette Claudet for only a sole track, the album while more enthralled with minimalism and slinking processions of ambient sounds rather than zeuhl inspired rhythmic drives still exhibits scant relations to its predecessor from time to time with a few zeuhl moments as well as outbursts of heavy dissonant avant-prog.

The seven tracks on board seem to accent the art of contrast with eerie atmospheres finding freeform guitar dissonance and bizarre drumming sequences that ratchet up the tension until they reach a climactic meltdown of heavily distorted discordant guitar turbulence along with raucous percussive explosiveness sounding like a mix of the death industrial world of SPK in cahoots with Karlheinz Stockhausen's pointillistic surreality along with the remaining touches of Univers Zero or Art Zoyd. From the very first track "Glaciations," SHUB-NIGGURATH delivers a labyrinthine procession of tones and timbres courtesy of guitar feedback and droning with subtle percussive accents that culminate in a cacophonous uproar reminding of John Zorn's most spazzed out moments only in the context of a 20th century classical ensemble run amok. "Océan" is the closest remnant of the band's debut with the bleating of bass trombone sounds and a more rhythmic groove reminiscent of the zeuhl tendencies of album #1.

As the album continues it just gets more free form and more abstruse with irregular drum beats accompanied by impressionist guitar and bass arrhythmia. While the creepy piano spectral contributions still find their way into the mix, they are sparse and more scattered throughout the album's run. This is a noisy affair with seemingly little to latch onto as the debut at least offered the lifeline of zeuhl logic to forge rhythmic processions and the familiarity of Univers Zero avant-prog comparisons. C'ETAIENT DE TRES GRANDE VENTS on the other hand removes all training wheels and forces the listener to either run in terror or grasp to find the elusive underpinning of it all buried deep beneath the scattered sounds of the electroacoustic dark ambient sound effects that bath themselves in the nebulous nature of musique concrète or the recondite structuralism of Stockhausen, Schoenberg or Xenakis.

Definitely a harder pill to swallow, C'ETAIENT DE TRES GRANDE VENTS was the perfect way to alienate fans of the debut by taking them into a bizarre modern classical realm that they probably preferred not to be dragged into. Many bands that found a respected debuts have suffered this same fate whether it be Italy's Dedalus or Picchio dal Pozzo's bizarre sophomore release however SHUB-NUGGURATH took things even further with a sonic jungle so thick and so impenetrable that only the most dedicated intrepid musical explorers could find their way through the labyrinthine chaotic processions that navigated the 45 minute run. Personally i can totally understand why many did not warm up to this one as it is ridiculously tense and purposefully complex with the seeming intent to alien as many listeners as is possible but the music is actually beautifully designed behind its mirage of cacophonous clutter and will appeal to those who seek out the noisy shenanigans of Nurse With Wound, Controlled Bleeding or early Zoviet France. Personally i find this sort of mind fuck music exhilarating and can totally hop on board this bizarre ride into doomsday. Not for everyone but rewarding for those who love these jittery rides into musical oblivion. This one will only appeal to those who have the patience and persistence to detect subtle musical developments in the midst of minimalism and chaos.