Words by Justin Turford
Brion Gysin led an extraordinary life. A recognised part of the Beat Generation and in lifelong orbit with fellow travellers such as William Burroughs, his creative restlessness inspired and influenced the great and the weird from the counter culture (he embodied it!) from the 1950s onwards. Inventor of the humanity-saving Dreamachine (shame it didn’t work!), the literary cut-up technique that influenced everyone from Ginsberg and Bowie to Mark E. Smith, and endless pioneering experiments in sound and visual art, he hung out with the Master Musicians of Jajouka in Morocco, and generally filled his life with every artistic pursuit one could imagine. He was also a top class draughtsman and painter, enjoying the distinction of being kicked out of the Surrealist Group by their autocratic leader André Breton at only 19 years old!
Born in 1916, by 1985, the British-Canadian auteur wasn’t a young man anymore and a very ‘well-lived’ life had physically damaged him (he would die of lung cancer a year after this music was recorded). He still had some playfulness left in him in 1985 and with his former aide, the young French producer Ramuntcho Matta by his side, they created a little bit of magic.
R Matta B Gysin polaroid Susi Wyss (c) Ramuntcho Matta
In the mid 70s’, the then teenage Matta had befriended and worked for Gysin in Paris as his aide, after which his own journey led him to an extended stay in Laurie Anderson’s (another acolyte of Gysin’s cut-up experiments) studio in New York. Returning to Paris, bustling with New York No-Wave energy, Matta pulled together a band that traversed the French alternative space and the outer edges of jazz and global funk: bassist Yann Le Ker (Modern Guy), drummer Fred Cousseau (Suicide Romeo), Elli Medeiros (Stinky Toys), Don Cherry, Lizzy Mercier Descloux (Ze Records), Caroline Loeb and drummer and leader of the legendary Senegalese group Xalam, Abdoulaye Prosper Niang.
Together they would make this brilliantly funky (and purposefully humorous) time capsule, a shadow world mirroring of bands in the same mid 80s’ vein (Talking Heads, etc), where jittery avant-funk and Fourth World experimentation would collide with Gysin’s phlegm-heavy cut-up poetry.
This much-needed vinyl reissue (first time in 4 decades!) of ‘Junk’ from WEWANTSOUNDS contains a number of unreleased alternative takes from Matta’s home vaults, two of them being versions of the record’s first (and most famous) track ‘Kick’.
‘Juju Music’ and ‘Synchro System’ were the first two major label releases from the great Nigerian jùjú band King Sunny Adé and His African Beats in 1982 and 83’ respectively, their surprising success supercharging the growing African influence on the Global North’s musical landscape, and Adé’s sonic footprint is all over this track. Although made in pre-major label 1980, ‘Kick (Discomix)’ is propelled by a recognisably Adé drum kit and talking drum groove, sinewy slap-heavy bass, scratchy guitars and a wickedly addictive prodding keyboard line that worms itself deeply into your brain. Add Don Cherry’s randomised trumpet and Gysin’s murmurs and shouts of “Kick that habit, man!” and you’ve got yourself some potent witchcraft.
R Matta B Gysin Casino de Paris 1984 photo Francoise Janicot (c) Ramuntcho Matta
The archly titled disco-not-disco of ‘Sham Pain’ comes across like The Blockheads jamming with Chic, all sharpened guitar riffs, razor tight rhythm section and Gysin’s unhinged slurred shouting “Complain, complain, why am I always to blame?”.
With the maddest of basslines, Gysin scorches and punctures his fellow Beat travellers opiate-love on the odd tropical-funk of ‘Junk’, while the ironic Afro-Gallic wobble of ‘Stop Smoking’ features Gysin nearly coughing his way to the grave over the tumbling groove as Elli Medeiros’ unharmed throat proclaims “It’s the coffin they carry you off in.” This is pretty weird shit.
‘Baboon’ keeps it strange, an angular, raw rhythm track and actual chord changes pretend to play a ‘proper’ song as Gysin lays bare his fetishes. ‘V.V.V.’ is a post-punky duet between Caroline Loeb and Lizzy Mercier Descloux, elucidating on the ‘scissor sisters’ of Sappho, this and ‘Baboon’ both unashamed evocations of queerness and sexual freedom.
This excellent reissue ends with Matta voicing his friend’s words on ‘All Those Years’, Gysin’s words fatalistic and regretful, the curious chocolate box whimsy of the music a discordant but suitable soundtrack to the words of a dying man.
WEWANTSOUNDS really do dig deeper than most when it comes to essential reissues and ‘Junk’ really is a record worth reinvesting in or listening to for the first time. 9/10