Heldon - A Dream Without Consequence?
Ask any music fan to name you five good bands from France and I guarantee you they will struggle. France has made many great and notable contributions to culture and the arts, but it is a popularly held belief that this does not extend to rock and roll. Perhaps the national stereotype of the French is just too sophisticated and cultured to really rock out with abandon; when French recording artists do become famous, they tend to be in the sleazy, suave balladeer mode a la Serge Gainsberg or arch yet tasteful electronic artists such as Air or Daft Punk. Scratch the surface, however, and there is a wealth of exciting and original French rock music, from Gong’s mystic space-funk to Magma’s apocalyptic alien operas to Ame Son’s acid fried freak outs. It’s tempting to conclude that, much like the Germans and the Japanese, the French rock groups’ very inability to convincingly reproduce American and British rock sounds allowed them to develop their own refreshingly idiosyncratic take on the form.
So it’s probably not without knowing irony that Heldon titled their third album It’s Always Rock And Roll. Here was music as thrillingly far out as anything produced at the same time in Germany or Japan, but handicapped as a French product, it was pretty much doomed to be ignored from the offset. If they had been British, Heldon’s musical invention, embracing of electronics and aversion to bombast would likely have landed them in with the select prog groups whose reputations survived the punk culling, such as King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator. Had they been German, they would be spoken of in the same breath as other krautrock hipster touchstones. As it stands, they remain to this day a glorious undiscovered secret.
Heldon were formed by guitarist Richard Pinhas, France’s own guitar hero. Pinhas was a suave left-wing intellectual who had experienced the political unrest of the 1968 student riots. Looking for some form of self-expression, he moved into rock and roll. Taking their name from a Norman Spinrad sci fi novel, the band fused Pinhas’ Fripp-like guitar playing with spacey synthesisers. It’s entirely appropriate that Pinhas should take his band’s name from Spinrad’s alternate universe masterwork The Iron Dream, partly because of that novel’s sound kicking of right wing ideology would have appealed to Pinhas’ politics, but also because the group themselves sound like they don’t quite belong in our universe. Although Pinhas’ heavy Crimso influence and the band’s penchant for sidelong epics places them firmly in the prog camp, their pioneering use of droning electronics is more aligned with Cluster or Tangerine Dream’s experiments than Wakeman or Emerson. Indeed, at times Heldon achieved a nasty, spikey minimalism that predates Suicide or Throbbing Gristle, and their use of clangy metallic percussion echoes Kraftwerk and anticipates Einsturzende Neubauten. Their integration of synthesisers is particularly remarkable in how successful it is – synths played their part in the downfall of many great prog acts, simply because the rigid technology of the time was hard to square with the dynamic time signature and tempo shifts that gave the music so much of its colour. At times, Heldon’s mastery of the tension between man and machine recalls The Who’s defining work on ‘Baba O’Reilly’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, and their ability to work with the mechanical groove is reminiscent of Manuel Gottsching’s seminal E2-E4 and of course the Gottsching-indebted LCD Soundsystem.
Heldon released seven studio albums in their lifetime, each one worth owning, and the best ones being very special indeed. As information about them is relatively scarce on the internet, here follows a rundown of their studio output, in chronological order and with mock Pitchfork ratings out of 10.0, in the hope that people will be moved to investigate these wonderful albums. Personnel info adapted with apologies from allmusic.com, apologies to the band and musicians if any of it is incorrect.
Electronic Guerilla (1974)
Gilles Deleuze – Vocals
Patrick Gauthier – Synthesiser, keyboards
Georges Grunblatt – Synthesiser, keyboards
Ariel Kalma – Keyboards
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, keyboards
Alain Renaud – Guitar
Coco Roussel – Percussion
Pierrot Roussel – Bass
Interestingly enough, the first album from France’s guitar hero Pinhas doesn’t feature any guitar until the second track. Electronic Guerilla opens with ‘Zind’, two minutes of throbbing electronics that wouldn’t be out of place on a Cluster LP. Electronics are woven into the whole album, their ominous buzzing providing a counterpoint for Pinhas’ wild guitar soloing. While Robert Fripp is obviously the main influence on his playing, Pinhas is definitely his own man. The sonic debt is clear in both the fuzzed out, searing soloing and the delicate acoustic passages, especially on ‘Ballade Pour Puig Antich, Révolutionnaire Assassiné en Espagne’, where it is doubled with soft mellotron. However, Pinhas’ style is less disciplined than Fripp, favouring a raw and unhinged edge that gives his playing its own identity.
The title of the album betrays the bands politics, as does ‘Ouais Marchais, Mieux Qu'en 68’, which features a spoken word piece about the student riots in France in 1968, and Pinhas’ anger is audibly simmering on this track some six years later. However the album is not at all as violent as this might suggest – indeed the tone is lyrical and sedate, with disconcerting eddies of anger and violence felt underneath, almost subliminally.
Electronic Guerilla is an impressive debut, and Heldon’s potential is on ample display. However, it’s audibly a formative work. Pinhas’ guitar playing is yet to reach the peaks it would on later albums, and there are odd moments where the synthesiser backings and the guitar playing feel somewhat clumsily wielded together, almost as if they belong to separate songs. This is especially noticeable on ‘Ballad…’, whose pastoral, early Crimson tone is constantly offset by an intrusive synthesiser buzz. Having said that, all the tracks have something to offer, and even at this early stage it’s clear that Heldon were going to develop into a very exciting band indeed.
