[engl] With what was once considered a totally abandoned project French free jazz pioneer and stalwart François Tusques stumbles upon a series of shelved recordings from 1969 which further bolster the discography of historic French improv. Having lurked in the dark shadows for exactly 50 years this mutated micro-vile of youthful elixir and rebellious invention documents what would have undoubtedly been regarded as an important supportive pillar of the movement had it been released on vinyl during those formative years. Entitled Nosferatu as both a reference to a photograph taken by legendary photographer Horace, whilst shrouding a sly wink to film director Jean Rollin, this music is the first glimpse into a wider vampiric vault comprising a host of key figures from the Actuel/Futura/Palm universe… an historical artefact indeed. These newly excavated recordings not only mark the dawn of Tusques’ large group activities, and what would become his inter communal orchestras in the coming decade, but they also see the beginnings of thematic and pictorial free-jazz auto-composition with heavy leanings towards the fantastique trends in film and pulp literature that proliferated in French art at the turn of this important decade. A potential thematic precursor to the Palm Records releases Watch Devil Go by Jacques Thollot or Such A Strange Planet by François Jeannaeu (the latter being decidedly less spontaneous) this release is an essential jigsaw price in one of Europe’s most puzzling anti-genres. Whilst comprising themes taken from Mary Shelley and Lewis Carol amongst others, Nosferatu is the first disque in a wider series of unreleased Tusques tapes scheduled for vinyl editions for Finders Keepers’ Cacophonic label. While capturing the essence of the late 60s tumultuous era and the afformentioned commitment to the fantastique and free-thinking mindsets, Cacophonic are very proud to present this record with a rare archival illustration (from the same 1969 year) by maverick American Bande Designee artist Vaughn Bode whose legacy is indelible but still bequeathes unknown gems like his own “pre-lizard” homage to Nosferatu from an early free-press fanzine. Both artist widely respected and hugely influential in France (and around the world) this package is quite possibly a bona fide match made in heaven… if not elsewhere!

[engl] As Finders Keepers disobedient little-sister-label reaches her 20th (release) anniversaries Cacophonic Records are proud to present a record that will not only leave rare record collectors salivating but will open ambitious ears to a truly pioneering album from the seldom celebrated and individualistic micro-genre that is French free Jazz. Comprising some of the earliest uninhibited performances from key musicians behind records by Serge Gainsbourg, Jef Gilson, Triangle, Don Cherry, Barbara and countless other groundbreaking European jazz records and freakish films, this LP captures the birth of an exciting movement that would soon earn its Parisian birthplace as the go-to European spiritual home of improvised and avant-garde music. Spearheaded by polymath pianist and composer François Tusques this 1965 French LP coined the phrase “free jazz” before the American genre of the same name had fully taken shape and packed its suitcase; laying the foundations (alongside Jef Gilson’s Enfin!) for a unique satellite brand of jazz that would later provide visiting afro American avant-gardeners with a vibrant Parisian platform. Having recorded a very rare single in celebration of the architect Le Corbusier in late 1964 Tusques was lucky enough to play live with Don Cherry (a key player on Ornette Coleman’s 1961 Free Jazz LP) thus planting a pedigreed seed for this vibrant cultivar. With this record we not only hear the unique differences within the Gallic approach to the art form (combining masterful sombre cinematic changes with aerated free-form percussion and erratic reed and brass) but we also get to witness the early lesser savoured secret ingredients that would carry France’s mainstream pop culture into truly uncharted and unrivalled territories throughout the following decades. Best known to faithful Finders Keepers fans as the soundtrack composer to the horrortica films of Jean Rollin, Tusques is joined here by sax and flute player Francois Jeanneau, who’s electronic jazz album Such A Weird Plane” would later lead to his own band Triangle gaining recognition as France’s leading French language prig-jazz-rock act. Featuring three players from the aforementioned Enfin! LP by French jazz pioneer and producer Jef Gilson, Free Jazz combines the skills of Jeanneau, with clarinet player Michel Portal (Gainsbourg Percussions/Claude Nougaro) and