LE MARIAGE COLLECTIF BOF

Description

The mythical and mysterious lost soundtrack, found 30 years later in a Parisian dump!!! Le mariage collectif. Jean-Pierre Mirouze. A soundtrack of art and waste. In our modern world, everything ends, or will end, in a landfill. Or in a museum. Sometimes, before ending up in a museum, objects pass through the dump. This is somewhat the case here. The tracks on this record, with the exception of two of them (already released as 45s), almost ended up permanently in the trash. Recorded in 1971 on an acetate in a few copies, to pitch to record labels, these pieces resurface, miraculously found in a Parisian dump (Quai d'Issy)... In 1971, Hervé Lamarre, who has just finished filming Le mariage collectif in Sweden, thinks of the Dim Dam Dom team to create the soundtrack for his film. This film claims to promote communal living and sexual freedom, but it is actually a rather confusing flop in which references to the Beat Generation, cheap hippie idealism, and gentle sex scenes collide, in a work that must be admitted lacks much interest. Jean-Pierre Mirouze, because he is connected to Dim Dam Dom, is supposed to bring a trendy touch to the project. To honor what is merely a commission and find the necessary funds for its realization, Jean-Pierre Mirouze goes to Bagatelle, a Parisian publisher whose specialty is publishing film music. During the meeting, he plays the melody of Together on the piano. These few notes are enough to convince the publisher to finance the recording of the soundtrack. Barry Green is then recruited, through an audition, to perform the theme song. The sessions are wrapped up in a week, and Jean-Pierre benefits from the support of the best musicians of the time, such as Jean-Pierre Sabar, a talented organist, who will play a significant role in the future success of the track Sexopolis. At the end of these sessions, 9 tracks are born. Bagatelle then seeks a label to release the soundtrack. And to be able to approach record companies, a handful of test pressings are produced, on simple acetates. The tracks you can hear on this album come from one of these acetates, found, indeed, in July 2010 in a dump. It’s hard to make this up... But let's return to the film. It is bad, and Bagatelle's efforts to promote it prove laborious. In the end, AZ agrees to release a 45 with Together on the A-side, presented as the film's hit, and Sexopolis on the B-side, considered a filler instrumental. The release of the record obviously goes completely unnoticed, until the single is rediscovered in the early 2000s - ironically - thanks to the track Sexopolis, and becomes the Grail that it is known to be for film music collectors around the world. Obviously, it is impossible to know how one of the 1971 acetates ended up in a dump in 2010. It doesn’t matter. Finally, thirty years later, the complete soundtrack of Le Mariage Collectif is now available.