Rating: 7.6
Heldon II: Allez Teia (1975)
Allain Blanche – Guitars
Georges Grunblatt – Synthesiser, guitar, keyboards, mellotron, ARP
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, synthesiser, keyboards, mellotron, tapes, ARP
Alain Renaud - Guitar
And the terrorist chic continues with the cover for Heldon’s second LP, with its cover showing a grainy black and white picture of an activist running from an armed policeman. Ill-advised, but admittedly miles away from Roger Dean. One wonders if the cover is the reason why Pinhas himself reportedly thinks little of this LP, as it’s another solid effort in the same vein as the debut. The album start off with the band’s strongest ever shout out to their musical heroes, ‘In The Wake Of King Fripp’, a lyrical piece of mellotron, acoustic guitar and acid-drenched soloing that indeed would not have sounded too out of place on the first two Crimso LPs. Not that Heldon have sacrificed their individuality – the rest of the album sees them refining and developing their own sound, growing ever more confident with their mix of kosmiche electronics and proggy guitar heroics. Pinhas’ brilliance is often in the way the band’s two distinct voices – guitar and synthesiser – work in distinct harmony with each other, as in conversation. Instead of man fighting the machine, as on The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, Heldon sound like a fully integrated cyborg, the organic and mechanical effortlessly interwoven. In this way the sound and feel of Heldon II reminds me of Manuel Gottsching’s E2-E4, at this point still nine years in the future, especially on tracks like ‘Moebius’. Like E2-E4, Heldon’s songs are already beginning to organically evolve, slowly and lyrically mutating over the course of their length. ‘Fluence’ is a prime example of this, Heldon’s first track over ten minutes long and the best thing on the album. Its serene deep space synthesisers wouldn’t be out of place on any classic German space rock album, and though there is a gap between it and the next song, they could just have easily flowed together. It illustrates the band’s increased confidence and gives a hint to their future direction. ‘Alphansis’ and closer ‘Michel Ettori’ feature no synthesisers, just Pinhas’ acoustic guitar weaving elegant melodic patterns.
Heldon II is perhaps a little less impressive than the band’s debut, suffering as it does from feeling largely like more of the same and lacking the shock of the new factor. Perhaps like their heroes King Crimson, their second album simply follows the pattern of their first a little too closely. It also feels a little less focused, drifting in some places. However, it drifts very nicely indeed, and with their next album, Heldon would begin to realize their massive potential.
Rating: 7.4
Third: It’s Always Rock And Roll (1975)
Gilber Artman – Drums
Aurore – Vocals
Didier Batard – Bass
Patrick Gauthier – Synthesiser, keyboards
Georges Grunblatt – Synthesiser, keyboards
Jean Mytruong – Drums
Richard Pinhas – Guitar
Alain Renaud – Guitar
Richard Pinhas’ work ethic is nothing if not impressive – Heldon’s second album of 1975 was a double LP, and one that saw his band really start to kick into gear. Like The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, The Fall’s Grotesque or XTC’s Drums And Wires, It’s Always Rock And Roll (or Third – Heldon were already starting to get confused with their numbering) marks the point where a formerly good band with potential made the leap into greatness. One of the reasons for this new-found rock raw power is the addition of Didier Batard on bass, who would later become part of the core Heldon power trio on later albums. Here his brutal, precise bass playing, with its shades of Jannick Topp and John Wetton, gives the music that extra kick that was missing on the earlier LPs. A good double LP is often seen as the hallmark of a good prog band, as it gives a group a real chance to stretch out and express their ideas to the fullest. Heldon’s spaced out sprawl suits the format brilliantly, and the band waste no time in freaking out with a vengeance over four sides of vinyl.
The album opens yet again with a guitar free track, ‘ICS Machinique’. The shimmering synth arpeggios are reminiscent of Tim Blake’s excellent work for Gong. Also notable, though, is the interaction between the synthesisers and the nervous drums, almost tripping over itself to keep up with the synthesiser’s mechanical whirring. From here on in, drums would play an increasingly important part in the human side of the Heldon cyborg, providing a muscular anchor and counterpoint to the spacey explorations of the synthesisers and guitar. ‘Côtes de Cachalot à la Psylocybine’ features sinister Blade Runner synths and some truly twisted soloing from Pinhas. If the first two Crimso albums were the original Heldon reference point, here he sounds like ‘Prince Rupert’s Lament’ off of Lizard, or ‘Requiem’ from 1982’s Beat – tortured guitars howling their pain in the distance while the ship goes down. ‘Méchammment Rock’, with its clomping, rhythmic guitar and thrillingly unhinged percussion could almost be Lark’s Tongues-era Crim, or Magma on the warpath.
The band’s gnomic sense of humour comes through in the song titles, whilst at the same time restating the endless possibilities of rock music that had by this time fallen into dull cliché – see the Stones album referenced by the title. ‘Cocaine Blues’ has little to do with the blues and more to do with oscillating, cosmic synths. ‘Virgin Swedish Blues’ is a bit closer to the blues in that it features more prominent guitar, albeit heavily phased and joined at the hip to pulsing electronics and more Fripp-tastic guitar solos. ‘Ocean Boogi’ is more of the same. ‘Zind Destruction’ cleverly references Spinrad again and the group’s own debut album. Angry buzzing synths and menacing guitar create an appropriately apocalyptic track.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an epic prog rock double LP without sidelong tracks, another worthy measure of a prog band’s quality. On their first side-swallowing epics, Heldon don’t disappoint. ‘Aurore’ takes up all of side 2, and is a dark slab of timeless deep space, all atonal kosmiche synthesiser drones, cut from the same cloth as Tangerine Dream’s Zeit. Closing the whole affair on side 4 is the Philip K Dick-referencing ‘Doctor Bloodmoney’, which is even better. Heldon create a suitable soundtrack for PKD’s post-apocalypse world that develops throughout its whole length from kosmiche gloop through periods of hysteria and oceans of calm to a stunning drum-led climax that could really be nobody else. This is a perfect example of just how good they were with synthesisers – witness how the drummer effortlessly keeps up with the shifting and mutating synth patterns through a deft command of jazz technique and rock dynamics.
It’s Always Rock And Roll is a triumph. Truly cosmic, it is lightyears away from most people’s standard definition of rock music, yet in its endless invention and sheer attitude, it’s about as rock and roll as you can get. The only reason that I haven’t awarded it the full 10.0 out of 10.0 is that stunningly, Heldon would keep on developing and progressing, soon surpassing even this wonderful record.
