2021 reédition of this all-timer mid-period C.P. classic, now augmented with Mestres-Quadreny's 1971 Edigsa-label (check CP 254 for more Edigsa action) "Doble Concert, Invenció Movil II, Quartet De Catroc, Micos I Papallones" set (also featuring an Ondes Martenot piece performed by Arlette Sibon-Simonovitch alongside a series of Kagel-esque extended-technique masterpieces performed by Siegfrieds Behrends & Fink) along with two early Electro-Acoustic pieces by Mestres-Quadreny, "Peça Per A Serra Mecànica" (1964) & "El Teler De Teresa Codina" (1973) & a painstaking restoration of Parmegiani's thought-to-be long-lost score to Robert Lapoujade's 1968 Experimental Film "Socrate" (from a less-than-stellar source; my condolences) on a second disc (alas the C.P. P.T.B. could not find a copy of the Kiosque D'Orphee single, even if the artwork of said is neatly presented here; instead you get the entire audio track of the 60-minute Jacqueline Plessis edit, with the sections of Roger Hanin's "commentary" edited out) featuring French Free-Jazz titans Jean-Louis Chautemps, Michel Portal, Gilbert Rovère, Charles Saudrais, & Bernard Vitet!

Long one of my all-time Holy Grail cannot-find-a-copy titles is the LP in question here; the 1969 EMI-label Arlette Sibon-Simonovitch recital / vehicle “Espaces Sonores Nº 1”, offering a side of specially commissioned pieces each by spanish composer Josep(h)-Maria Mestres-Quadreny & INA-GRM heavy Bernard Parmegiani.

Just the idea that Parmegiani had composed a tape piece using only Sibon-Simonovitch’s virtuoso Ondes Martenot playing was enough to make me sweat; that it ended up being one of his finest, cutting some woofer-rattling square-wave droning with sheer batshit blasts of white-hot static & space-age, upper-register lacings of electronic filigree only makes this issue a sheer essential for the Parmegiani buff - mainly as it’s not included on the recent “Complete Works” box !!!

Was half-expecting the Mestres-Quadreny pieces to be fluff - unfit for such a heady pairing - but frankly the levels of free percussive bombast (Sylvio Gualda, as always, sounds fantastic throughout) & almost Alice Coltrane-esque Ondes Martenot fluidity make them the perfect “Humanist” counterpoint to the A-side’s largely alien lanes.