trumpeter Bernard Vitet (whose avant-garde appearances on the Futura label are indispensable). In addition to this, Free Jazz also boasts the inclusion of Tusques’ sidekick and double bass master Bernard “Beb” Guérin (of Sonny Sharrock Monkey-Pockie-Boo infamy) who had also appeared on the earlier Don Cherry/Le Corbusier recording providing further kudos to this LPs historical importance. It is by no coincidence that this carefully selected ensemble would around this time become enlisted as the backing group for politically driven singer-songwriter Colette Magny (an action which would arguably later influence Brigitte Fontaine’s choice to adopt The Art Ensemble Of Chicago as her backing band after the Actuel records Pan-African Jazz festival and record series). The fact that Colette Magny would provide the art direction for this very LP is a cute small-print signifier of this LPs intended manifesto status. This album also captures a rare glimpse of percussionist Charles Saudrais in free-form mode after his departure from the Barney WIlen Quartet (Moshi) - an inclusion that would surely galvanise the relationship between WIlen and Tusques resulting in the follow-up record Nouveau Jazz for actor Marcel Mouloudji’s privately funded Disques Mouloudji label (on which both rare LPs were originally pressed). Presented here on vinyl for the first time since its original ultra rare micro-press (original copies now fetching upwards of 1000 euros) the Cacophonic release is taken directly from François Tusques very own master-tape archive, allowing Finders Keepers access to two rare original out-takes which did not appear on the original LP. With a characteristic keen eye for detail Cacophonic are delighted to present this LP in authentic packaging complete with external seams and a facsimile of the original Tusques-penned booklet, which, after 52 years, still evades the most fastidious collectors trying to unite mint copies with this oft estranged pictorial pamphlet. This glimpse into a seldom documented underground of a domestic, revolutionary, uncompromised spiritual art-form successfully reveals the other-side of abstracted French music which alongside musique concrète, protest pop, symphonic rock and Zeuhl-skool electronic prog created a homegrown, self-contained music industry that went on to influence a universe of Gallic magnetic inspiration. “This is free jazz, Jim; but not as we know it.”

[engl] In 1967, 1968 and 1969 most of my works were happenings loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting Of The Snark, a not-so-cryptic poem that, to my mind, gave clues to free the theatre in the same way the “new music” had freed jazz. It never made it to record and I gave up on the idea when I met Sunny Murray and Alan Silva when they arrived in Paris in the summer of ‘69. Few concert venues would have anything to do with us but we didn’t want that kind of connection with the public – famous or not (Jacques Higelin joined on occasion!) – which more often than not would join us on stage to bang percussion, sing, dance, freak out. Our favorite part was when we shut down the lights near the end, silently left the stage, and when the light went on for the curtain... The public had formally taken our place. Galleries, museums and art/theatre/dance festivals, on the other hand, were open to this early multimedia event – complete with films, masks and early electronic devices (Bernard Vitet, the trumpet player, brought an early portable reverb system to the proceedings). The reels and cassettes we rescued from my basement are rather evasively labelled and the following data is far from precise. The core group was me on piano, Bernard Vitet on trumpet and electronic treatments, Beb Guérin on double bass, Daniel Laloux (who later had tremendous success in film, theatre and voice acting) as MC, Jean Frenay and Jean Vern (who did the artwork for le nouveau jazz) on saxophones, Michel Kurylo, Annick Astier, Lambert Terbrack and my then wife Françoise Tusques “singing” and “acting”, so to say. Jacques Thollot, Aldo Romano and later Noel Mcghie were on drums. I know for sure side A is a studio recording carried out in august 1968 by the comité action musique, an activist group of artists and engineers aiming to reclaim the means of production from the “record industry”. The line-up is me, Vitet, Guérin, Laloux, Frenay, Vern, Astier, Françoise Tusques, no drums (everyone doubling on percussion), and Michel Portal on bass clarinet and saxophone as guest. Side C is a montage of the surviving bits of the happenings that took place at La Vieille Grille between August 1967 – March 1968 (sometimes on a daily basis in ‘68!), the museum of modern art during the