Rating: 9.2
Heldon IV: Agneta Nillson (1976)
Alain Bellaiche – Bass, guitar
Michel Ettori – Guitar
Patrick Gauthier – Synthesiser, keyboards, Mini Moog
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, keyboards, electronic sounds, mellotron, electronics
Gerard Prevost – Bass
Philibert Rossi – Synthesiser, mellotron
Coco Roussel – Drums
And we’re back to Roman numerals with Heldon IV, not to mention dodgy cover art, this time featuring a baby in an intensive care unit. The music sees the band following on from the innovations of the previous release, and gearing up for what would be the most successful phase of their career. Heldon are beginning to devote entire sides of vinyl to concept pieces that allow their music to stretch out for 20 minutes at a time. The suite on side one is a bit weaker then side two, but it’s still pretty impressive. ‘Perspective’ parts I to III shift across Tangerine Dream synthesisers into arpegiator land coupled with some droning industrial-esque guitar work, reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle, who wouldn’t release their first album for a year yet. The atmosphere is perhaps overly oppressive, the metallic clangs and harsh distortion grinding away through all of part III (excellently subtitled ‘Baader-Meinhof Blues’). The side concludes with a solo bass piece, which rivals in its melodic invention Chris Squire’s ‘The Fish’, if not possessed of quite the same rhythmic dexterity. Although Batard, Pinhas’ natural second in command, decided to sit this one out, the twin ex-Magma team of Alain Bellaiche and Gerard Prevost fill his shoes amply. However, if side one occasionally lacks focused, this is more than made up for in side two. The epic ‘Perspective IV’ anticipates the devastating sonic potential of the full Heldon power trio, which would be unleashed later that same year. The rhythm slowly builds out of the synthesiser drone, becoming a bubbling and heaving juggernaut over which Pinhas lays down some aweinspiring noise-funk madness, sounding at times like the ‘Sweet Thing’ coda from Diamond Dogs played by a particularly frenetic Can. The whole thing fades away and the synthesisers come back again, to lead us through another stellar drum and synth work out like the one on ‘Doctor Bloodmoney’. Again the way the drummer navigates the ebb and flow of the arpegiator is simply astounding in its dexterity and inventiveness, this display really ought to put the drummer up there with the other prog greats. Just as it seems he’s about to nail the whole thing down to a solid hard jazz groove, the whole thing comes to a sudden stop. Unsurprisingly, this track would provide the template for much of the rest of Heldon’s career.
Heldon IV is a great album, but it’s really the sound of a band gearing up for the big ones, and side one is a tad less compelling than the sheer sonic mastery displayed on side two. Over the next three albums, Heldon would refine their approach even further, achieving even greater heights of cosmic glory.
Rating: 8.7
Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale (1976)
Francios Auger – Drums
Didier Batard – Bass
Patrick Gauthier – Synthesiser, keyboards
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, keyboards
Jannick Top – Bass
Once again Pinhas’ insane work ethic gave us two classic Heldon albums in one year. Losing the numbers entirely this time (on my copy at least, allmusic refers to it as Heldon V), Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale is even better than its predecessor, and as an added bonus, features a guest spot on bass from Magma’s legendary second in command Jannick Top on side two. The end result isn’t quite the unholy Magma/Heldon mashup you’d imagine, but it’s still pretty awesome. In fact, Reve… is a step up from all of Heldon’s previous releases, largely thanks to the fact that Pinhas had finally found a bassist and drummer who could keep up with him in terms of passion and intensity. Didier Batard, previously heard anchoring the sonic maelstrom on chaos, returns to the fray for some more, and this time is accompanied by the excellent Francois Auger on drums. Auger’s dextrous command of jazz technique and rock power, not to mention his sheer off-the-wall inventiveness, make him the perfect choice to complete Heldon’s monstrous rhythm section. Finally with the pieces all in place, Heldon from this point onwards were an unstoppable sonic behemoth, purveyors of cosmic doom and redemption in about equal measure.
‘Marie Virginie C’ is a stunning assertion of all of Heldon’s strengths, a long form workout with screeching synths, wild distorted guitar and powerful drumming. Once again the mechanical theme here is strong, with the percussionist’s use of sheet metal violence making the group sound like some giant factory. Pinhas’ work here is acid-damaged and extreme, similar to Manuel Gottsching’s cosmic freak outs. This is followed by the percussion only ‘Elephanta’, which really gives Auger a chance to shine all by himself. Over eight minutes, the piece is never dull, as he channels both the mechanical and the tribal, using an astonishing range of instruments and sounds. Playing with the apregiators clearly paid off here, as the way he sets up the overlapping and shifting rhythms is not dissimilar to the melodic mutating patterns of the synthesiser. The end result sounds like robots playing gamelan at a party. Side two continues with ‘Marie Viriginie C’, this time building up from a mechanical groove and Top’s monstrous bass, opening up dub-like caverns of sound over which harsh synthesisers buzz and metal clashes. ‘Mvc II’ is an excellent example of the kind of weirdness that prog can throw up that you’d be unlikely to come across in any other genre. The rest of side two is taken up by ‘Towards The Red Line’, a mesh of whirring synths that approaches This Heat in its sonic density and detail. Rolling drums and Fripp-like guitar heroics burst through the chaos at key moments, humanity adding its voice to the joyful mechanical chaos. Eventually the group achieve an anchoring groove, somehow bringing the whole glorious mess into sharp focus.
Un Reve… shows Heldon confidently straddling the gap between prog and krautrock, whilst anticipating the sound of industrial and post punk’s most out there groups. Truly now they were in a league of their own, something that their final two releases would bear out.
Rating: 9.5
Heldon 6: Interface (1977)
Francois Auger – Synthesiser, percussion, drums
Didier Batard – Bass
Patrick Gauthier – Moog bass, synthesiser, keyboards
Richard Pinhas – Synthesiser, guitar, keyboards, electronic sounds, moog synthesiser
The punk and post-punk years would not see any change in the public image of French rock, although Paris’ execrable Metal Urbain have the distinction of their debut 7” being Rough Trade 001. It’s entirely appropriate to Heldon’s perverse attitude that they would achieve perfection when the gates had closed for prog. Had Interface (or Heldon 6 – their only LP to be graced with Arabic numerals) been released a couple of years earlier, perhaps its sheer brilliance would have allowed it to transcend the silly Frenchies can’t rock stereotype and set the world alight. Released in punk’s year zero, it didn’t stand a chance. Listened to today, Heldon’s (first!) masterpiece is a timeless piece of kosmiche prog-funk, guaranteed to blast you straight to seventh heaven.
