Synths - Sax And Situationists Music From The French Underground 1973-78

Description

The near-revolution of May 68 in France marked the peak of this generation’s struggle for a new life. It energized the French counterculture, then still confidential but bubbling, and gave birth to a local underground music scene. The groups that emerged from it produced music far less conventional than that of British and American bands. Their musical and cultural influences emphasized improvisation, disjunction, and genre blending: Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, free jazz, and radical political engagement. The arrival of the synthesizer in the early 1970s further amplified this phenomenon. This collection of French underground music launches a series that accompanies Synths, Sax & Situationists, the first English-language book devoted to this movement. It focuses on the music of the second wave of bands that appeared in 1972-1973, where psychedelic and radical jazz influences fused with the possibilities offered by new technologies. The next volume will examine the strongly political bands that emerged immediately after the events of May 68.