August 2025; colorful (the design on this one really snaps; doing the saturated, ultra-zoomed in dot gains of the original editions justice!) double-disc compendium of the first two tapes released in 1986 & 1988 by the Annecy-based "Collectif Et Cie" (Collective & Company) featuring work by composers & architects, Philippe Blanchard, Bernard Donzel-Gargand, Christophe Lyard, Philippe Moënne-Loccoz, Frédéric Obringer, Joseph Raguin, & Patrick Rutgé across damn-near 2.5 hours of impeccable mid-late-80s underground Musique Concrète!

This particular intersection of the "Institutional" Electronic Music aesthetic w/ what was undoubtedly by this stage more of an underground, tape-trader, post-Industrial milieu is endlessly fascinating; these extended pieces range from expert-level Modular Synthesis grappling, to early experiments w/ Generative & Algorithmic forms, to the kind(s) of gained tape-mulch more commonly associated with such intrepid travelers as Maurizio "M.B." Bianchi, Jean-Baptiste Barrière (see: [CP 145 CD]), and the later work of brothers Giancarlo & Massimo Toniutti.

Through issuing these two extended "Private" cassette-only editions, the "Collectif" broadened their inroads & their greater aesthetic of noisier, gained-up Tape Music rife with errant analogia, jarring audio-verité explosions, & Bergman-esque thunderclaps lands here in the present at an incredibly welcome moment. Nigh-on 40 years later this all sounds like liquid gold; a drastically under-appreciated scene documented in exhaustive detail, with all original aesthetics left intact.

One of my personal favorite titles in this 20th Anniversary wave!