Side one is linked conceptually by the ‘Volantes’ segments, bubbling synthesisers aided and abetted by funky bass and drums, which features some truly epic guitar mangling from Pinhas on the final segment. In between we get the glorious cosmic doom of ‘Jet Girl’, all synthesiser drones and mourning guitars, and ‘Bal-A-Fou’, which morphs from its all synth beginning to a sunny, sparkling whirl of interlocking guitar and melodic bass, anticipating the rock gamelan approach of 80s Krim whilst harking back to Neu! at their shimmering motorik peak. Batard really shines on this track, his melodic and rhythmic range is quite stunning. More of this is on display on side two, which is swallowed by all three parts of the title track. A slow beginning evolves into a confident, limber and funky groove, with the bassist locked into the pulses of the synthesiser and more fine displays by Auger, leaving Pinhas to solo at his acid-drenched, unhinged best over the top. The drummer engages in some truly impressive rolls and fills, pushing aside and playing with the beat. The third part builds up again from phased drums, the bass subtly entering and then the synths, creating a kosmiche drone-out worthy of Klaus Schulze. This builds up into a weird, electro dub, more in line with Kraftwerk or Suicide than anything else, or like Sister Ray reimagined as a techno nightmare. Then the whole mix is topped off with Pinhas’ malevolent guitar soloing, and the band really kick off. Again, the mix of spacey guitars and synthesisers puts the listener in mind of E2-E4, only much more sinister, with undercurrents of violence making themselves felt underneath the bubbling surface. Pinhas’ guitar playing is still audibly influenced by Fripp, but his work here shows you just how far the guy’s come. There is a thrillingly dangerous edge to his playing, an off-the-cuff wildness as he loops clusters of sound, generates blistering bursts of noise and lets the ends of phrases disintegrate into harsh feedback. This approach prefigures Keith Leviene’s revolutionary work with Public Image Limited a couple of years later; indeed with Leviene being a Yes fan and PiL being Can and Magma-heads, could Leviene himself be a fan of this album? Brilliantly, this slice of mutant space electronics ends on a joke, the groove fading away leaving us briefly with a distorted guitar cheekily playing a fuzzed-up Chuck Berry riff before the tape cuts. It’s Always Rock And Roll, indeed.
Interface is utterly glorious, the raw, monstrous Heldon power trio at its utter, cosmic peak. As well as cementing Pinhas’ reputation as a guitar whiz, if Auger and Batard weren’t the best rhythm section in rock by now, I’d like to know who was. Heldon now found themselves facing the age old dilemma for great bands – how can you possibly follow up perfection? The correct answer is, of course, you release another stone-cold, all-time classic.
Rating: 10.0
Stand By (1979)
Francois Auger – Percussion, piano, drums
Didier Badex – Synthesiser
Didier Batard – Bass
Klaus Blasquiz – Vocals
Patrick Gauthier – Piano, keyboard, polymoog, mini moog
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, keyboards, moog synthesiser, vocoder, electronics, polymoog
Appropriately enough, Heldon’s seventh and final album receives no numbers in its title. It took the band two years to complete the follow up to Interface, the longest time they’d ever taken between releasing albums. Yet even a cursory listen to Stand By reveals that the band clearly had lost none of the fire and intensity that made Inferface so essential. Heldon’s second masterpiece would also be their last, though this album shows no signs of an ailing creative force. They split at the peak of their powers. Stand By is possibly Heldon’s most complete album. Before you notice the tautology, let’s move on to the music.
Stand By opens with the title track, possibly Heldon’s single finest composition. An awesome piece of prog rock, it shifts organically through a number of changes of pace and mood. The influence of both King Crimson and Magma is strong here, especially on the monolithic and very Top-like bass playing from Batard. Its knotty structure of interlocking riffs and its cerebral development through them puts the listener in mind of great Crimso instrumentals like ‘Red’. The band switch from brutalist hard rock to menacing funk and back again on a dime, and everyone gets a chance to show off their instrumental prowess. ‘Une Drole de Journee’ is another example of sequencers and drummer operating in perfect harmony, Auger totally locked into the shifts in tone and tempo. It also features a wonderful guest spot from Magma’s Klaus Blasquiz, spraying his trademark bizarre wordless vocals over the top, quite possibly in Kobaian, the constructed language Christian Vander invented for Magma. Or maybe it’s just gibberish, perhaps a slightly tongue-in-cheek tribute. Certainly, the rich harmonies are closer to Gentle Giant’s playfulness than Magma’s choral malevolence. Side two is given over entirely to ‘Bolero’, which is split on the CD into 8 parts with creative subtitles, but really it’s one big piece. In stark contrast to the sheer malevolence of ‘Interface’, ‘Bolero’ is lyrical and melodic. Indeed, this is as close as Heldon would get to E2-E4, and it shares many of that piece’s traits, anticipating Gottsching’s masterwork by some years. In the motorik pulse running through the track and its melodic expansiveness recall Kraftwerk’s driving epic ‘Autobahn’. It’s sheer joy and almost pastoral tone is markedly different from the industrial themes that run through their later albums, and there’s a nice sense of circularity that their final album should end with a piece that recalls in spirit the gentler tone of their early albums while at the same time displaying just how far the band had progressed from those days. Again, Auger’s locked groove in tandem with the synths proves just how much a master he was of his craft.
Really, it’s down to personal preference which of Heldon’s two masterpieces you prefer. I personally don’t think there’s much in it, so I’ve awarded them both perfect tens. Stand By doesn’t give any indication of a band drifting apart musically, and it suggests that even more great music could have followed. However, kudos to Heldon for splitting at the peak of their powers, rather than dragging on long past their sell-by date. This way we remember them at their best, untainted by years of rot and decay. The 80s were not an easy time for prog, and it’s understandable that Pinhas would want to continue as a solo artist, free from the musical and financial constraints of a prog group. If you’re going to go out, this is some way to do it.
Rating: 10.0
Conclusion
So, in their brief six years of existence, Heldon released seven albums of top notch prog, which anticipated some of the most original and groundbreaking music released in the next decade. Heldon were musical pioneers certainly, but is it reasonable to cast them as this great lost influence? Probably not. Much as I would love to find out that everyone from Manuel Gottsching to Keith Leviene to Fripp himself is secretly a Heldon fan, I think it’s unlikely at best. Heldon are probably one of those groups who made fantastic music ahead of its time that sadly you could erase from the timeline without causing significant damage. This is unquestionably a travesty. Hopefully I’ve inspired my hypothetical audience to investigate these albums, because they are all worthy of your time and attention, and just because nobody paid attention at the time doesn’t mean that Heldon didn’t produce a wealth of awe-inspiring and exciting music. Richard Pinhas should be regarded as a guitar hero, and Interface and Stand By are prog classics of the first order, and hopefully one day they will be rightly seen as such. And Didier Batard and Francois Auger really deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as their British and German peers for their musical prowess and invention. The power trio version of Heldon, in all its punked up, progged out glory, is truly a thing of wonder to hear in full flow. Musicians looking for new artistic directions in these retrogressive times could do worse than take inspiration from Heldon’s heady mix of prog, krautrock and electronica.
