Art Zoyd

Music for the silent film 'Man With a Movie Camera' (1929 - USSR) by Dziga Vertov, followed by 'Petite collection de rêves étranges et pièces plaisantes'. French avant-prog unit Art Zoyd formed in 1969 around the core of bassist Thierry Zaboitzeff, percussionist Jean-Pierre Soarez, and violin player Gérard Hourbette, with guitarist Rocco Fernandez, pianist Patricia Dallio, percussionist Daniel Denis (who later formed Univers Zero), and a changing lineup of half-a-dozen additional instrumentalists. In 1975, Zaboitzeff took over the group and changed its musical direction. The personnel would be narrowed to include two violins, electric bass, and trumpet, as evidenced by their debut full-length, Symphonie Pour le Jour Ou Bruleront les Cités, self-released in 1976.

Art Zoyd is a French band formed in 1969, mixing free jazz, progressive rock and avant-garde electronica. Like other members of the Rock in Opposition movement, Art Zoyd fuses progressive rock and jazz with contemporary classical music. Like fellow RIO member Univers Zero, they are also influenced by French Zeuhl bands such as Magma. Today, Art Zoyd is best described as an electronic music group and works primarily for film and ballet. Gérard Hourbette assures the artistic direction while working occasionally with other composers/performers: Kasper T. Toeplitz, Carl Faia, André Serre-Milan, etc.

French avant-prog unit Art Zoyd formed in 1969 around the core of bassist Thierry Zaboitzeff, percussionist Jean-Pierre Soarez, and violin player Gérard Hourbette, with guitarist Rocco Fernandez, pianist Patricia Dallio, percussionist Daniel Denis (who later formed Univers Zero), and a changing lineup of half-a-dozen additional instrumentalists. In 1975, Zaboitzeff took over the group and changed its musical direction. The personnel would be narrowed to include two violins, electric bass, and trumpet, as evidenced by their debut full-length, Symphonie Pour le Jour Ou Bruleront les Cités, self-released in 1976. Its reception won them an opening slot on a tour with Magma. Released in 1979, Musique Pour l'Odyssée marked their debut on France's Atem Records and expanded the studio lineup to include saxophone, cello, viola, percussion, oboe, and bassoon. That same year, Art Zoyd joined the Rock in Opposition movement (founded by Chris Cutler), which also included Univers Zero, Henry Cow, Art Bears, Samla Mammas Manna, Stormy Six, and three others.

This 98-minute documentary, written, produced, and directed by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder of the Washington, D.C. area's Zeitgeist Media, begins and ends at the 2011 Rock in Opposition festival in Carmaux, France, and between those two bookends tells the story of this idiosyncratic movement – or style, or whatever you want to call it – that was birthed in the late '70s and has against all odds persisted on and off to the present day…

Serge Bringolf is a drummer and composer hailing from France. He has worked with numerous musicians, the most well known of which is work that he did with Jaco Pastorius in the 1980s. Bringolf's music is often characterized as jazz-rock, but it is more appropriately placed squarely within the Zeuhl genre. One can hear very clear strains of Magma's influence throughout all of his solo work, nonetheless Bringolf's sound has more often been compared with that of early Zao, Art Zoyd and Jaques Thollot…

Alain Eckert was the guitarist of Art Zoyd between 1976-81, participating in some of the band’s masterworks like “Symphonie pour le jour” and “Generation sans futur”. The quartet is Alain Lecointre (Navadati) on bass, Patricia Dallio (Art Zoyd) on keyboards and Serge Bringolf (Strave) on drums. They play a jazz progressive mix with many classical, post-classical and improv influences. Compositions are built on complexity, inventiveness, imagination and the superb abilities of the musicians for precise, difficult, adventurous playing. Despite the absence of horns, violins, cellos etc… there is a superior acoustic sense prevailing due to the pure excellence of inspired piano & guitar. The reissue has 30 minutes of bonus, recorded live at the “A l’Ouest de la Grosne” club by Jacky Barbier, the same year.

The legendary Kultivator LP was released in 1981. This release has rightly gained itself a good reputation for its unusual mixing of Zeuhl and Canterbury elements, as well as Swedish folk! The bass and drums churn in the background, setting up Zeuhl-inspired rhythms, while the organ and electric piano, along with the worldleess female vocals definitely strike up a serious Canterbury flavor. Kultivator's musical influences: Magma, King Crimson, Hatfield and the North, Henry Cow, Art Bears, Gentle Giant, Art Zoyd and Univers Zero. This new version includes 7 bonus tracks on the second CD.

Asceta is a Chilean octet led by composer and multi-instrumentalist (mainly guitars, flute, synthesizer) Rodrigo Maccioni, formerly of the Chilean prog band Ábrete Gandul, which released four albums between 2000 and 2018. Firmly set on going in a more chamber-rock direction, he assembled the remaining group members, which include clarinetist Alfonso Vergara, Eduardo Rubio (fretted and fretless basses), cellist Cristian Peralta, drummer Leonardo Saavedra, bassoonist Efra Vidal, violinist Arianne Guerra, and Oscar Pizarro (piano and electric piano). There are no vocals. From the instruments they play, one can get a good idea of where they are coming from - some classical influences like Bartók and Stravinsky are quite strong, as well as some contemporary bands like Univers Zéro, Art Zoyd, Julverne…

Led by classically trained drummer Christian Vander, the Paris-based Magma have been, in their way, perhaps the ultimate progressive rock group; while other artists have achieved greater commercial success and critical acclaim, Magma have typified the many ambitions and excesses of the genre that won them as many detractors as fans, even going so far as to invent their own lyrical and musical language in order to bring their unique vision to life…