Showing posts with label Evariste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evariste. Show all posts

Friday, 16 March 2012

Do You Know The Beast?

Anyone who downloaded my halloween mixtape 'Quelle Horreur vol.1' will know my views on Évariste and his track 'Connais-Tu L'Animal Qui Inventa Le Calcul Intégral?' which, I've said on many occasions, is quite possibly THE scariest piece of music I've come across.

Well, this came in the post last week: a vinyl re-issue of all of the output from the man known to his mother as Joël Sternheimer, who took his pseudonym from a 19th century French mathematician and politial firebrand, and is now regarded by many fans of pysche and garage music as the French answer to Kim Fowley.


Doctor in Theroretical Physics, mathematician and unlikely dabbler in yé-yé... Here we find Évariste doing his best unhinged-muppet impression and enlisting a legion of teenie-bopping girls to scream in adoration for him. May the freakbeat be with you.

Évariste - Évariste Aux Fans
[Buy Évariste on vinyl from Spin | System Recs | Juno | etc]

Saturday, 31 October 2009

Quelle Horreur!

I promised my friends Nick and Jane a French Hallowe'en CD for their party, so I thought I might as well post it here. There are a few Yé-Yé classics and some truly freaky oddities guaranteed to give you the heebie-jeebies*.


1. Stella - Si vous connaissez quelque-chose de pire qu'un vampire, parlez m'en toujours, ça pourra peut-être me faire sourire
2. Serge Gainsbourg - Docteur Jekyll Et Monsieur Hyde
3. Christine Pilzer - Dracula
4. Les Maledictus Sound - Kriminal Theme
5. Evariste - Connais-Tu I'animal Qui Inventa Le Calcul Integral
6. France Gall - Frankenstein
7. Jany L. - Mon Joli Vampire
8. Gérard Manset - Animal on est mal
9. Les Maledictus Sound - Monster Cocktail
10. Nicole Paquin - Mon Mari C'est Frankenstein
11. Brigitte Bardot - Le Diable Est Anglais
12. Stereo Total - Film D'Horreur

DOWNLOAD QUELLE HORREUR (zip file, 34.6MB)
[*I'm pretty sure I picked up a few of the tracks on other blogs over the last few years, so hopefully they won't mind me re-posting]

Friday, 31 October 2008

THE HORROR! THE HORROR!

Miss Black glides down the street to an internal Hammer Horror soundtrack, she stops to check her hair and make-up in the vast windows of Top Shop – a blood-curdling scream… there is no reflection… just a vacant day-glo mannequin gazing back… the Hammer Horror organ music spills out into the high street, and Miss Black takes flight…





























Ladytron – Miss Black




Quick! Hide! It’s Darren Spooner - skeletal-thin and dirty-faced. He’s been at the grease-paint again, and he’s wielding a bull-whip with dastardly intent… WHIP-CRAAAAAACKKKK - the werewolf howls and a menacing electro-glitter-beat kicks in.

Mother nature’s beasts gather and circle: eager to please and hungry for blood… For he is the Beastmaster…


























Relaxed Muscle – Beastmaster




Groping around in the darkness, your heart races. A howling gale has just blown up, the unmistakable CREEEEEEEAAKKKKKK of a coffin lid sends a shiver down your spine…
















[Rod explanation below – thanks to Go Faster for the funny pic]

The Moontrekkers – Night of The Vampire

[this was famously banned by the BBC as being “unsuitable for people of a nervous disposition”. Joe Meek throws down a spine-chilling tape collage and The Moontrekkers stomp out a surf-guitar & Clavioline-fuelled nightmare. Real horror-show!]

[And now an explanation about the Rod Stewart picture: A little known group called The Raiders arrived at Joe Meek’s studio for an audition. Joe was enjoying the noise until their vocalist, a young Rod Stewart, opened his mouth. Joe stood with his fingers in his ears going LA-LA-LA until Rod stopped, and was promptly dismissed. Meek signed the band and they became his house band from then on. Conclusion: even Joe Meek who was famously tone-deaf couldn’t bear the sound of Rod’s gravelly tones]




Eeeeeeek! This one really gives me the heebee-geebies. It’s the bit where he starts sounding like an evil demented muppet talking to itself “do you know the beast who discovered the internal calculus?” Scary…






























Evariste - Connais-Tu I'animal Qui Inventa Le Calcul Integral


[there’s a French wikipedia entry on Evariste, and not much else - here’s a rather poor Google English translation (click the link to Joel Sternheimer - his real name). It seems Evariste had a PhD in theoretical physics, but decided he wanted to make frightening psychedelic records to scare the be-jeezus out of folks like you and me.]




In need of a little light relief after Evariste brought the heavies ‘round? How about Future Bible Heroes’ ode to the joys of being a vampire:



























“I survived for 700 years and I still look seventeen”… hmmm, me thinks they may be exaggerating a teeny bit.

Future Bible Heroes – I’m A Vampire





[psssst! Spiked Candy made a trick or treat post last Hallowe’en, and it seems there are still a few mp3 links working including Stella’s wordily titled ‘Si vous connaissez quelque-chose de pire qu'un vampire, parlez m'en toujours, ça pourra peut-être me faire sourire’ (translation: ‘If you know of something worse than a vampire, tell me, it will make me smile’).  Spiked Candy has been VERY quiet for a while now, we hope she comes back soon]