So it’s probably not without knowing irony that Heldon titled their third album It’s Always Rock And Roll. Here was music as thrillingly far out as anything produced at the same time in Germany or Japan, but handicapped as a French product, it was pretty much doomed to be ignored from the offset. If they had been British, Heldon’s musical invention, embracing of electronics and aversion to bombast would likely have landed them in with the select prog groups whose reputations survived the punk culling, such as King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator. Had they been German, they would be spoken of in the same breath as other krautrock hipster touchstones. As it stands, they remain to this day a glorious undiscovered secret.
Heldon were formed by guitarist Richard Pinhas, France’s own guitar hero. Pinhas was a suave left-wing intellectual who had experienced the political unrest of the 1968 student riots. Looking for some form of self-expression, he moved into rock and roll. Taking their name from a Norman Spinrad sci fi novel, the band fused Pinhas’ Fripp-like guitar playing with spacey synthesisers. It’s entirely appropriate that Pinhas should take his band’s name from Spinrad’s alternate universe masterwork The Iron Dream, partly because of that novel’s sound kicking of right wing ideology would have appealed to Pinhas’ politics, but also because the group themselves sound like they don’t quite belong in our universe. Although Pinhas’ heavy Crimso influence and the band’s penchant for sidelong epics places them firmly in the prog camp, their pioneering use of droning electronics is more aligned with Cluster or Tangerine Dream’s experiments than Wakeman or Emerson. Indeed, at times Heldon achieved a nasty, spikey minimalism that predates Suicide or Throbbing Gristle, and their use of clangy metallic percussion echoes Kraftwerk and anticipates Einsturzende Neubauten. Their integration of synthesisers is particularly remarkable in how successful it is – synths played their part in the downfall of many great prog acts, simply because the rigid technology of the time was hard to square with the dynamic time signature and tempo shifts that gave the music so much of its colour. At times, Heldon’s mastery of the tension between man and machine recalls The Who’s defining work on ‘Baba O’Reilly’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, and their ability to work with the mechanical groove is reminiscent of Manuel Gottsching’s seminal E2-E4 and of course the Gottsching-indebted LCD Soundsystem.
Heldon released seven studio albums in their lifetime, each one worth owning, and the best ones being very special indeed. As information about them is relatively scarce on the internet, here follows a rundown of their studio output, in chronological order and with mock Pitchfork ratings out of 10.0, in the hope that people will be moved to investigate these wonderful albums. Personnel info adapted with apologies from allmusic.com, apologies to the band and musicians if any of it is incorrect.
Electronic Guerilla (1974)
Gilles Deleuze – Vocals
Patrick Gauthier – Synthesiser, keyboards
Georges Grunblatt – Synthesiser, keyboards
Ariel Kalma – Keyboards
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, keyboards
Alain Renaud – Guitar
Coco Roussel – Percussion
Pierrot Roussel – Bass
Interestingly enough, the first album from France’s guitar hero Pinhas doesn’t feature any guitar until the second track. Electronic Guerilla opens with ‘Zind’, two minutes of throbbing electronics that wouldn’t be out of place on a Cluster LP. Electronics are woven into the whole album, their ominous buzzing providing a counterpoint for Pinhas’ wild guitar soloing. While Robert Fripp is obviously the main influence on his playing, Pinhas is definitely his own man. The sonic debt is clear in both the fuzzed out, searing soloing and the delicate acoustic passages, especially on ‘Ballade Pour Puig Antich, Révolutionnaire Assassiné en Espagne’, where it is doubled with soft mellotron. However, Pinhas’ style is less disciplined than Fripp, favouring a raw and unhinged edge that gives his playing its own identity.
The title of the album betrays the bands politics, as does ‘Ouais Marchais, Mieux Qu'en 68’, which features a spoken word piece about the student riots in France in 1968, and Pinhas’ anger is audibly simmering on this track some six years later. However the album is not at all as violent as this might suggest – indeed the tone is lyrical and sedate, with disconcerting eddies of anger and violence felt underneath, almost subliminally.
Electronic Guerilla is an impressive debut, and Heldon’s potential is on ample display. However, it’s audibly a formative work. Pinhas’ guitar playing is yet to reach the peaks it would on later albums, and there are odd moments where the synthesiser backings and the guitar playing feel somewhat clumsily wielded together, almost as if they belong to separate songs. This is especially noticeable on ‘Ballad…’, whose pastoral, early Crimson tone is constantly offset by an intrusive synthesiser buzz. Having said that, all the tracks have something to offer, and even at this early stage it’s clear that Heldon were going to develop into a very exciting band indeed.
Rating: 7.6
Heldon II: Allez Teia (1975)
Allain Blanche – Guitars
Georges Grunblatt – Synthesiser, guitar, keyboards, mellotron, ARP
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, synthesiser, keyboards, mellotron, tapes, ARP
Alain Renaud - Guitar
And the terrorist chic continues with the cover for Heldon’s second LP, with its cover showing a grainy black and white picture of an activist running from an armed policeman. Ill-advised, but admittedly miles away from Roger Dean. One wonders if the cover is the reason why Pinhas himself reportedly thinks little of this LP, as it’s another solid effort in the same vein as the debut. The album start off with the band’s strongest ever shout out to their musical heroes, ‘In The Wake Of King Fripp’, a lyrical piece of mellotron, acoustic guitar and acid-drenched soloing that indeed would not have sounded too out of place on the first two Crimso LPs. Not that Heldon have sacrificed their individuality – the rest of the album sees them refining and developing their own sound, growing ever more confident with their mix of kosmiche electronics and proggy guitar heroics. Pinhas’ brilliance is often in the way the band’s two distinct voices – guitar and synthesiser – work in distinct harmony with each other, as in conversation. Instead of man fighting the machine, as on The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, Heldon sound like a fully integrated cyborg, the organic and mechanical effortlessly interwoven. In this way the sound and feel of Heldon II reminds me of Manuel Gottsching’s E2-E4, at this point still nine years in the future, especially on tracks like ‘Moebius’. Like E2-E4, Heldon’s songs are already beginning to organically evolve, slowly and lyrically mutating over the course of their length. ‘Fluence’ is a prime example of this, Heldon’s first track over ten minutes long and the best thing on the album. Its serene deep space synthesisers wouldn’t be out of place on any classic German space rock album, and though there is a gap between it and the next song, they could just have easily flowed together. It illustrates the band’s increased confidence and gives a hint to their future direction. ‘Alphansis’ and closer ‘Michel Ettori’ feature no synthesisers, just Pinhas’ acoustic guitar weaving elegant melodic patterns.
