It isn’t often that I review two albums in one segment on this website, but I have here regarding a couple recently released by the interesting Californian label, OtherSide. Earlier this year, I reviewed their releases from Matt Goodluck and Twin Age.

New from them are albums featuring the legendary French electronic music pioneer, Richard Pinhas. Note to readers, these albums are available on a strictly limited edition run of 500, so be quick. Pop along to https://othersideaudio.bandcamp.com/

We will concentrate on the solo work first, this being Winter Music, taken from a track recorded, but not used, for the Iceland sessions in 1979. Pinhas has remixed this work, and straight away I would alert fans of ambient music, such as that propagated by Messrs Fripp & Eno, that this is pretty much an essential example of this type of music. There are two parts to the work, both 11:40 in length, so we get in effect a super-epic length piece of music.

These types of soundscapes are not, I know, of appeal to everyone, but it should reach a far wider audience than it does. My first listen to the album was of an evening after a particularly stressful day at work, and simply allowing the notes and effects created by this extremely talented artist to wash over you with a cool beer in hand was extremely cathartic, believe me.

Writing about such music in the sort of detail I usually delve into on my site is practically impossible for this, because the music does not lend itself to such descriptors. I love, though, the dreamy effect and impact this work has on me. It is music to be absorbed in the quiet of self, a set of chords which immerse themselves totally within you.

There are a couple of videos posted to YouTube by CDBaby, and I have embedded them below. Pour yourselves that drink, and step across that bleak winter steppe in the company of an ambience which is warmer than the title and cover suggests.

The second album is Le Plan, from Heldon, the band formed by Pinhas in the 1970’s. This album features four remixed tracks from 2000’s Only Chaos Is Real, an album I was not familiar with before setting out to write this review. The album was produced by Pinhas, who played guitars and electronics, alongside a host of bandmates and contributors too numerous to mention here.

As you shall hear from the couple of tracks I embed below for you to listen to, this album could reasonably be described as standing a million miles away from Winter Music, so much so that, in truth, initially I had to check that the link I had been sent by the label was correct.

We start off with Le Plan itself, which is embedded below, and I have grown to appreciate it, but it is stark, industrial, and creating a sonic world as bleak as it comes. It will, though, appeal to those of you who take delight in the 1990’s incarnations of King Crimson, so a further example of the regular comparisons between this French pioneer and Mr Robert Wilcox. There are thundering riffs, tumultuous sounds, rather dystopian electronic effects in what is a display of supreme musicianship from all concerned. Persistent listening and patience bring its rewards with this, and definitely one for lovers of incredible rhythm section work with its thumping bass riffs and sonically staggering drum/percussion work.

Next Level is up next. It is dark, as dark as a typical African ant’s backside, with the dark lyrics talking about everything around and part of us being part of a network, the lyrics welcoming us to the next level where I envisage the protagonist existing in his bedroom engulfed by gaming, social media, digital noise, so very much anticipating reality for many in 2024. The guitar work in this is stunning, with more of that concrete foundation provided by the rhythm section. Chaotic in parts, but also melodic in others, this is a class work, post punk in its futuristic fury. It is embedded below.

It is followed by Ubik, which was a late 1960’s novel by Philip K Dick about the perception of reality. It is a trancey slab of rock, featuring some fascinating noises from guitars and keys, whilst the vocals are suited so well to the subject matter, the alterations in reality capable of being reversed by the eponymous substance you buy at your local mall. The screams put across the mid-bending visions furiously.

Last Level completes the work and is the direct sequel to Next Level. The world is on fire, and, frankly, all is not well, a million dollars burning, the subject looking to reproduce himself in what I take as a comment on self-gratification from the screen. There is an intensity to this which must be experienced, but again the root of the electronic experimentation of Pinhas can be heard in some of the effects here amongst the raging riffs. There are more melodic chords poking through in parts, with some of the finest bass and drum work you will hear this year, but this really could be the musical encyclopaedia definition of dystopian.

This album at the time presented the world with a vision of the world to come, and, in all honesty, with war, pestilence, mass migration, climate change, digital overload, lies on social media, and the planet closer to nuclear war than at any time since the 1980’s, who is to say that the vision was not accurate?

It is not an easy listen, and quite clearly was never meant to be. It is a statement, and it is extremely powerful, disturbing, and encouraging the listener to reflect seriously about the direction we could potentially be heading in. The connection between this and Winter Tales is not merely Pinhas himself, but that both will not appeal to everybody on initial listen, but once you break through and away from any preconceptions, they are rewarding and fine listens.

Recommended. OtherSide are a label I think we should be supporting.