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LA STPO (La Société des Timides à la Parade des Oiseaux) - Les Explositionnistes

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Exklageto 14 CD Release Year: 2018 Note: the second album by the unique 'surrealist attacks' performance group from Rennes (FR) was released in 1995, unavailable for long - all tracks are inspired by paintings(MAX ERNST, PICASSO, LYONEL FEININGER, etc..) - musically it's an almost unclassifiable experience between TAZARTES, DDAA and prog rock, like visiting a strange circus, but it's also very musical and greatly arranged... sometimes sad, sometimes mad, sometimes violent: RASEREI &ZÄRTLICHKEIT! Price (incl. 19% VAT): €13.00 More Info "The ‘Shy peoples society at the parade of the birds’ (STPO) have been around since 1984 and I have had the pleasure to write about their intriguing music previously. It has been a while though, as La STPO’s last album ‘Les Liquidateurs’ was released three years ago. This album, ‘Les Explositionnistes’, note a trend in titles, was in fact recorded between 1993 and 1995 and first released in 1995. This new release is a re-mastered version of the 1995 edition. Unfortunately I cannot compare the sound to the original version, but the new version on Exklageto sounds clear and direct. The shy people number (around) six and to me have always formed an intriguing link between say the archaic beauty of Déficit Des Annees Anterieures (with whom they share a home country, in this instance France, as well as a love of four letter abbreviations - DDAA) and Magma (who also hail from France – let’s face it; where else would you find a big band playing prog-jazz mixed with avant-garde?). This album adds to their catalogue of unpredictable, eclectic, high-energy music. ‘Les Explositionnistes’ listens like an art manifesto; several tracks are dedicated to/inspired by artists such as Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Barnett Newman, Asger Jorn and Lyonel Feiniger. The last name was a new one to me; Feiniger being a turn-of-the-century (we’re talking 1900 here) representative of Expressionism, which makes perfect sense in the world of les explositionnistes. The cover is clear on the subject; depicted are a number of people (shy people?) who have just attached a bomb to a painting, ready to blow up the art world – ‘les explositionnistes’ indeed! Blowing up the art world is one thing, in fact the artists mentioned earlier certainly did, but what about blowing up the music world? Is La STPO the musical ‘explositionnistes’? You could argue that La STPO plays expressionistic music: it bounces all over the place, energetic and devoid of basic musical ‘rules’ such as ‘try to keep one tempo per song’ or ‘do not create any complex breaks’. Good. Their songs are played on traditional instruments, such as guitar, bass, drums, woodwind etcetera. There are no soundscapes or drones to be found, which in a sense is refreshing. As said, the music, especially when the tempo slows down, reminds me of DDAA, a group of artists I dearly love and on whose label, Illusion Production, La STPO released an EP in the 80s. But to be honest, La STPO (which my auto correct annoyingly keeps auto changing to STOP) rarely slow down. The music keeps a nervous, jumpy and unnerving edge throughout its ten songs. It reminds me at times of the organized chaos of say The Mothers of Invention. Les Explositionnistes is exactly that: an explosive mix of instruments, structure and sound, aurally exhausting (to me), but rewarding – blowing up the world of music is something La STPO is more than capable of." [FK/Vital Weekly]