Les Rallizes Denudés

What seems to have occurred here is that someone pressed two of the three tracks from the supposed “France Demo Tape” on vinyl. That "tape," released as a CDR in 2007, was probably not a single recording, nor was it likely recorded in France. (Faux francophilia is part of the band's mystique.) It gathered together three relatively disparate tracks in terms of sound. I don’t know the truth, but I assume that the record was accidentally pressed with just two tracks and the bootlegger then released it for sale, making a sleeve for it that included minimal information. Really, what information could it include?

My guess is that then, after the LP sold out, and some reviews of it appeared, the bootlegger (or a colleague, or a competitor?), now under the ostensibly more legit imprint Bamboo, pressed it again. It now has all three tracks and heavyweight orange vinyl. It includes on the insert a review/distributor's blurb of the prior, two-track pressing. It’s weird. And it’s dumb, because now “The Last One” appears on the same side as an underdeveloped and incomplete, though decent, version of a song titled “Strung Out Deeper Than the Night” that is not actually “Strung Out Deeper Than the Night” but is actually “Ice Fire.” Who needs track titles anyway? Those two tracks, which total almost 30 minutes, fill one side, while the other side comprises only “An Awful Eternity,” clocking in under 20 minutes. It would have made more sense to pair "Eternity" with “Ice Fire,” for a slightly shorter and more sensible side, leaving the megalithic “The Last One” to stand on its own, as it will for eternity in the annals of fucked-up, shit-fi music. 

Buy either version of the record. Both contain the one "The Last One" you need. I prefer the two-track bootleg, with its more spare presentation.

Back to the December 1980 untitled track. Rallizes was improvisational and unpredictable, rarely giving off the feeling of control. The band’s repertoire included not more than 20 songs, played differently every time, for a couple decades. It’s a form of devotion to a craft that seems impossible to grasp today, in an era of instant gratification and equally rapid obsolescence. This particular track, which I think has not really grabbed many listeners’ attention before, requires a close listen. It begins as one of the most pacific, anodyne, and calm Rallizes tunes. It’s springlike, west coast psychedelia. It’s nothing like the brooding night that usually inspires their sound. For over ten minutes, hardly anything happens. Past the ten-minute mark, a moment of feedback indicates that things might be changing soon. At 10:45 or so, the world explodes. It comes basically out of nowhere. Shattering feedback and noise cascade. Beneath it, the effervescent tune continues. It’s a juxtaposition that grabbed me the first time I heard it and has yet to let me go. That was around a decade ago, before the crisis of 2008, which I related to a song by Shotgun Solution that has similar aesthetic qualities of catastrophe: a smooth start and an infernal finish. Today, the present crisis, a new act of the ongoing crisis, holds different auguries. The attempt to hold on to normalcy amid the storm and stress is impossible. We are all enrolled, including and especially the ultra-rich, who hope to ride out the destruction they are enabling in their enclaves. It won’t happen. They’ll be engulfed too. Anyone who tries to hold on to the fading dream of it all going back to normal is simply playing the underlying tune here, while today, at the 10:45 moment, the klaxons sound, shreiks echo, and the world burns to death around us. It’s impossible not to hear it, as impossible as it was not to see it coming.