Flic ou Voyou Cop or Hood (1979)

Michel McLean (guitar, ex-Les Karrik) and Pierre Moreau write most of the music for L'Engoulevent, and the core band is completed by Francoise Turcotte (violin) and Russel Cagnon (cello). They are aided by a number of musicians from Conventum, as well as McLean's old Les Karrik cohort Claude LaFrance on one track. Their first album was entitled "L'Ile Ou Vivent Les Loups", and was released on the Le Tamanour label in 1977. Roughly half the tracks are instrumental, and the vocal tracks are done in a folk style but are not traditional pieces. Perhaps because half the core band is employed on string instruments, there is both an exquisite beauty and contrapuntal richness to much of the music. There can sometimes be three semi-independent, but mutually supportive, harmonic lines going at once…

Deodato's Knights of Fantasy, released in 1979, contains trace elements of the Brazilian producer and composer's fusion persona while melding them with disco and lite funk – as many other jazzmen were also doing at the time, from Lonnie Liston Smith to the Crusaders. The album is a thoroughly kitschy sci-fi affair with some very fine playing and horn and string arrangements, particularly on the bass- and ARP-driven "Space Dust/Sherlock," which goes on for nearly eight minutes…

Albert Marcoeur, French multi-instrumentalist/composer, was born on December 12 1947, in Dijon, France. During his formal education of clarinet at the National Academy of Music and Dance of Dijon, Marcoeur actively participated in many straightforward college rock 'n roll bands. Closing an end to his formal training Marcoeur's musical visions had gravitated towards the experimental facets of music, wishing "to do nothing else but make my own music". In 1970, the realisations of Marcoeur's 'unclassifiable' forays found their conception, marking the being of studio life. It was to be another four years until the release of his first self-titled album, which still ranks as his greatest recording to date. Loosely classified as proto-RIO chamber-rock, the album lays down several RIO foundations (much like Robert Wyatt's, "The End of an Ear"), later to be picked up by the likes of Aksak Maboul…

Albert Marcoeur, French multi-instrumentalist/composer, was born on December 12 1947, in Dijon, France. During his formal education of clarinet at the National Academy of Music and Dance of Dijon, Marcoeur actively participated in many straightforward college rock 'n roll bands. Closing an end to his formal training Marcoeur's musical visions had gravitated towards the experimental facets of music, wishing "to do nothing else but make my own music". In 1970, the realisations of Marcoeur's 'unclassifiable' forays found their conception, marking the being of studio life. It was to be another four years until the release of his first self-titled album, which still ranks as his greatest recording to date. Loosely classified as proto-RIO chamber-rock, the album lays down several RIO foundations (much like Robert Wyatt's, "The End of an Ear"), later to be picked up by the likes of Aksak Maboul…