Heldon II is perhaps a little less impressive than the band’s debut, suffering as it does from feeling largely like more of the same and lacking the shock of the new factor. Perhaps like their heroes King Crimson, their second album simply follows the pattern of their first a little too closely. It also feels a little less focused, drifting in some places. However, it drifts very nicely indeed, and with their next album, Heldon would begin to realize their massive potential.
Rating: 7.4
Third: It’s Always Rock And Roll (1975)
Gilber Artman – Drums
Aurore – Vocals
Didier Batard – Bass
Patrick Gauthier – Synthesiser, keyboards
Georges Grunblatt – Synthesiser, keyboards
Jean Mytruong – Drums
Richard Pinhas – Guitar
Alain Renaud – Guitar
Richard Pinhas’ work ethic is nothing if not impressive – Heldon’s second album of 1975 was a double LP, and one that saw his band really start to kick into gear. Like The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, The Fall’s Grotesque or XTC’s Drums And Wires, It’s Always Rock And Roll (or Third – Heldon were already starting to get confused with their numbering) marks the point where a formerly good band with potential made the leap into greatness. One of the reasons for this new-found rock raw power is the addition of Didier Batard on bass, who would later become part of the core Heldon power trio on later albums. Here his brutal, precise bass playing, with its shades of Jannick Topp and John Wetton, gives the music that extra kick that was missing on the earlier LPs. A good double LP is often seen as the hallmark of a good prog band, as it gives a group a real chance to stretch out and express their ideas to the fullest. Heldon’s spaced out sprawl suits the format brilliantly, and the band waste no time in freaking out with a vengeance over four sides of vinyl.
The album opens yet again with a guitar free track, ‘ICS Machinique’. The shimmering synth arpeggios are reminiscent of Tim Blake’s excellent work for Gong. Also notable, though, is the interaction between the synthesisers and the nervous drums, almost tripping over itself to keep up with the synthesiser’s mechanical whirring. From here on in, drums would play an increasingly important part in the human side of the Heldon cyborg, providing a muscular anchor and counterpoint to the spacey explorations of the synthesisers and guitar. ‘Côtes de Cachalot à la Psylocybine’ features sinister Blade Runner synths and some truly twisted soloing from Pinhas. If the first two Crimso albums were the original Heldon reference point, here he sounds like ‘Prince Rupert’s Lament’ off of Lizard, or ‘Requiem’ from 1982’s Beat – tortured guitars howling their pain in the distance while the ship goes down. ‘Méchammment Rock’, with its clomping, rhythmic guitar and thrillingly unhinged percussion could almost be Lark’s Tongues-era Crim, or Magma on the warpath.
The band’s gnomic sense of humour comes through in the song titles, whilst at the same time restating the endless possibilities of rock music that had by this time fallen into dull cliché – see the Stones album referenced by the title. ‘Cocaine Blues’ has little to do with the blues and more to do with oscillating, cosmic synths. ‘Virgin Swedish Blues’ is a bit closer to the blues in that it features more prominent guitar, albeit heavily phased and joined at the hip to pulsing electronics and more Fripp-tastic guitar solos. ‘Ocean Boogi’ is more of the same. ‘Zind Destruction’ cleverly references Spinrad again and the group’s own debut album. Angry buzzing synths and menacing guitar create an appropriately apocalyptic track.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an epic prog rock double LP without sidelong tracks, another worthy measure of a prog band’s quality. On their first side-swallowing epics, Heldon don’t disappoint. ‘Aurore’ takes up all of side 2, and is a dark slab of timeless deep space, all atonal kosmiche synthesiser drones, cut from the same cloth as Tangerine Dream’s Zeit. Closing the whole affair on side 4 is the Philip K Dick-referencing ‘Doctor Bloodmoney’, which is even better. Heldon create a suitable soundtrack for PKD’s post-apocalypse world that develops throughout its whole length from kosmiche gloop through periods of hysteria and oceans of calm to a stunning drum-led climax that could really be nobody else. This is a perfect example of just how good they were with synthesisers – witness how the drummer effortlessly keeps up with the shifting and mutating synth patterns through a deft command of jazz technique and rock dynamics.
It’s Always Rock And Roll is a triumph. Truly cosmic, it is lightyears away from most people’s standard definition of rock music, yet in its endless invention and sheer attitude, it’s about as rock and roll as you can get. The only reason that I haven’t awarded it the full 10.0 out of 10.0 is that stunningly, Heldon would keep on developing and progressing, soon surpassing even this wonderful record.
