Heldon: Albums Collection (1976 - 1979) [2012, Belle Antique]

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Heldon: Albums Collection (1976 - 1979) [2012, Belle Antique]

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French band formed in the 70's by guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Richard Pinhas (sometimes called the 'French Fripp'), synth player Patrick Gauthier, drummer François Auger and scores of other musicians dropping in and out over the course of six albums between '74 and '79. Their sound could best be described as a mixture of Frippian guitars with the cold, icy prog of KING CRIMSON and the hypnotic drones of CAN over a harsh, aggressive electronic background.

Their six first albums range from fairly spacy and quiet ("Allez Teia") to brain-searing sonic attacks ("Interface"). The easiest one to get into and most recommended to neophytes is "Stand By", their strongest effort todate. It is the least chaotic and most CRIMSON-like of the lot yet still features Pinhas' frenzied/tortured guitar play that verges on heavy metal in spots, complete with growling bass and guttural vocals. In 1998, Pinhas has tried to revive the band with an album called "Only Chaos Is Real", featuring French SF-writers Maurice Dantec and Normand Spinrad (their voices digitally treated) as well as trash singer David Korn. This album isn't quite in tune with the rest, sounding more like 'punk meets techno'. Overall, the music of the original six albums is dark and cold, yet fascinating and intense. It combines the elements of the French and German schools of electronic into something uniquely. HELDON.

by Lise (HIBOU), progarchives

Led by guitarist Richard Pinhas, the French group Heldon released seven groundbreaking albums, melding electronic and rock forms, from 1974 to 1978. Pinhas also recorded six albums under his own name. Pinhas was heavily influenced by Robert Fripp; this shows in his guitar playing, and in the titles of several of his compositions. While early LPs sometimes evoked the sound of Fripp and Eno, Heldon evolved in its own direction. The release of Heldon IV: Agneta Nilsson saw the group heading toward a more intense, menacing sound. Heldon V: Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale was the first to feature the "classic" lineup of Pinhas, drummer Francois Auger, and keyboard player Patrick Gauthier. These three would be the key personnel on Heldon's last four albums. The entire Pinhas/Heldon catalog was reissued on CD by Cuneiform, several featuring bonus live tracks.

by Jim Dorsch, AMG

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Heldon: Albums Collection (1976 - 1979) [2012, Belle Antique]

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This album starts to take a different direction to the groups first three albums. Leader Richard Pinhas is not doing as much Fripp-inspired guitar playing as on other albums, but drumming and percussion is now more important than before. There is also more of a 'rock' feel to some of the songs. By incorporating more of a rock sound, Heldon doesn't try to streamline their sound but the complete opposite: it makes the music more aggressive and sinister sounding. The line-up is never consistent and other than Pinhas, the only really noteworthy name is keyboardist Patrick Gauthier, who was a member of Magma at the time.

There are five tracks on the album, with four of them being titled "Perspective." Part I opens the album and is the most atmospheric and spacey song here. Steady electronic hi-hat and snare throughout. Strangely melodic in it's own way. It doesn't change much over the course of 10 minutes but is a great piece of minimalist electronic music anyway. "Perspective II" is mostly synth on arpeggiator mode with some cymbals and bell sounds. A sequencer pattern appears after a minute which gets louder and more dominant later on.

"Perspective III" starts with aggressive sounding sequencers and spacey arpeggiators. Then some noisy guitar joins in. Slowly it gets louder and more intense as it goes along. The guitar playing in the middle is more 'solo' oriented. Like part I this doesn't change much throughout. Both songs being very hypnotic. "Bassong" features no synths and no Pinhas! Just chorused guitars and some bass (or is it bass parts played on guitar?). Michel Ettori wrote this song and plays the guitars.

The first four tracks don't sound terribly different to earlier Heldon, but it's the last side-long track on the album that points the way to future albums. "Perspective IV" is itself divided into three parts. The first part is called just "Perspective IV" and opens with overdubbed guitars with at least one guitar keeping a steady picking style. Some synth squiggles enter. Eventually sequencers along with cymbals and bells are reprised from part II. The next part is called "Virgin Sweedish Blues" which is also a name of a song on the last album, It's Always Rock'n'Roll. This is a guitar riff backed by drums and bass. Heldon jams out and Pinhas solos away. Some synth soloing as well. The last part of the epic is called "Psylocybine." After the band fades away we get more sequencer patterns along with noises on cymbals and gong. Drums come in later and the sequencers get faster.

