Heratius

condition (record/cover):  EX- (marks not affecting play) / EX- (light yellowing near edges)

Recorded on a single old Revox A77 across three days (6-8 August 1978) at Frigico Studio in Montpellier and issued the same year on the F.L.V.M. service of Gratte-Ciel (Faites Le Vous Même: an early French DIY pressing cooperative), Gwendolyne is the only proper LP by the Montpellier collective Heratius. The band's centre was Robert Diaz and Florence Leroy, with Armand Miralles and Kristof Temple filling out the line-up. Chris Cutler later championed the record as "the French Faust", and Steven Stapleton included it on the Nurse With Wound list.

The music is unclassifiable in the way only certain French albums are. Acoustic miniatures sit next to spastic guitar workouts. Spoken-word reveries follow Dada cut-ups. "Les Pelouses" appears three times in different forms (allegro, andante, adagio), the band assembling the piece on the fly across separate sessions. "Gwendolyne Electrochoc" jolts in and out of free-form noise. "Le Vieil Homme Et Nephertiti" is half tape-music chant, half folk lullaby. The cover lists eight tracks, the labels list ten, and even the band credits differ between jacket and disc.

The original vintage F.L.V.M. / Frigico Records pressing on FLVM 3004, the very rare DIY edition that introduced Heratius to the post-1968 French underground. A direct ancestor of Etron Fou Leloublan, Albert Marcoeur and the AYAA label catalog. Profoundly out-of-its-time and a notable document of late-1970s French eccentricity.