2018 Royale of a reédition compiling the entirety of CP 002 CD; "Mise En Musique Du Corticalart De Roger Lafosse" (Philips ‎#6521 022, recorded on 2/15/71), CP 133 CD; "Prismes" (Philips #6510 016, recorded during 2/73 in collaboration w/ Alwin Nikolais & Nicolas Schöffer), & CP 033 CD; "Cortical Art III" (Philips# 6510 015, recorded on 9/5/73) in a newly-reconfigured Metallic-Pearlized 6-panel booklet along with the added bonus of (in a separate sleeve/booklet, also Metallic-Pearlized, working backwards) "Futuristie" (Philips ‎#6510 020, largely recorded on 10/16/75 & reworked for issue in 1980), the otherwise never-before-reissued "Machine Danse" (Philips# 6510 013, 1973), Henry's scores for both Carlos Vilardebó's "Mobiles du Calder" (1968) & Jean Painleve's "L'Amours De La Pieuvre" (1967), and the relatable 7" single version of "Spatiodynamisme" included w/ Schöffer's 1963 Editions du Griffin monograph (recorded between 1954 & 1958 utilizing his sculptures as source material) all on (wait for it) 4 DISCS, completing the entirety of Henry & Bonnier's collaborations at Studio Apsôme as well as offering a tantalizing selection of apropos music from deep within Henry's archives!

(NOTE that you are able to purchase either half of this 4-disc set independently; select the [CP 002.033.133 CD-2] option above if you only want the "upgrade" material...)

[CP 002] A bit more information re: the Creel Pone puzzle. These are and will continue to be small-batch CD-r editions reproducing highly covetable and otherwise un-available Early-Electronic and Synth-Freakout LPs from the private collection of one Mr. P.C. C.P. - some of you Reckankomplex followers might remember he was our prior Webmaster and in-house DJ.

Each Creel Pone comes complete in a 5” crystal clear resealable polypropylene jacket containing a high-quality full-color photo-stock print of the original LP sleeve and a cool inkjet printed white top / black bottom disc housed in its own high density round bottom CDsleeve.The audio in each case has been expertly restored from the original Vinyl source at 24-bit resolution, removing all non-essential surface noise and ground-hum - although, and certainly in the case of this title given the original LP's scarcity, there will be a click /pop or two from time to time. So ... not your average grey-area needle-drop reissues but in fact something much, much nicer - the love certainly does shine through. 

And the hits keep on coming - long my favorite Pierre Henry record, baffling that it was never included in one of those umpteen multi-disc box-sets on Philips from the late 90s. In the twilight days of the 1970s Henry, with the assistance of the mysterious Roger Lafosse, built a brainwave-conduction system which he placed on the heads of various individuals, feeding the resultant voltages into a giant synthesizer. The concept being that the “Composer” of the music was the one to whom the transducers were affixed. Hearing the music - inarguably Henry’s fiercest and most unrelenting bit of pure analog skree - it’s understandable that this process never sparked an auto-electroacoustic-composition movement.

Originally issued in a beautiful silver / black foil-stamped sleeve - reproduced wonderfully here - as part of the illustrious Prospective 21e Siècle series on Philips. Mind-slaying and so incredibly aggressive for a record from 1970. Fans of the current wave of free-electronic noise-blat  - Wolf Eyes, Peter B., Nautical Almanac, et.al - will find much herein to convulse over.

[CP 133] Previously, Mr. P.C. C.P. had the wise idea to replicate the two “Corticalart” Pierre Henry titles, considered by many as the most wild & woolly amongst the French Musique Concrète master’s vast discography.

Personally, I’ve long been puzzled by the “Corticalart III” title; was there a “Corticalart II” that we somehow missed? Lo and behold, here it is, in the form of a “Second” concert utilizing the system, again done in collaboration with Bernard Bonnier, assembled at the Studio Apsome then presented as part of a “Spectacle of Cybernetic, Spatio-Lumina-Dynamics” staged by Nicolas Schöffer & Alwin Nikolas at the Hamburg Opera in February 1973 under the banner “Kyldex I.”

I’ve seen the single “Prismes” excerpt show up on a few compilations of Henry’s era work, but the complete performance remains one of Henry & Bonnier’s most sought-after sides. Recorded a full two years after “Mise en Musique” (but only 7 months prior to “Corticalart III”) this takes a comparably nuanced approach to working with the system. While yes, the opening pulse-width grind of “Ouverture” is straight out of “Mise en Musique’s” playbook, the stereo-heavy electronic twang of “Sirène” is a rising swarm of tightly-controlled high-end synthesizer fury that drops out into a distant prepared-piano block.

The extremely minimal pointillism of “Continuum” wraps rattled percussion & sly oscillator pings into an inter-channel riddle. “Crépidance” clearly shows Bonnier’s involvement (the constant kick-pulse & tape-echo chime are clear links to his later “Casse-Tête”) & the two-part “Facettes” drops an incredibly dense Musique Concrète miniature before continuing in the mould of rising, hysteresis-heavy brainwave-induction before the zappy, aberrant pan-laws of “Manèges” close out the side.

Both “Crescendo” & “Perpetuum” (ditto, raw brain-wave inductions sustained in a thick morass of discordant overtones, then further ultra-minimal iterations) build up to the main-event of the title-track - 15 minutes of sublime rise / fall tactics, impeccably assembled waves of over-lapping automations & low, growling figures cut with almost imperceptible slices of taped-sound, erupting into a honey of a tape-speed munge-out. Of the three “Corticalarts,” this one definitely shows the most range & prowess (don’t get me wrong - I do love the brutal bludgeoning of “Mise” & the washed-out room-whirr of “III”) - amazing it’s taken Mr. P.C. C.P. so long to sort out the missing installment of this incredible trilogy.

[CP 033] What better way to celebrate Creel Pone #33 (the significance? you decide) than to offer a follow-up to the title that put Mr P.C. C.P. on the map (not Tom Hamilton’s “Pieces for Kohn” - although that was in fact the first and is amazing, now deleted.)

Behold, the third staging (at the 8th International Conference of Electro-Encephalography, no less) of Pierre Henry’s “Cortical Art”, engineered by a young Bernard Bonnier & again utilizing Roger Lafosse's brain-wave induction systems. 

Where “Mise en Musique” wowed us all with it’s full-on synth-noise grind in song-length segments, “Cortical Art III” slowly builds over two side-length performances from a whisper of nervous oscillator-gurgle into a storm of frenzied bleeps and a distorted hash of brainwaves & analogue filtering. In a way this trumps even the “Mise” LP, although given you’re going to need a slightly longer attention-span for it to truly “work” - there are all sorts of references in the French liner notes to “Alpha” and “Beta” brain waves - get out your bi-focals.

What’s interesting to me is that this is actually a room recording of the performance - all of Henry / Bonnier’s knob-twiddling and button-pressing quite audible, as are the audience’s coughs and whispered comments to each other - or maybe i’m just imagining things - and yes the room erupts in riotous applause at the end - God bless those early 70s Provençal audiences!

Ed Maurer said it best, "what a performance this must have been to witness, as this is one of the most over-the-top recordings of all time,” I can only agree.