It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of Jean-Marie Massou on May 28, 2020, at the age of 70. Discovered thanks to Antoine Boutet’s film, “Le Plein Pays”, and then to the Vert Pituite label with “Sodorome Vol. 1” and “La citerne de Coulanges”, Jean-Marie Massou was a singular man, built like Hercules, untamed and proud of it. In view of his work in certain chasms of the Lot, he was a true underground artist, and a great lover of the cassettes he used to record poems, laments, letters and audio collages.
Jean-Marie Massou, an art brut.
“Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade.”
Dictionaries tell us that the term art brut appeared in 1945 in the work of the artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), who had long been interested in the art of the insane.
Self-taught himself, he wanted to use the term to refer to an artistic production outside of any academicism, outside of the culture he found asphyxiating, an art of the marginalized, the isolated, the prisoners, the internees, in short, an art of revolt.
The expression has since taken on a broader meaning but is still there to underline this margin, nicely translated as outsider art in English.
Here is a selection, which is by no means meant to be exhaustive, of a few records by a few artists who take part in this great harakiri of intelligence, this great leap into extralucid imbecility.
Jean DUBUFFET – “Musical Experiences” In 1961, Jean Dubuffet was struggling against culture and technique to touch the very essence of music. |
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Dominik STEIGER – “Ad Hoc Musi 1980-84” Perfect example of a difficult childhood with passages in psychiatric asylum and the discovery of poetry as a way out. |
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Oswald WIENER – “Dominik Steiger als Kind” A documentary about the artist dressed as a child among other children in a thoughtful Austria of the mid-1960s. |
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Anton HEYBOER – “Rules of the universe” Another example of a self-taught artist for whom song was a form of liberation. |
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Lonnie HOLLEY – “Just before music” and “Keeping a record of it” After a chaotic early life, Lonnie Holley has devoted his life to the practice art and music, born out of struggle. |
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SELTEN GEHÖRTE MUSIK An artist’s project with Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch, Dieter Roth, Gerhard Rühm and Oswald Wiener and a very rarely heard music! |
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Herman DE VRIES AND THE ESCHENAU CHAOS BAND A party that became a concert with an improvised group where nobody knows what he will play! |
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Ursula Block et Michael Glasmeier – BROKEN MUSIC Edited by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier in 1989, this book is all about sound recordings and record by visual artists. Some of the aforementioned are included. |
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NIHILIST SPASM BAND – “No record” They started in 1965 in London, Ontario, Canada, without knowing how to play their instrument, most of them homemade. Free and Dadaist. |
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SMEGMA – “Look’n for Ya” 1973, Pasadena, USA, a band without musicians trying to experiment all the sounds but forbidding itself the hippie music! To be compared to the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) nebula. |
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Compilation – “I.D. ART #2” A bunch of freaks with a direct link to this free musical society from Los Angeles. |
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Compilation – “Rythmé Brut” This CD tries to answer to the questions “Does “raw” music exist? Is there any correlation with Raw Art?” With Dragibus, Guylain Damonneville, Jaber, Fred Thabaut, André Robillard, Paul Bourre, Jean Clerembaux, Mordysabbath, Michel Dalmaso, Donna Collins. |
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Kristof GUEZ – Marc PICHELIN – “Les bruits de couloir” A field recording made in Centre Hospitalier Daumézon in Fleury-les-Aubrais, France, where we can meet André Robillard among others. |
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Compilation – “Sur Les Rails” This CD is about the work from artists working with disabled or autistic people in the field of experimentral and improvised musics. With Atelier Mediterrannée, Creahm, Wild Classical Music Ensemble, Les Harry’s, Adam Shelton, Phil Minton, Amplified Elephants, DNA, AND?, Électrogène. |
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Les HARRY’S – “Ggots” A musical group of young disabled people created under the influence of the Sonic Protest Festival. |
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Olivier BRISSON – “Horizon Capiton” Member of La Belle Brute, with Julien Bancilhon, Franq De Quengo, and Matthieu Morin, Olivier is also working in psychiatry. He realised this very nice album where music, outside art, poetry and illness meet through tape and collage. You can also find several written contributions by Olivier Brisson around this thema in the issues 103 to 106 from magazine Revue & Corrigée. |
