FRENCH SYNTH WAVE ST ETIENNE 1981

Description

When you're 20 in Saint Etienne in 1981, you’re glad not to end up in the mines or on an assembly line. And if you have no interest in soccer, you form a rock band, which you whimsically name Chacha Guitry! The future belongs to Serge and Dominique, to Charly and Marie, two young couples who met in high school and share a fascination for a certain modernist utopia: that of the avant-gardes of the early century, the Bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy, the films of Marcel l'Herbier, but also that of the glorious 30 years, home arts, the triumph of consumer society over civilization, of objects over people, of clear lines over artistic blur. If they started like everyone else with flute and acoustic guitar listening to King Crimson, the arrival of synthesizers in the European music scene completely redefined their direction: they cut their hair, put on ties, and replaced Indian drapes with Venetian blinds. It is around an EMS AKS synthesizer, a Roland SH101, and a Roland TR808 drum machine that the four friends gather in their home studio to compose these carefree and joyful electronic and exotic nursery rhymes that are the hallmark of Chacha Guitry. The band chooses to climb the sunny side of New Wave, the one taken by the B 52's or Isabelle Antena rather than its dark side cluttered with the heirs of Joy Division. The boys program the machines, the girls create geometric and minimalist costumes with whatever they have on hand (paper rather than fabric). From this furiously arty endeavor that has elevated do-it-yourself to a profession of faith, two prototype albums emerge in the form of cassettes (one of them inserted in a plexiglass cube shaped like an ice cube) that compose a wonderfully artificial tropical panorama: the sea is plastic, the palm trees are plywood, the naiads are silicone. Instead of ukuleles, there are chic and synthetic pieces from Chacha Guitry: Les yeux rivés sur les beautés d'aujourd'hui, La lumière blanche, Beau rivage, l'Art Nägre, l'avis des animaux (a cover of Quiet Village by Martin Denny which served as the theme for the TV show La vie des animaux). These are all anthems to love, lightness, and home appliance comfort. There will be two concerts in Saint Etienne and one in Lyon. Faced with the difficulty of performing on stage, Chacha Guitry hires a fifth member: a Revox tape recorder that plays the soundtrack while the band (boys in butterfly ties, girls in paper dresses with keyboard patterns) sings and plays percussion. In 1985, after trying to conquer Paris, the band splits up in "Sainté" without remorse: looking back at the journey they’ve taken, they realized they too had just invented the 80s.