(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Jean Claude Vannier, the arranger of Serge Gainsbourg's Historie De Melody Nelson (1971), composed another concept album,
the all-instrumental
L'Enfant Assassin des Mouches (1972 - Leaf, 2006), that circulated
only in promo format for 34 years.
Its overture is a collage of musique concrete and found sounds, L'Enfant la Mouche et les Allumettes.
It is followed by a demented and emphatic piece of symphonic rock, L'Enfant au Royaume des Mouches, that draws inspiration from the absurd art of Dada and Alfred Jarry as well as from Pierre Henry.
Danse des Mouches Noires Gardes du Roi delves shamelessly into
orchestral easy listening with jazzy piano and soaring strings.
The exuberantly old-fashioned Danse de L'Enfant et du Roi des Mouches mimicks fairground music and cabaret skits.
The Indian-tinged danse Le Roi des Mouches et la Confiture de Rose was
mixed with railway sounds.
The aria for choir of Les Garde Volent au Secours du Roi is set to
a feverish rock progression, with a two-minute coda of sampled noises and voices.
Mort du Roi des Mouches is a series of variations on a cliched hard-rock riff that is first played on electric guitar and then transferred into an orchestral leitmotiv.
Occasionally sounding like the symphonic version of
Mike Oldfield's suites, and predating some
of Jim Steinman's grandiloquent ideas,
Vannier's concept album was a unique experiment.
Vannier also composed most of Gainsbourg's Insolutides (1972) and
many popular French songs of the 1970s.
Vannier's subsequent albums were:
Jean-Claude Vannier (1975),
Des Coups de Poings Dans la Gueule (1976),
Pauvre Muezzin (1980),
Jean-Claude Vannier (1984),
Public Cheri je T'Aime (1985),
Pleurez pas les Filles (1990),
En Public & Fait Maison (2005).
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