Vox Populi!

Legendary French industrial pioneers Vox Populi! arrive on Dark Entries with a reissue of Sucre De Pastèque. Vox Populi! was founded in Paris in 1981 by Axel Kyrou, a multi-instrumentalist of Greek, French, and Palestinian roots. He soon recruited his future partner, Mitra, and her brother Arash Khalatbari, who were born in Iran and came to Paris in their teens, as well as bassist Fr6 Man (Francis Manne).

Their sound was motley, combining elements of musique concrete and early industrial with horns, flutes, and traditional Persian instrumentation. Improbably prolific and ceaselessly divergent, Vox Populi! found their way onto dozens of cassette compilations during the heyday of the 1980s DIY tape music scene, including releases on era-defining labels like Insane Music, Cthulhu Records, and their own Vox Man.

Sucre De Pastèque, the band’s sixth full-length release, came out in 1986 on Unlikely Records. Like most of Vox Populi!’s output, Sucre is a scattershot endeavor, encompassing psychedelic dirges, cosmic drones, hypnotic chants, and fractured machine-funk. The mood is understatedly bleak, but Vox Populi!’s genre agnosticism and curious sense of wonder prevent things from feeling oppressive or heavy-handed. The cover for Sucre De Pastèque was designed by Eloise Shir-Juen Leigh, and features a collage by Vox Populi! member Fr6 Man. This is deeply fried material, perfectly capturing the obscurantism that characterized much of the 80s DIY cassette scene.