Rating: 9.2
Heldon IV: Agneta Nillson (1976)
Alain Bellaiche – Bass, guitar
Michel Ettori – Guitar
Patrick Gauthier – Synthesiser, keyboards, Mini Moog
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, keyboards, electronic sounds, mellotron, electronics
Gerard Prevost – Bass
Philibert Rossi – Synthesiser, mellotron
Coco Roussel – Drums
And we’re back to Roman numerals with Heldon IV, not to mention dodgy cover art, this time featuring a baby in an intensive care unit. The music sees the band following on from the innovations of the previous release, and gearing up for what would be the most successful phase of their career. Heldon are beginning to devote entire sides of vinyl to concept pieces that allow their music to stretch out for 20 minutes at a time. The suite on side one is a bit weaker then side two, but it’s still pretty impressive. ‘Perspective’ parts I to III shift across Tangerine Dream synthesisers into arpegiator land coupled with some droning industrial-esque guitar work, reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle, who wouldn’t release their first album for a year yet. The atmosphere is perhaps overly oppressive, the metallic clangs and harsh distortion grinding away through all of part III (excellently subtitled ‘Baader-Meinhof Blues’). The side concludes with a solo bass piece, which rivals in its melodic invention Chris Squire’s ‘The Fish’, if not possessed of quite the same rhythmic dexterity. Although Batard, Pinhas’ natural second in command, decided to sit this one out, the twin ex-Magma team of Alain Bellaiche and Gerard Prevost fill his shoes amply. However, if side one occasionally lacks focused, this is more than made up for in side two. The epic ‘Perspective IV’ anticipates the devastating sonic potential of the full Heldon power trio, which would be unleashed later that same year. The rhythm slowly builds out of the synthesiser drone, becoming a bubbling and heaving juggernaut over which Pinhas lays down some aweinspiring noise-funk madness, sounding at times like the ‘Sweet Thing’ coda from Diamond Dogs played by a particularly frenetic Can. The whole thing fades away and the synthesisers come back again, to lead us through another stellar drum and synth work out like the one on ‘Doctor Bloodmoney’. Again the way the drummer navigates the ebb and flow of the arpegiator is simply astounding in its dexterity and inventiveness, this display really ought to put the drummer up there with the other prog greats. Just as it seems he’s about to nail the whole thing down to a solid hard jazz groove, the whole thing comes to a sudden stop. Unsurprisingly, this track would provide the template for much of the rest of Heldon’s career.
Heldon IV is a great album, but it’s really the sound of a band gearing up for the big ones, and side one is a tad less compelling than the sheer sonic mastery displayed on side two. Over the next three albums, Heldon would refine their approach even further, achieving even greater heights of cosmic glory.
Rating: 8.7
Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale (1976)
Francios Auger – Drums
Didier Batard – Bass
Patrick Gauthier – Synthesiser, keyboards
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, keyboards
Jannick Top – Bass
Once again Pinhas’ insane work ethic gave us two classic Heldon albums in one year. Losing the numbers entirely this time (on my copy at least, allmusic refers to it as Heldon V), Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale is even better than its predecessor, and as an added bonus, features a guest spot on bass from Magma’s legendary second in command Jannick Top on side two. The end result isn’t quite the unholy Magma/Heldon mashup you’d imagine, but it’s still pretty awesome. In fact, Reve… is a step up from all of Heldon’s previous releases, largely thanks to the fact that Pinhas had finally found a bassist and drummer who could keep up with him in terms of passion and intensity. Didier Batard, previously heard anchoring the sonic maelstrom on chaos, returns to the fray for some more, and this time is accompanied by the excellent Francois Auger on drums. Auger’s dextrous command of jazz technique and rock power, not to mention his sheer off-the-wall inventiveness, make him the perfect choice to complete Heldon’s monstrous rhythm section. Finally with the pieces all in place, Heldon from this point onwards were an unstoppable sonic behemoth, purveyors of cosmic doom and redemption in about equal measure.
‘Marie Virginie C’ is a stunning assertion of all of Heldon’s strengths, a long form workout with screeching synths, wild distorted guitar and powerful drumming. Once again the mechanical theme here is strong, with the percussionist’s use of sheet metal violence making the group sound like some giant factory. Pinhas’ work here is acid-damaged and extreme, similar to Manuel Gottsching’s cosmic freak outs. This is followed by the percussion only ‘Elephanta’, which really gives Auger a chance to shine all by himself. Over eight minutes, the piece is never dull, as he channels both the mechanical and the tribal, using an astonishing range of instruments and sounds. Playing with the apregiators clearly paid off here, as the way he sets up the overlapping and shifting rhythms is not dissimilar to the melodic mutating patterns of the synthesiser. The end result sounds like robots playing gamelan at a party. Side two continues with ‘Marie Viriginie C’, this time building up from a mechanical groove and Top’s monstrous bass, opening up dub-like caverns of sound over which harsh synthesisers buzz and metal clashes. ‘Mvc II’ is an excellent example of the kind of weirdness that prog can throw up that you’d be unlikely to come across in any other genre. The rest of side two is taken up by ‘Towards The Red Line’, a mesh of whirring synths that approaches This Heat in its sonic density and detail. Rolling drums and Fripp-like guitar heroics burst through the chaos at key moments, humanity adding its voice to the joyful mechanical chaos. Eventually the group achieve an anchoring groove, somehow bringing the whole glorious mess into sharp focus.
Un Reve… shows Heldon confidently straddling the gap between prog and krautrock, whilst anticipating the sound of industrial and post punk’s most out there groups. Truly now they were in a league of their own, something that their final two releases would bear out.
Rating: 9.5
Heldon 6: Interface (1977)
Francois Auger – Synthesiser, percussion, drums
Didier Batard – Bass
Patrick Gauthier – Moog bass, synthesiser, keyboards
Richard Pinhas – Synthesiser, guitar, keyboards, electronic sounds, moog synthesiser
The punk and post-punk years would not see any change in the public image of French rock, although Paris’ execrable Metal Urbain have the distinction of their debut 7” being Rough Trade 001. It’s entirely appropriate to Heldon’s perverse attitude that they would achieve perfection when the gates had closed for prog. Had Interface (or Heldon 6 – their only LP to be graced with Arabic numerals) been released a couple of years earlier, perhaps its sheer brilliance would have allowed it to transcend the silly Frenchies can’t rock stereotype and set the world alight. Released in punk’s year zero, it didn’t stand a chance. Listened to today, Heldon’s (first!) masterpiece is a timeless piece of kosmiche prog-funk, guaranteed to blast you straight to seventh heaven.
