[CP 223 CD] Daniel Vallancien, Philippe Maté, Haira; Maté/Vallancien, Le Matin Des Magiciens

June 2026; after a solid 9 months of inactivity, Creel Pone is once again showing signs of life via the contemporary issue of several reconfigured "rééditions" of key titles that had been languishing in inavailability for some time. First up is this blessed affair, now pairing the Maté/Vallancien LP w/ the other great Vallancien studio-as-instrument set, the 1969 "Le Matin Des Magiciens" LP by Marc "Haira" Hairabedian (issued as SH 10003; Maté/Vallencien was SH 10009!) Consisting of several ad-hoc experimental poetry & free-folk pieces cut to an evolving palette of analog wizardry (tape echo & assorted gain-staging artifacts are used in an incredibly prescient fashion; much of this presages the coming wave of electronically-tinged psych-folk) very much in the same vein as Vallancien's groundbreaking treatments of Maté sax-playing. Everything's been newly restored & remastered for this 10th Anniversary edition & frankly sounds dynamite (despite the not-great OG pressings & the particularities of the copies we had access to) with everything still fitting neatly on a single disc...

One thing I've learned as I've grown and progressed through music is that there is an incredible wealth of largely unheralded & seldom-heard music buried deep in the expansive Saravah catalogue, largely due to the street-level largesse of in-house engineer Daniel Vallencien, who aside from engineering a large portion of the canonic BYG catalogue - Don Cherry, Anthony Braxton, Musica Elettronica Viva, Sonny Sharrock, Sunny Murray, etc. - was crucial in the development of the label's sound & aesthetic.

Much like fellow French "Opérateur de Prise du Son" Bruno Menny, Vallencien did occasionally wear his Composer hat, and similarly has but one outing credited under his own name; a session with Saxophonist Philippe Maté that, had it been issued solely under the latter's name, would have been a criminal case - Vallencien's touch goes far beyond that of a typical engineer; he has recast Mate's playing via extensive studio techniques, feedback, tape echo, & re-synthesis, into a monster of a live-electronic hybrid. 

What's most fascinating about this record is that, despite the era, geography, & the associations, very little of this (well, actually one track does have its similarities) descends into the sort of Terry Riley "Time-Lag Accumulator" effect a typical early 70s European Sax & Electronics session would imply; this is by & large a proto noise-drone affair, making heavy use of gain-staging & filtering effects to yield an often overblown & careening sound that is both powerfully psychedelic & wildly claustrophobic.