29.01.2025
Music
eye 106

Aksak Maboul - Before And After Bandits (documents 1977-1980, 2015)

Aksak Maboul - Before And After Bandits (documents 1977-1980, 2015)

This album narrates an alternative history of Aksak Maboul’s early years, revealing some missing links in the sinuous, still-unfolding story of the band which has been the personal musical vehicle of Crammed Discs founder Marc Hollander.

Starting around the making of the 1977 debut Onze danses pour combattre la migraine (tracks 1-4), the collection follows through the Bandits album phase with Fred Frith & Chris Cutler (tracks 5-6), unearths traces of a mad, little-documented avant-No Wave phase in 1980 (tracks 7-9), and finally lands in 2015 with an excerpt of the first show by the band's resurrected live incarnation, after a hiatus of some 30 years (track 10). 

Before and After Bandits features no less than 17 of the band's successive members and guests who have been (or still are) revolving around founder and main composer Marc Hollander, including band members Vincent Kenis, Véronique Vincent, Faustine Hollander, Yvon Vromman, and guests Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, Geoff Leigh, Guigou Chenevier & more. Originally included in CD format as a bonus to the 2018 vinyl reissue of Un peu de l'âme des bandits, this collection of rare live and studio recordings is now out digitally for the first time.
“Before & After Bandits traces an alternative, every bit as compelling history of Aksak Maboul… Jazz meets avant-classical, while brittle electronics spray delirious nonsense into the air…”  (Uncut, 2018)

The last track in this collection was recorded in Feb 2015 at Les Ateliers Claus, Brussels, at the very first show of the resurrected live incarnation of Aksak Maboul, feat. Véronique Vincent (vox & lyrics), Marc Hollander (keys), Sebastiaan Van den Branden (synth & guitar), Faustine Hollander (bass), Christophe Claeys (drums), and Bob Hermans (live sound).

From the press on the 2018 reissue of Un peu de l’âme des bandits:

Baroque deconstructivism… you don’t need to learn the nuance of its history to peel back the zeal of its musicians, who seemed all along to be saying, ''Hey, serious music can be silly too’. (Pitchfork, USA)

As if Pere Ubu got together with Faust to cover Igor Stravinsky (ByteFM, DE)

Cheeky, mad and playful music, as fresh today as it was then still ahead of its time... a lesson in modernity…  (Les Inrockuptibles, FR)

The Belgian experimental group Aksak Maboul were - and are - out there on their own…revelatory (The Quietus, UK)

Читайте также


Выбор читателей
up