Side one is linked conceptually by the ‘Volantes’ segments, bubbling synthesisers aided and abetted by funky bass and drums, which features some truly epic guitar mangling from Pinhas on the final segment. In between we get the glorious cosmic doom of ‘Jet Girl’, all synthesiser drones and mourning guitars, and ‘Bal-A-Fou’, which morphs from its all synth beginning to a sunny, sparkling whirl of interlocking guitar and melodic bass, anticipating the rock gamelan approach of 80s Krim whilst harking back to Neu! at their shimmering motorik peak. Batard really shines on this track, his melodic and rhythmic range is quite stunning. More of this is on display on side two, which is swallowed by all three parts of the title track. A slow beginning evolves into a confident, limber and funky groove, with the bassist locked into the pulses of the synthesiser and more fine displays by Auger, leaving Pinhas to solo at his acid-drenched, unhinged best over the top. The drummer engages in some truly impressive rolls and fills, pushing aside and playing with the beat. The third part builds up again from phased drums, the bass subtly entering and then the synths, creating a kosmiche drone-out worthy of Klaus Schulze. This builds up into a weird, electro dub, more in line with Kraftwerk or Suicide than anything else, or like Sister Ray reimagined as a techno nightmare. Then the whole mix is topped off with Pinhas’ malevolent guitar soloing, and the band really kick off. Again, the mix of spacey guitars and synthesisers puts the listener in mind of E2-E4, only much more sinister, with undercurrents of violence making themselves felt underneath the bubbling surface. Pinhas’ guitar playing is still audibly influenced by Fripp, but his work here shows you just how far the guy’s come. There is a thrillingly dangerous edge to his playing, an off-the-cuff wildness as he loops clusters of sound, generates blistering bursts of noise and lets the ends of phrases disintegrate into harsh feedback. This approach prefigures Keith Leviene’s revolutionary work with Public Image Limited a couple of years later; indeed with Leviene being a Yes fan and PiL being Can and Magma-heads, could Leviene himself be a fan of this album? Brilliantly, this slice of mutant space electronics ends on a joke, the groove fading away leaving us briefly with a distorted guitar cheekily playing a fuzzed-up Chuck Berry riff before the tape cuts. It’s Always Rock And Roll, indeed.
Interface is utterly glorious, the raw, monstrous Heldon power trio at its utter, cosmic peak. As well as cementing Pinhas’ reputation as a guitar whiz, if Auger and Batard weren’t the best rhythm section in rock by now, I’d like to know who was. Heldon now found themselves facing the age old dilemma for great bands – how can you possibly follow up perfection? The correct answer is, of course, you release another stone-cold, all-time classic.
Rating: 10.0
Stand By (1979)
Francois Auger – Percussion, piano, drums
Didier Badex – Synthesiser
Didier Batard – Bass
Klaus Blasquiz – Vocals
Patrick Gauthier – Piano, keyboard, polymoog, mini moog
Richard Pinhas – Guitar, keyboards, moog synthesiser, vocoder, electronics, polymoog
Appropriately enough, Heldon’s seventh and final album receives no numbers in its title. It took the band two years to complete the follow up to Interface, the longest time they’d ever taken between releasing albums. Yet even a cursory listen to Stand By reveals that the band clearly had lost none of the fire and intensity that made Inferface so essential. Heldon’s second masterpiece would also be their last, though this album shows no signs of an ailing creative force. They split at the peak of their powers. Stand By is possibly Heldon’s most complete album. Before you notice the tautology, let’s move on to the music.
Stand By opens with the title track, possibly Heldon’s single finest composition. An awesome piece of prog rock, it shifts organically through a number of changes of pace and mood. The influence of both King Crimson and Magma is strong here, especially on the monolithic and very Top-like bass playing from Batard. Its knotty structure of interlocking riffs and its cerebral development through them puts the listener in mind of great Crimso instrumentals like ‘Red’. The band switch from brutalist hard rock to menacing funk and back again on a dime, and everyone gets a chance to show off their instrumental prowess. ‘Une Drole de Journee’ is another example of sequencers and drummer operating in perfect harmony, Auger totally locked into the shifts in tone and tempo. It also features a wonderful guest spot from Magma’s Klaus Blasquiz, spraying his trademark bizarre wordless vocals over the top, quite possibly in Kobaian, the constructed language Christian Vander invented for Magma. Or maybe it’s just gibberish, perhaps a slightly tongue-in-cheek tribute. Certainly, the rich harmonies are closer to Gentle Giant’s playfulness than Magma’s choral malevolence. Side two is given over entirely to ‘Bolero’, which is split on the CD into 8 parts with creative subtitles, but really it’s one big piece. In stark contrast to the sheer malevolence of ‘Interface’, ‘Bolero’ is lyrical and melodic. Indeed, this is as close as Heldon would get to E2-E4, and it shares many of that piece’s traits, anticipating Gottsching’s masterwork by some years. In the motorik pulse running through the track and its melodic expansiveness recall Kraftwerk’s driving epic ‘Autobahn’. It’s sheer joy and almost pastoral tone is markedly different from the industrial themes that run through their later albums, and there’s a nice sense of circularity that their final album should end with a piece that recalls in spirit the gentler tone of their early albums while at the same time displaying just how far the band had progressed from those days. Again, Auger’s locked groove in tandem with the synths proves just how much a master he was of his craft.
Really, it’s down to personal preference which of Heldon’s two masterpieces you prefer. I personally don’t think there’s much in it, so I’ve awarded them both perfect tens. Stand By doesn’t give any indication of a band drifting apart musically, and it suggests that even more great music could have followed. However, kudos to Heldon for splitting at the peak of their powers, rather than dragging on long past their sell-by date. This way we remember them at their best, untainted by years of rot and decay. The 80s were not an easy time for prog, and it’s understandable that Pinhas would want to continue as a solo artist, free from the musical and financial constraints of a prog group. If you’re going to go out, this is some way to do it.
Rating: 10.0
Conclusion
So, in their brief six years of existence, Heldon released seven albums of top notch prog, which anticipated some of the most original and groundbreaking music released in the next decade. Heldon were musical pioneers certainly, but is it reasonable to cast them as this great lost influence? Probably not. Much as I would love to find out that everyone from Manuel Gottsching to Keith Leviene to Fripp himself is secretly a Heldon fan, I think it’s unlikely at best. Heldon are probably one of those groups who made fantastic music ahead of its time that sadly you could erase from the timeline without causing significant damage. This is unquestionably a travesty. Hopefully I’ve inspired my hypothetical audience to investigate these albums, because they are all worthy of your time and attention, and just because nobody paid attention at the time doesn’t mean that Heldon didn’t produce a wealth of awe-inspiring and exciting music. Richard Pinhas should be regarded as a guitar hero, and Interface and Stand By are prog classics of the first order, and hopefully one day they will be rightly seen as such. And Didier Batard and Francois Auger really deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as their British and German peers for their musical prowess and invention. The power trio version of Heldon, in all its punked up, progged out glory, is truly a thing of wonder to hear in full flow. Musicians looking for new artistic directions in these retrogressive times could do worse than take inspiration from Heldon’s heady mix of prog, krautrock and electronica.
posted by Jonathan Thornton at 12:38 am
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