May ‘68 demonstrations, and the Biennale Of Paris in February 1969. Sides B and D are less theatre oriented and may have been recorded either at the American center in October 1968, the international students center in November 1968 (Barre Phillips on bass and Barney Wilen on sax guested on these dates but I’m not able to confirm they are on the tapes), or in the winter and spring of 1969. However, the cassette for side b only read “Snark 1969”... The name of the group (it changed every time it ventured out), the title of the concerts and accordingly the cuts on these LPs were all lifted randomly from Lewis Carroll’s poems and novels. Back then, I described what we did in this way: “Composers, directors, writers, band leaders, those people are vampires sucking the blood of musicians and actors. They are byproducts of the current state of our society. Yet, someone who has something to convey needs performers... Unless a cultural revolution happens soon, I think it’s impossible to overcome those contradictions. Therefore, I wish that this rendition of the hunting of the Snark would be the last ever rendition of any work of art, and that the next stage of evolution is that any individual craving for expression will have the physical and intellectual means to create without constraints, to freely associate with others, without bearing the weight of so-called geniuses and nobodies. We want to bring to the stage the same revolution that happened in jazz with the new music.

[engl] As a central figure of one of Europe's most vibrant inter-communal music movements, Francois Tusques’ involvement as a central figure in the French free jazz scene (alongside Barney Wilen, Jean-François Jenny-Clark and Jacques Thollot) is as indispensable as it is synonymous. As a wholly improv- isational live music entity running simultaneously (at times pre-emptively) to its early 60s American counterpart this self-styled music revolution remained truly independent, both creatively and logistically, rendering original physical audio documents virtually unobtainable save the few vinyl mementoes which cross human hands for hefty bounties beneath counters of record fairs before reach- ing the electronic auctions. As the first release in a series of long overdue reis- sues and vintage archival debuts Cacophonic Records present this previously presumed lost unreleased studio session from 1967 which sees the cross-pol- lination of two of France’s most exciting counter-culture families, combining the open music of Tusques and the moving image of experimental horror direc- tor Jean Rollin. Originally conceived as an ongoing series of surreal/comic book style film or TV episodes fusing Rollin’s past experiences with illustrators like Nicolas Devil/Philippe Druillet and Tusques’ groundbreaking avant-garde credentials this cinematic debut for both parties commenced in 1967 under the working title La Reine Des Vampires before being distributed and commonly (inaccu- rately) recognised as ‘France’s first vampire film’ under the title Viol Du Vampire. Staying faithful to the projects original title and intention this dedicat- ed audio release hears the original unedited performance in its original form before Rollin’s sound editors got to work with their ruthless tape splicers, dia- logue synchronisation and recycling tactics. La Reine Des Vampires features an all-star line-up of Barney Wilen, Jean-François Jenny-Clark, Bernard Guerin and Eddie Gaumont - assembled by Tusques in the same months that followed the important manifesto of the avant-garde that embossed the groups name on the French musical map. This advent collides at the exact point where Rollin (as an erotic writer and avant-garde theatre patron) first commit- ted his filmic experiments to feature length celluloid proving this previously unheard artifact to be a significant landmark at the start of both a controversial cinematic legacy and a genuinely experimental domestic music career (watch this space) that immediately went on to magnetise the likes of Don Cherry, and Archie Shepp and Sunny Murray in the following year. Remastered from Tusques’ very own studio master tapes and including an extra lost bonus track from his personal "work-in-progress" Ferrograph dubs this LP not only includes the unedited soundtrack source material but compiles a number of high quality studio demos originally turned down by Rollin in 1967. The approved themes found on the a-side of the record were also rearranged and edited for the soundtrack for Rollin’s second feature film La Vampire Nue without Tusques’ prior consent providing an extra twist in the tale and instant- ly giving this first time release a technical "double soundtrack" status.