Cecil Leuter – Electronic Tricks

Despite among conoisseurs people often refers to Eric Swan "100% electronic" as the Holy grail of the kick ass record of this very limited press editions French Library Label from the late 60' and mid 70' , this "Electronic Tricks" (freshly repressed by creel pone on cdr in Aug 2011),since has been made by the same composers and production studio, just stands as the perfect alter ego of the forementioned album.
Here is sure that the side A is by Nardini, wich takes for the first time the Bonello as alias, maybe to distinguish a particular previous production year where the music belongs to: infact if the consider and scan Nardini production we reckognize his mid 70' sound and these 10 Electronic Tracks seems to be antecedent but overral they belong to his manufactury, after "musique pour le futur" LP.
This record is the "electronic usual trickery music form": a laid back heavy groovy rhythm with adding layers of synth fx and hand gestures instruments, always recognizable here with a more musical human touch.
The Bonello-Nardini tracks are a snippets showcase of this experimental song form with many sensual electronic percussion alterned with normal percussion.
Here the tricks is that we hear many alternations where a marimba can switch as main lead sounding but this implies another rhythm of electronic percussion as a continuous joke of flowing sounds.
For another example (electronick track 3)a marimba with delay and a big tom are used astoundingly in answer and response phrases with many synth sounds triggering the melody.
With a particular use of many individual sounds (sometimes totally "new" and unknow to ears thanks to "phasing" and heavy reverb or delay) like the harpsichord, clarinet (electronic track 5),wood blocks, different drum set toms and airy crash splash or sampled cymbals, they are intended to build up a complex layered construction, where on the surface appears figurative easy "sound gestures" and moviments with more sounds to complete with a big leading electronic bass, always intriguing and freshly new, giving a simple sense of complexity into music obtained with a craftmanship justaxposition.

As for the Leuter-Roger we have some real gems not found elsewhere.
The first track of side B ,"Electrionuic track 11" is a pure bliss on wax: here with the use of cool bass synth effects,echoed harpsichord, drums backing, the main flowing sound is obtained with musique concrete sampling derived from a small set of little unbreakable glass balls, like the ones used for spinning in old kids jokes .
The sound that produces a percussive single glass ball on a particular strong surface or in group trough a particular canal is sampled and justxaposed and they work as figurative oscillating patterns: they flow like a cascade,or they simply roll, they fall down in different places, in sparse order or making steady counterpoints or fast punctuations with the laid down background music, all incredibly in good timing and with sensitive touch.
The art of these "not so common" sounds is showed here in the widely 3:39 lenght of the track: so the listener can enjoy the always fresh feeling at continuative listening that the structure that structure retains.
I think Roger and Teperino with this "Electronic tricks n°11" had created the first track ever wich implies such a concrete music sanples from glass balls, around 30 years before Alva Noto and Sakamoto used the same sounding glass balls in their long apprecited recent albums "Vrioon" and "Insen".

Plus as said before the soundings in the side B are took in a manner that following our natural ear for beat are then easily inter changed in a way as delayed effect can replace or reinforce a percussive rhythm.
In Electronic Track 16 we have another fine example of Master craftmanship: this one is the "Flushing track" with a sound like bursting.
A fully groovy Electronic Track 15 with synth, normal "heavy metal like drumming" and big electronic bass put us into spy story like ambient and is one of the most appreciated and really "head banging" song.
Concluding with Electronic Track 18 we have some more experiments in strange sounds: in the last track can be named "Frying & Brushing track" as we can hear some "washing the kitchen metal surface" swooshings and effervescence noises interfilled with reverberated effects of high density,in a way they resembles frying eggs, and a laid back fully rounding clocking electro beat that is many times heard in these IM tracks.
The production of these tracks of side B is magnificent and this record is pure history on wax as it gives us examples of one of the finest electronic music soundings, long before these same sounds would be progressively enriched by the ing years and different artists would have not been here without this, I think about Autechre for example.

This "Electronic Tricks" can be dated back to 1975 and at that time this music was fully creative and as for now they show their freshness again, as they are the roots of actual electronic music, ambient or new age.
I can recommend this as sometimes better than IM 12 "100% Electronic" because is more differenced and despite the double author sides non-continuity it can be fully enjoyed as a continuum and this can stands as one of the best chapter among this renewed famous french library label, so much enjoyed these days by a crazy worldwide bunch of aficionados from everywhere.
In particular , for a prolonged aural pleasure, this "Electronic Tricks" can be listened together with or just after the "Sound Industria"l IM 25 LP and ex-equo with Nardini's "Music of tomorrow" side B of L'Illustration Musicale IM 16 album.They clearly depict a continuos progression from early number IM 12 lp to these latest ones.
Infact these 3 albums output matches perfectly with each other, plus they show a steady progressive strong result achievement in electronic music experimentation and musique concrete, that would'nt lost their great appeal if put aside with the likes of Pierre Henry, Schaeffer or Parmegiani.