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Bernard Parmegiani, "Chants Magnetiques"
Bernard Parmegiani’s fascinating, long out-of-print album finally gets its much-deserved release on CD. Originally released in 1974, this recording is as dark, unsettling, and alluring as anything being released today.
As far as mentorship goes, studying under Pierre Schaeffer himself at GRM has to be one of the highest pedigrees possible. Even so, such situations can sometimes produce little more than clones of the master. Thankfully, that's not the case here.
There's a paranoiac strain running through Chants Magnetiques. Patterns rev frenetically to high speeds only to unexpectedly crash and burn. Metallic clangs lumber from the darkness to disrupt the progress of everything that's transpired previously. Dire beeps accelerate into emergency warnings, and swelling, amplified squeaks threaten to suffocate the eardrums. The haze and hum of machinery, echoing plunks, eerie drones, and howling winds permeate many of the tracks.
Even so, not every track is so somber. "Ondes," for instance, sounds like several loops of space transmissions, a vaguely promising if not optimistic minimalist exploration that wouldn't be out of place alongside A Rainbow in Curved Air. Elsewhere, beats and pulses add a vague structure. In particular, "Energy" has several competing layers of rhythm that make it the album's longest track and its most complex. In contrast, the album's simplest and most chilling song is "Pulsion," in which a deep pulse provides the foundation for icy feedback drones.
For the most part, little on this album shows its age. Although the technology has advanced considerably since its original release, the most important element of Parmegiani's work isn’t the tools he uses but to what effect he uses them. At times nightmarish and claustrophobic, the sounds on this album produce both anxiety and wonder in ideal proportions.
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