[engl] To mark Finders Keepers Record's 50th release label heads Andy Votel, Dom Thomas and Doug Shipton return to where it all began in 2005 with a long overdue return to Jean-Claude Vannier's vaults! Electro Rapide is a collection of rare and unreleased archive material from the studio archives of legendary French orchestral pop composer Jean-Claude Vannier. Taken from the period before and during his revered creative relationship with Serge Gainsbourg (reaching their halcyon with 1971’s Histoire De Melody Nelson) these tracks reveal a rare glimpse of Vannier’s self-initiated instrumental projects that were crowbarred between an airtight studio diary as one of France’s most in demand arrangers and composers of the post Mai-68 generation... Alongside a handful of his contemporaries and collaborators such as Michel Colombier, Serge Gainsbourg, François de Roubaix, Brigitte Fontaine, Claude Nougaro and Gerard Manset, composer and orchestral arranger Jean-Claude Vannier is globally recognised as one of the key exponents of the Gallic pop cognoscenti to make the significant change from 60s yé-yé to the brooding con- ceptual pop which defined the following decade. His own masterworks, Histoire De Melody Nelson and L’Enfant Assassin Des Mouches (both of which benefited from the poetic prose of Serge Gainsbourg), are two such productions that con- tinue to inspire and challenge popular music as long as five decades since they were first released to moderate audiences in the early 1970s. Electro Rapide is a collection of similarly underexposed instrumental works that combine a mixture of Jean-Claude Vannier’s familiar trademark motifs and stylings from his coveted work for idiosyncratic French pop vocalists (such as Fontaine, Nougaro, Leonie and Anna St. Clair) with the seldom heard experimen- tal music for ballets, fashion shows as well as his infamous film music (such as the soundtracks for Cannabis and La Horse).

[engl] From deep in the vaults of the Parisian composer who arguably created the stylistic blueprint for decades of orchestral French funk and symphonic psychedelia, “the arranger’s arranger” Jean-Claude Vannier (Histoire de Melody Nelson/L’enfant assassin des mouches) finally liberates two previously unreleased and fabled film soundtracks that mark significant milestones in the career of this legendary composer and his close connection to the French free jazz scene. Comprised on this one vinyl disc you will find the only existing original historic recordings to his first ever 1968 collaboration with serge Gainsbourg as well as the entire lost musical score for Vannier’s first major star-studded solo film commission which followed the Gainsbourg years and a fruitful decade as one of France’s most in-demand arrangers and songwriters. These two scores, for Vannier’s oft type-cast commissions for “drugsploitation” dramas (Cannabis, La horse), are further united by their inclusion of sax player Philippe Maté and the early formation of Vannier’s own Insolitudes ensemble. As long-time custodians Finders Keepers Records are proud to present both the hallucinogenic orchestral music to Robert Benayoun’s Paris n’existe pas and the rhythmic onslaught and cyclic waltzes from Patrick Chaput’s La bête noire complete with an extensive booklet of essays, interviews, secrets and rare images from both of these mythical cinematic obscurities. LA BÊTE NOIRE From the furious pen of controversial author Jean-Pierre Bastid (Let The Corpses Tan/Massacre Of Pleasure) and directed by one-time realisateur Patrick Chaput the gritty street crime thriller precedes the likes of La haine. Revealing itself to be one of Jean-Claude Vannier’s most unique scores these previously unreleased studio master tapes capture self-styled batucadas and furious rhythm tracks next to frenzied carousel waltzes free from the stylistic time-stamp of their 1983 recording date. Having spent four decades trapped in muddy memories (and condemned to the phantom zone of a run of ultra-rare VHS cassettes) these experimental recordings remain independent from the pop and rock idiom and are both timeless as well as ground-breaking due to the deployment of key players from the French free jazz scene and the reunion of Vannier’s long standing Insolitudes (a unit that to some degree bears comparison to that of Ennio Morricone’s Gruppo D’Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza). Showcasing a crack team of Palm/Futura/Actuel/Saravah label regulars such as saxophonist Philippe Maté (Acting Trio/Maté-Vallancien/Tacet) alongside drummer Bernard Lubat (Mad Ducks), legendary Arpadys/Voyage rhythm masters Marc Chantereau and Pierre-Alain Dahan (La Horse/Brutus Drums) and session legend Michel Zanlonghi (Ensemble De Percussion De Paris) this thunderous, tumultuous, four-headed rhythm hydra bridges an authentic gap between The Jef Gilson Group and France’s signature “cosmic” revolution. Naturally these previously unheard compositions, rhythms and sound design experiments are spearheaded by lead pianist and composer Vannier providing devotees of his 1972 concept album