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FANTAZIO & LES TURBULENTS – “Cosmic Brain” Brand new production from Vert Pituite label run by Olivier Brisson. It’s the work from Fantazio with autistic people from the Turbulences organisation. |
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DÉCIMATION SOCIALE This is Romain Perrot’s record label known as Vomir, Roro Perrot, Falot, Trou Aux Rats… or sabotage, shitty folk, willfully bad music… a will to deny everything, to forget everything, to try to find a creative virginity. Among the latest productions, don’t miss Saboteur antisocial and therefore subversive duo with Yves Botz; “Histoires de la Nuit” with Olivier Bringer, a nocturnal isolationist ordeal, and Frahr which brings together alongside Monsieur Perrot, Micro_Penis, Youri Potlatch and Angstrom !!! |
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MICRO_PENIS – “La maison de la justice” By dint of playing crazy, by dint of wanting to recreate “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, we become what we try to imitate. |
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MENSTRUATIONS SISTERS – “Puppet island” A trio with Oren Ambarchi, Brendan Walls, and Nik Kamvissis, like the no-wave of outsider art! |
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VOM GRILL – “Opgenomen Verantwoordelijkheden” A project from Dennis Tyfus who runs Ultra Eczema. For him, the weird and the odd come together on a daily basis. |
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BLOOD STEREO – “The Larval Tuning Fork (& Other Visions)” Karen Constance & Dylan Nyoukis, a do-it-yourself spirit tinged with shamanism and sound poetry. |
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GOOD AREA – “French Antartica” A wide sound palette beyond any idea of virtuosity, free and direct. |
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WITCYST – “Real Folk – Lathe Cut Singles 1993-1997” A perfect example of an isolated musician who spends days recording and recording in disregard of any idea of public performance. |
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Rudolf EB.ER – “Brainnectar” Successor of Viennese Actionism, Rudolf Eb.Er, or Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, creates real sound performances like so many psychoacoustic shocks. |
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Bryan Lewis SAUNDERS – “Near death experience” and his book “La troisième oreille et autres textes” An artist who lives his experiences to the very end at the risk of his life. |
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KOMMISSAR HJULER & MAMA BAER – “Asylum Lunaticum” Another example of a strong and absurd sound performance full of collages and brutal instrument parts. |
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Alain DE FILIPPIS – “Ton dieu ne s’appelle-t-il pas EGO ?” A composer against all forms of academism who wanted to create a raw concrete music! |
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Adam BOHMAN – “Music and words 2” Part of the London improvised scene, member of Morphogenesis, Adam Bohman is an artist of the cassette recorder that he always carries with him to record his daily life. |
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SECLUDED BRONTE – “Secluded in Jersey City” Adam Bohman joined by his brother Jonathan, and Richard Thomas. On the margins of any categorization, it is raw and minimal, experimental and poetic, performative and static. Secluded Bronte or the forgotten link between Dadaism and punks with a very British tongue-in-cheek side. |
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REYNOLS – “Minecxio Emanations 1993-2018” More than a band, Reynols was an incredible musical experience led by Alan Courtis and centered around Miguel Tomasin, a drummer with Down syndrome. From over-amplified listening to blank tapes to a symphony for a thousand chickens, or recordings with NASA and more than psychedelic improvisations. |
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Martial BÉCHEAU – “Je pars pour Tanger” One must listen to and discover the electroacoustic work of Martial Bécheau, from which emerges a unique poetic and surrealist universe. We selected this record because we are fans of his piece “État modifié de conscience”! |
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Jacques BRODIER – “Xhos De Villemahu” Unique artist and inventor, he notably created the Reality Filter, to play with radio waves. He was also featured on the Musics In The Margin compilation of the Belgian label Sub Rosa. |
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Rainier LERICOLAIS – “12 bruits de fond(s)” A commission from LaM, the Museum of Modern Art, Contemporary Art and Art Brut of Lille, France. |
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Francis DHOMONT – “Sous le regard d’un soleil noir” (1979-81) To close this selection and approach the psychology of the depths, here’s an acousmatic melodrama inspired by the texts of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Ronald D. Laing. |
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