SERGE FABRIANO / セルジュ・ファブリアーノ / DIGITAL CARESSE - DEMAIN / レコード

完全限定盤! 復刻の進む 「初期電子音楽 meets フレンチ・カリビアン」 の最高峰! セルジュ・ファブリアーノの激レア盤がついについにリイシュー!

フレンチ・カリビアンものの激レア&DJフレンドリーなアイテムを復刻するフランスのリイシュー系新興レーベル BEAUMONDE RECORDS から早くも新作。 カリブ海はグアドループの音楽家 セルジュ・ファビリアーノ による唯一のリーダー作 『DIGITAL CARESSE - DEMAIN』 が、この度ついにリイシューです! パリの大学にて電子音楽を専攻したというセルジュが、シンセ音を基調としたクアドループ産カリビアン・ジャズを作り上げたというのが、1986年の本作。当時はなかなか受け入れられなかったであろう前衛的ともいえる内容だが、バレアリック、シンセウェーヴ再興著しい 2018年 にはドンピシャ。チープでいなたいリズムボックスの音色 / パターンと相反する、シンセやマリンバ、リコーダーなどの上モノが奏でる時にスカスカ、時にナイーヴに重なり合う音のレイヤーは極上の一言です!

HEAVENLY SWEETNESS レーベル諸作を例に出すまでもなく、フレンチ・カリビアンのトレンドは完全に80'S以降になった感がありますが、本作はさらにその先まで進んだ感があります。昨今の南米系フォルクーレやバレアリック、シンセウェーヴ、ニューエイジ再評価の流れとして聴いてもよし、ブルース・ハークなどの電子音楽の未来を切り開いた偉大な音楽家にならぶべき作品として聴くもよしの発掘です! キース・へリングにインスパイアされたという、かわいくこじゃれたジャケットも素晴らしい。





It was the mid 80s. A musical revolution was already steamrolling throughout the French West Indies when the band Kassav’ produced what was to become the sound of the decade. With a now wider use of synthetic and digital tones, the "zouk" wave literally swept away to sea the biguine and cadence from the West Indian musical landscape.
While this took place, some musicians chose to make an alternative use of the new techniques brought on by the advent of synthesizers. Musicians like Serge Fabriano.
It was back in 1980 that Serge, a talented young musician from Guadeloupe, while studying for a degree in “Arts & Informatique” (Computers & Arts Cycle) at the Université De Vincennes near Paris, discovered early computer-generated digital music (MAO in French) thanks to his roommates, who both taught computer-generated graphic arts.
In 1982 Fabriano and his Fabriano Unité Zion project recorded, with the help of Alain-Jean Marie, Mario Canonge and Pierre Labor, Cosmik Syndika*, which to this day remains a masterpiece of made-in-Guadeloupe Caribbean jazz.
The following years saw him tour the US and Canada as well as several other countries. By 1986 he was back in Guadeloupe, teaching music in the secondary schools of Point-à-Pître and Sainte-Rose. While doing this, his ongoing passion for the budding MAO led him to kit himself out: the Yamaha CX5M (MSX Music Computer), the Macintosh Plus, the legendary synthesizers DX7 and DX11 and several other early rhythm machines became his new toys.
Him and his partner at the time, Marie-Reine Lamoureux, who was also both a teacher and a musician, as well as a member of the Fabriano Fuzion project, decided to involve their pupils in his electronic musical experimentations. They recorded an album, composed of five tracks deliberately titled Demain, under the name “Digital Caresse” (the idea behind this was that instead of hitting the percussions to make music, one stroked the computer keyboard to coax a sound). The combination of the children’s choir, enchanting wonky flutes, saturated electronic beat and cosmic atmosphere perfectly outline the purity of this rough diamond.
Thirty-two years after its confidential release, Digital Caresse is still a testimony to tenderness in binary mode and has become a myth among the aficionados of electronic music.