Agneta Nilsson is the middle ground between the earlier keyboard dominated albums and the later guitar-and-drums heavy albums. Sometimes this sounds like a more sinister Tangerine Dream mixed with a more jammy King Crimson. I would rate this a 3.5 but will bump it up to 4 stars.

by zravkapt, progarchives

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Heldon: Albums Collection (1976 - 1979) [2012, Belle Antique]

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This is one of Heldon's most impressive recordings. It offers the continuity of a group sound throughout, with Pinhas' keyboards and guitars supported by Francois Auger playing drums and percussion on most tracks, and additional assistance from Patrick Gauthier on moog synthesizers and either Didier Batard or Janick Top on bass. Stylistically, it's a great leap forward from previous Heldon releases, and much closer to the fusion jazz of Mahavishnu Orchestra, than to conventional psychedelic or prog-rock. The five pieces (one in both a live and a studio version) have no real melodies or themes; rather, they use simple patterns and chord sequences as guidelines, and let the musicians improvise around them. The opening "Marie Virginie C." almost sounds like late Coltrane free jazz, or perhaps like Hendrix at his most frenzied, with guitars and synthesizers howling, and Auger thrashing wildly in the background. Speaking of Auger, he has to be one of the great rock drummers of the era – not just in France but in all of Europe. He's fast, ferocious and very funky. The second piece on the CD, the very African-sounding "Elephanta," is a showcase for his percussive talents, and through the miracle of overdubbing, he sounds like an entire ethnic percussion orchestra. Another long piece, "Toward the Red Line," has a hard-edged techno quality (in 1976!), thanks to Auger's motoric drumming and the swirling rhythmic pulse of electronic sequencers. For all the fuss made about the experimental nature of early Tangerine Dream, it is doubtful that they ever did anything more radical than this. Gauthier is also a key member of this group, laying down ostinato patterns on mini-moog and moog bass which substantially thicken the group sound and allow Pinhas to soar over the top with electric guitar and his own keyboards. Neither Pinhas or Gauthier are the least bit shy about coaxing some ungodly howls, moans and growls out of their electronics, and their consistent willingness (even eagerness) to get down and dirty gives the music its backbone. This is a very powerful and confident recording, and many years later it remains one of the most successful examples ever of electronic instruments used in an experimental rock context.

by William Tilland, AMG

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Heldon: Albums Collection (1976 - 1979) [2012, Belle Antique]

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Heldon's real excellence as a band is dramatically demonstrated with this fine recording. A dashing young left-wing intellectual, Pinhas was something of a cult figure in his native France, or at least had the potential to be one, but he wisely rejected the role of rock & roll guitar hero with backing band, in favor of something much more interesting and radical. Patrick Gauthier on moog and Francois Auger on percussion had played with Pinhas on and off for the previous several years, and at this point they had developed into a solid sympathetic unit with a strongly rhythmic orientation. The intricate interlocking rhythms, created by percussion and several synthesizers, have a proto-techno quality at times, and suggest both the German group Can and, on at least one piece, early Ash Ra Tempel. Some of the Grateful Dead's long, free-form jams might also serve as a touchstone, and tracks like "Bal-a-fou" even begin with loose, vaguely psychedelic fragments which gradually coalesce into a very trippy and propulsive collective improvisation. On several pieces, Pinhas' Fripp-inspired guitar lines provide still another layer of intensity. The tour de force is the long title piece which ends the CD. At close to 20 minutes, it builds slowly, gradually adding layers of rhythmic complexity with drums, synthesized percussion, sequencers and Pinhas' electric guitar, which doesn't even show up until nine minutes into the piece.

by William Tilland, AMG

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Heldon: Albums Collection (1976 - 1979) [2012, Belle Antique]

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This was Heldon's last studio release, although the reissued Rhizosphere CD includes a 1982 Heldon concert recording with slightly different personnel. Stand By features the classic trio lineup of the brilliant Francois Auger on percussion, Patrick Gauthier on keyboards and Pinhas on guitars, keyboards and electronics, with some additional assistance from Didier Batard on bass, Didier Badez on sequencers and Klaus Blasquiz doing voices. The two long pieces on the CD are an interesting contrast. The title piece starts with some nasty distorted fuzz guitar from Pinhas over ponderous, menacing bass and drums. King Crimson at its most aggressive could be considered a model, but this track is also very close to the so-called "zheul" sound of Magma, another French prog-rock band of the period, which shared Pinhas' interest in science fiction motifs, among other things. Later in the piece, the band switches gears somewhat with a slightly quicker tempo, but then after a minutes settles back into a grinding, heavy metal sound. After a short and much jauntier electronic interlude comes the second long piece, "Bolero," which uses the well-known Spanish rhythm in an opening section, but then moves into a long space jam which is anchored by a strong sequencer pulse. The result is some very effective "kosmiche" space music, much in the vein of early Klaus Schulze. From a later vantage point, the musical style here is quite familiar, but what makes Heldon's piece a superior thing of its kind is Auger's imaginative percussion, Pinhas' loose, soaring guitar improvisation on top of the precise electronics, and the general interplay among musicians and between acoustic, electric and electronic instruments. Not cookie-cutter stuff by any means, this piece gives the German audionauts such as Schulze and Tangerine Dream some worthy competition.

by William Tilland, AMG