If you're looking for something genuinely unique from 1970s France, don't forget to include Albert Marcœur on your list alongside Magma, Moving Gelatine Plates and Etron Fou Leloublan. Born in Dijon in 1947, Marcœur studied clarinet at the National Academy of Music and Dance before deciding he wished "to do nothing else but make my own music" - and what music it turned out to be.

Often cited as the French Zappa, the comparison only goes so far. Where Zappa maintained accessibility beneath his complexity, Marcœur dives headfirst into uncharted waters. His vocal delivery owes more to Captain Beefheart's schizoid pronouncements than to any conventional singing - playful yet manic, absurdist yet strangely moving. The instrumentation reads like a surrealist's inventory: clarinettes, saxophones, piano, pipeaux, guimbardes, accordéons, bassoons, bottles (alto and bass!), bird calls, whistles. Dense arrangements that never sacrifice spontaneity for precision.

Armes et Cycles, his third album released in 1979, represents a crucial turning point. Where earlier records sometimes felt like Marcœur the musician and Marcœur the singer were competing for attention, here they find perfect equilibrium. This is truly ensemble music - Pierre Vermeire (clarinettes, saxophones, trombone), Patrice Tison (guitar), Pascal Arroyo (bass), François Bréant (keyboards) - all working in service of Marcœur's singular vision. The backing musicians of his Kapak group would later become Bernard Lavilliers' band; in 1975 Marcœur himself arranged Dick Annegarn's albums Mireille and Anticyclone.

Each piece unfolds like a miniature symphony from some parallel-universe fairground - you never know what awaits around the next melodic corner, the next rhythmic break, the next unexpected note. The atmosphere echoes the Rock in Opposition movement of Aksak Maboul and Zamla Mammaz Manna, yet remains distinctly French in its wit and precision. His early work laid foundations that RIO would later build upon, and his influence extends to contemporary French avant-prog acts like PoiL, PinioL and ni.

Essential listening for anyone drawn to the stranger corners of European progressive music. Japanese mini-LP sleeve edition on high-fidelity SHM-CD with liner notes and Japanese translation.