It is at Otomo by ManuelFranco-American artist-director, essential element of the Nancy counterculture, that we owe this superb box relating to the city scene, mainly in the 80’s era. In 2 DVDs and a CD, the one who created the experimental theater company Materia Prima Art Factory and the artistic wasteland TOTEM takes us back to an abundant era, where Nancy was full of audacity, swam against the tide and established DIY as a modus operandi. Its two DVDs retrace, with supporting interviews and not least, the enormous wealth and cultural plurality of the cold eastern city, the founding element of which is of course the Kas Product of Spatsz And Mona Soyoc. The latter illustrates, with lucidity, the freedom of action, the “punkitude” in the act and the absence of hindrance – institutional, for example – which characterized the local scene. We see and hear, on these two supports, a number of figures from between the walls expressing themselves, emphasizing Nancy’s excitement and subsequently, questioning who killed her. Dick Tracy, Wroomble ExperienceTHE Terminal Exportthe fabulous OTOamong other rebellious groups, appear there and testify to an effervescence that the CD compilation “ Random, Cold and Dilettant Music“, strong of twenty-one pieces incommensurate with the norm, devotes. I’m addicted to it; it honors formations of which I already own the opuses (Atomic Kids, OTO, Wroomble Experience), which I have even seen live (Double Nelsonin my city, was astonishing), and covers a panel as imaginative as it is dedicated to difference.
Superb vintage images strike our view. Live sequences of insane intensity emerge, the arts intersect and complement each other in a magma with which the current era no longer has anything to do, much less spontaneous. In Nancy in the 80’s, we built with three pieces of string. Starting from nothing, or close to it, we knew how to do everything. Creativity was constantly in demand, it was even imperative, otherwise we could not continue. The desire, by which I mean the desire to plow one’s own furrows, prevailed. She reigned. On So Young But So Cold/Who Killed Nancy? the foundations of an unstoppable momentum are highlighted, its struggles put into words by a plethora of fascinating art people. They exude freedom, the desire of each to stand out without ever “pumping” what the other is developing. Watched three times already, So Young But So Cold/Who Killed Nancy? is a matter of enthusiasts, of real people. It is my resource, my antidote to the advent of the telephone and computers which, as the “doc” explains, have damaged the relationship with Lady Music while expanding the possibilities of having access to it. From now on we quickly create beauty, but what do we put into it? The question deserves to be asked, as an answer it is appropriate to retort that before we were freer, less “chaperoned” and therefore much more innovative, much more “inventive”. My words cannot, I would like to point out, reflect the scope of these two DVDs, accomplished in every way. A splendid milestone, a testimony to watch many times of a Nancy then very much alive. And swarming. Ideas, initiatives, very system D common life, crazy and brilliant sounds. Like, ultimately, their designers.
At this precise moment, I turn the CD in my beautiful Pioneer, at the same time I read the booklet, enjoy the photos, turn and turn over the box and its list of determining names, written pink on black. That was it, pink in the dark, hope in a gray era tending to black. But exhilarating, as the documentary tells us. RCDM gets into my head, I also remember the preponderant place of women in groups as well as in the artistic orgy of the time. Since the SMACS were born, they certainly support but at the same time, pose barriers. Resourcefulness scares you, it deviates and the current era, closed, judgmental, freezes in the face of audacity. The framed one secures and the daring despises. Regrets. Well, everything is not dark, I have seen some superb lives in these SMACs. And then I have this box set, within reach, to return to my Source. My water trough. Damned, he is beautiful!!! As I write to you, the bell rings Brass of Geins’t Naït & Laurent Petitgandin the process Mellano Soyoc will bring up the rear to the sound of his One Great Desire. Before that, Dick Tracy will have coppered his Pocco Muchooff the rails, of an obscure post-punk. Alive the Roupetteson a Van Gogh first clever, then scathing and with hit songs, nestled between the two options, will have among other brave people traced his desires.
Photo Grégoire Petit
All of them, in fact, deserve to be nominated. They are essential, pillars of a movement that is the opposite of rancidity. Winter Familyher Yallah with almost suicidal outbursts. Candidateauthor of this On the ice cold, lurking in the darkness. The aforementioned projects also and obviously, the framework of a whole that breaks the house. MA Beather Psalm vivacious and psychedelic as well as excited. Blockhaus Babiestheir Elephant Man to racy, crazy post-punk, MOKO And Maydit Who
rap/trip-hop while adorning itself with captivating scrolls and so on, but you are encouraged to purchase the box set, of vintage quality. From its opening title to its finale, without missing a step, RCDM rises to the level of reference collections, such as A Man & A Machine for example, instigated in his time by The Sound of the Maquisand brilliantly completes, according to a chronology that has so far been declined, the essential and fascinating work of Otomo by Manuel whom we thank a thousand times, it goes without saying, as well as all the participants involved here, for their titanic and masterful work.
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