Nu Creative Methods

condition (record/cover):  EX- (occasional minimal surface noise) / NM

The sole LP by Nu Creative Methods, the early collaboration between Pierre Bastien (then in his late twenties, more than a decade before he would launch Mecanium and become known internationally for his miniature mechanical orchestras) and the multi-instrumentalist Bernard Pruvost. Recorded by Daniel Deshays and issued in 1981 on Jac Berrocal's d'Avantage label as DAV 05, Le Marchand De Calicot is among the strangest and most beautiful records in the French underground of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The instrumentation is essentially an inventory of imagined and imported instruments. Bastien lists: Rag Dong, Saxhorns, Bugle, Cornet, Khen, Hotwo, Trompe à Coulisse, Trompe De Plastique, Godjie, Mécaniums, Guitare, Violon Du Laos, Séil-korde, Contrabass. Pruvost contributes: Rag Dong, Saxtrombe, Saxophones, Clarinette, Trompe De Plastique, Cithare, Trompe De Ramadon, Basson, Boîte à Ressorts, Dousso N'Gouni, Piano D'enfant, Gongs. The musical result is a parade of small ethnological imaginings: Laotian fiddles, West African ngoni patterns, baroque trumpets, toy pianos, all woven together at low volume into something closer to a chamber music for ghosts than to anything in conventional rock or improv vocabulary.

The original vintage d'Avantage pressing on DAV 05, with Dominique Barlet's painted cover. Le Marchand De Calicot is the earliest document of Pierre Bastien's mature aesthetic and an important entry in the French underground of its period.