Tuesday 10 March 2015

Merz ‎– "Aibre" (IEP ‎– IEP 101) 1985

Luis Mesa made, for some unknown reason, two different albums called "Aibre", one under his own name, and another by his Merz alias.Whatever the obsession with the word 'Aibre' was I don't really want to know, and all the info I could find on it is that is a place in France near the Swiss border!!/....uh?
This version sounds like a cross between the soundtrack to "Forbidden Planet", by Bebe and Louis Barron ,and a whole series of 'the Clangers'*. An electronic music without synthesisers that hark back to the early days of Stockhausen.

*An English kids tv series from the 1970's,which featured an Iron Chicken made from junk,a Soup dragon who made soup for The Clangers;who also ate blue string pudding,and went fishing in space powered by music notes from a music tree.......and now you know why the English are weird!......so what excuse have the Spanish got?.....I got it.....bull fighting.

Tracklist:

A1 Pájaros Electrónicos
A2 La Gran Señora
A3 Exclusión I
A4 Bajo La Lluvia
B1 Aibre
B2 Exclusión 2
B3 Kaleidoskopio
B4 Collage Mixto

DOWNLOAD from the  forbidden clangers planet HERE!

5 comments:

Carlo said...

Thank you, I had only Luis Mesa version of this release.

Carlo

the saucer people said...

Aha, my retroactive search has tracked down the original Clangers metaphor and actually this Merz material is really good - have you heard the 1981 Spanish untitled demo tape by some artists called 'Metakrilato Registrado'? - I've been listening to it non-stop since I found it posted on the Spanish electronic music site called 'Wet Spots' a few weeks ago - some of the tracks sound like they could have been made 34 seconds ago, never mind 34 years.

Jonny Zchivago said...

Definitely too much Ecstacy!...Wet Dreams i think was the site. Yes i have heard this comp.I concur.
Spain is unjustly ignored musically, and i have more of this stuff to post.....hopefully before Wet dreams do.

the saucer people said...

Wet Spots... Wet Dreams... Jesus, that was a faux pas approaching Jungian proportions, never mind a Freudian slip.

Great to hear you have some more Spanish music to post - definitely an under-rated zone of musical excellence - I think people assume that because it was under the fascist regime of Franco for so many years, that the music and films (like Jess Franco)were all state-controlled and Third Reich inspired 'Folk' art - likewise, some of the most interesting music and films I have heard and seen in recent years has come from the former Soviet/Eastern Bloc countries of the 70s and 80s.
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I should say something about the Merz 'Aibre' release as he had the good manners to make the music an you to post it thirty years later - Definitely has that Louis And Bebe Barron feel to it even down to the 'soundtrack' feel about it - It works for walking around really well - gives everything a grey fifties 'Quatermass' appeal (a total improvement on the UK High Street 2015).

As you can probably guess, its the title track that is my favourite, when you mentioned the Clangers like feeling of the album, you were not wrong - Aibre makes you wonder if The Clangers didn't leave their home planet for a sunnier, albeit fascistic, Mediterranean climate after their series ended!


Jonny Zchivago said...

I wonder if there exists a clangers soundtrack album? i have the Bagpuss one,and that is fucking weird....makes the wicker man sound like westlife.
I watched some episodes of the Woodentops,and thats like a Coil backing track. Did the BBC invent everything?