In 1979 the French avant-garde trio
Etron Fou Leloublan achieved something no other French rock band had done before: the group toured the United States. A document of the event was in order and
En Public aux États-Unis d'Amérique came out on the small French label Celluloid in 1980. Gazul reissued it on CD in 1998. Recorded in New York and Hartford, CT, this album showcases a new
Etron Fou Leloublan; saxophonist
Bernard Mathieu had joined the band (
Guigou Chenevier on drums,
Ferdinand Richard on bass and vocals) only weeks before the tour and most of the material was new.
The raw energy and irreverent humor of the band is optimal on this recording, and compensates for the poor sound quality. All lyrics are in French and depict surrealistic situations. The music is aggressive, deconstructed rock powered by
Chenevier's inventive drumming. Highlights include "Ida Trop Tard" (Ida Too Late), "Le Fleuve et le Marteau" (The River and the Hammer), and "Un Après-Midi au Zoo" (An Afternoon to the Zoo), the latter being a percussion solo. "Binet d'Eau Chaude" is an example of the band's sense of the immediate. The Gazul reissue adds two bonus tracks: "La Java des Bombes Atomiques" is a rendition of
Boris Vian's classic song with keyboardist
Jo Thirion and
Fred Frith guesting on guitar (a studio recording from 1985); "Blanc" is an original composition recorded live in 1986.
Enjoyable to the fan,
En Public aux États-Unis d'Amérique would not make a good place to start for the newcomer (mainly because of the less-than-average sound quality). ~ François Couture