L’enfant assassin des mouches with much to admire and cross-reference. PARIS N’EXISTE PAS Previously the subject of biographical rock history, archival documentaries and cruel bootlegging opportunity, the official mastertapes to Jean-Claude Vannier’s first ever studio date with Serge Gainsbourg poetically mirrors the title of the film… They didn’t exist, until now. Culled from reference recordings, rehearsals, playback tapes and work-in-progress TV magazine features, all found in the darkest corners of Vannier’s tightly guarded sound library, Finders Keepers in close collaboration with Jean-Claude finally presents the genuine hallucinogenic orchestral and experimental sound design recordings that appeared on the 1968 film Paris n’existe pas. The darker experimental tones within the film’s (overly) cautionary tale (complete with ghost story eeriness) would require a future-proofed soundtrack to span the plot’s apparitional time-shifts. The brooding orchestrations and experimental music found on this record comes complete with interjections of modern jazz courtesy of French free jazz mainstays Philippe Maté (Jef Gilson/Acting Trio) and Jean-Louis Chautemps (Jef Gilson Group/Janko Nilovic’s Giant). With the help of an esteemed string ensemble Vannier also lays down an early orchestral blueprint for his own “approximately-Orient” signature sound in its earliest naked form just three years before Histoire de Melody Nelson would cause widespread controversy on its release. Complete with well documented forays into sound design as a young Jean Claude and Serge “explore” the carcass of a piano with screwdrivers and cigarette lighters this album captures the exact “eureka” moment that cemented this seminal partnership thus forcing an important kink in the natural course of European music for decades to come.

[engl] To mark the ten years of Finders Keepers we present a lovingly remastered and repackaged release of the album where it all began. Within the last ten years the resurgence of sixties Gallic pop, once known as Ye-Ye music, has escalated beyond an inter-stellar dizzy height. What might have been a waning, embarrassing genre destined for a shelf life/death gathering dust amongst the Eurovisions of yesteryear, the ‘jerk-beat’ psychsploitation records of the latter day French disco had soon found new floor space in some of the most credible nightspots in London and Japan. Without a shadow of doubt, the flagship LP with best odds on becoming a discerning household object was Histoire de Melody Nelson by one Serge Gainsbourg. An inimitable, 45-minute concept LP handcrafted by a bass-driven psychedelic rock group and a heaven sent, 1001 piece orchestral and choral symphony. The album left hip hop producers alongside progressive rock aficionados crying out for more and more for years to come. This LP was in a league of its very own… or was it? The seldom-sung musical arranger for Melody Nelson has become one of the most enigmatic names in French-funk; lorded by many as the “French David Axelrod” Jean-Claude Vannier’s name is the lesser-spotted, tell-tale seal of sample-friendly quality when it comes to crate-digging ‘en Francais’. Suitably, when rumours amongst French record dealers claiming “the band who played Melody Nelson recorded a follow-up lp” became a legend of psychedelic folklore. Another unconfirmed rumour about JCV taking the remaining out-takes of the beloved Melody Nelson to create a promo-only experimental rock LP left sample hungry producers and DJs in turmoil… For those in the know the answers to these mysteries lay flat between the anonymous gatefold sleeve of an undiscovered conceptual album bizarrely entitled “L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches” by a custom-built avant-rock entourage called Insolitudes. The rocking-horse manure treasure hunt began. So here we have it. The mythical teen-tonic for all those suffering from Melody Nelson withdrawal symptoms. For record collectors looking for that special something, this LP contains the extra special EVERYTHING. Peruse the following genres: psychedelic, classical, soundtracks, jazz, hip hop, samples, avant-garde, funk. Then place a copy of L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches in each section. History denotes that when ‘our man in Paris’ Msr. Gainsbourg first heard the initial bones of this LP he took his poetic pencil to paper providing bizarre liner notes, thus consummating the most extraordinary concept album of all time. The story “The Child Assassin Of The Flies” was to be included as the only information to grace the LPs highly collectible, concertina gatefold sleeve. The story in full is reproduced in its native-tongue on this very special re-release package. DJs and Producers such as Jim O’Rourke, Stereolab’s Tim Gane and David Holmes have spent sleepless nights in perusal of original copies of this perfect release and now regard it as ‘One Of The Best’. Recent copies on eBay have commanded ridiculous price tags, and is now one of the most sought-after articles amongst the vinyl hungry hip-hop community.