An entirely singular, free-standing sonic world, Penultimate Press delivers the first ever vinyl reissue of Etant Donnés' 1994 album, "Bleu", intertwining field recordings of natural ambiences and intentional acts with disarming vocalizations, to create creative wonder that's unlike anything else, before or since.

There are artefacts within the history of recorded music that stand entirely on their own; bound to the circumstances of their moment, while owing allegiance to none. Such is the case of Etant Donnés’ “Bleu”, originally issued by the legendary Staalplaat imprint in 1994, now receiving its first ever vinyl pressing by Penultimate Press. The final instalment of a trilogy of field recording based works by the duo, preceded by “Aurore” and “Royaume, Aimant + Aimant” - also previously reissued by Penultimate Press - the album’s subtle textures, natural ambiences, and disarming vocalizations are imbued with a startling sense of intimacy, weaving a free-standing aural context from the inner and outer worlds of the singular minds that brought it to be.

Founded in 1977 by Morocco born brothers, Eric and Marc Hurtado, Etant Donnés - taking their name from Marcel Duchamp's last major work - belongs to the flowers of sonic creativity and experimentation that developed in the wake of punk, hybridising the techniques and approaches of the avant-garde and DIY with countercultural attitudes, across a body of work more than 30 albums deep - including collaborations with Alan Vega, Genesis P-Orridge, Michael Gira, Lydia Lunch, Philippe Grandrieux, Mark Cunningham, and Bachir Attar - that traversed the fields of experimental film, performance, musique concrete, field recording, and experimental music.

“Bleu” is the third in a trilogy of records that includes “Aurore” and “Royaume, Aimant + Aimant”, each being works of musique concrete built from a body of field recording and poetic utterances by the duo. Like its predecessors, the album not only defies all standard notions of genre, but deftly avoids orthodox perceptions of what its core practices usually entail.

8 works - spanning 4 sides of the double LP - rise as meetings of whispers - the whispering voices of the brothers intervening with the whispering textures produced by nature and discreet acts - seemingly resting at the verge of violent scream that never comes. Field recordings of natural occurrences and intentional actions intertwine, blurring the boundaries of purpose and chance, as subtle deployment of sound collage challenges the location of the artist’s hand, laying a striking foundation for the raw and unmediated vocals that punctuate the album’s length; the sounds of splashing water, scraping pebble, crackling fire, percussive rhythms, the rustles of nature, and the human voice building an uncanny body of magical narratives that points to the brothers’ roots in the work of Duchamp.

Fascinating, immersive, deeply personal, and remarkably tense, Etant Donnés’ “Bleu” is a revelatory inner world that gives the impression of having appeared fully formed.