Review: Art Zoyd – Le mariage du ciel et de l’enfer (1985)

Le mariage du ciel et de l’enfer is the sixth studio album by French band Art Zoyd, formed in 1969.

French dancer/choreographer Roland Petit (1924–2011) was one of the greatest ballet innovators of his generation. Petit worked in ballet on a large spectrum, acting as a dancer, choreographer, and director, boldly experimenting with different genres and collaborating across artistic boundaries. One of Petit’s most open-minded projects was the ”Pink Floyd Ballet” in 1972, in which he combined Pink Floyd’s music with ballet.

Almost exactly ten years after collaborating with Pink Floyd, in 1983, Petit saw a clip of an Art Zoyd concert on French television. Petit was intrigued by what he saw and contacted the band just a few days later, commissioning them to write music for his new ballet. Art Zoyd was flattered by the attention from a heavyweight in the cultural world such as Petit and gladly accepted the challenge.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to find any information about Petit’s ballet Le mariage du ciel et de l’enfer (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell), so I am completely in the dark about what themes it dealt with and how it was received at the time. The music composed by Art Zoyd for the ballet is fascinating in any case, even though it is often difficult to understand how it works in combination with dance. On the other hand, this contradiction is part of the music’s appeal!

Electronics had already crept into Art Zoyd’s previous album, Les espaces inquiets, but on Le mariage, the more synthetic soundscape with its samples and sequenced rhythms becomes an equal component alongside the violins, grand piano, bass guitar, trumpet, cello, and keyboards. The balance between the organic and the artificial is successful, and the synthesizers and sequences create an interestingly chilling soundscape that fits well with Art Zoyd’s dark blue shimmering music.

And the band’s music is indeed dark-toned this time around as well. Amidst the gloomy and even oppressive moods, there is also a mischievous touch that comes through especially in the samples used on the album. The synthetic elements bring a new, almost industrial energy to the music. On the other hand, the compositions are also, at least in part, leaning towards minimalism.

As with most Art Zoyd albums, all the music was composed either by violinist Gérard Hourbette (1953–2018) or bassist Thierry Zaboïtzeff. The duo has internalized the band’s style so well that even though they almost always compose their songs alone, I have not learned to distinguish between Hourbette’s and Zaboïtzeff’s works. To me, it’s all just Art Zoyd music.

Somewhat unusually, two different versions of Le Mariage were released in 1985. A full-length CD version lasting over 68 minutes and a shortened 47-minute version for vinyl. I am familiar with the CD version of the album, so this review is based on that.

The album is dominated by Hourbet’s two massive compositions, ”Cryogenèse: Rêve artificiel” and ”Cryogenèse: Les portes du futur,” which together last over 32 minutes. Zaboïtzeff’s ”Sortie 134 (part 1)” also lasts over 11 minutes. Between these behemoths are six shorter and lighter tracks (these six short tracks have been left out of the vinyl version entirely).

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”Sortie 134 (Part 1)”

The album begins with Zaboïtzeff’s composition ”Sortie 134 (Part 1).” The song starts with explosive percussion sounds. These are soon joined by layered, eerie sampled laughter and a fast, complex piano pattern, over which a lively trumpet riff is layered. The music slows down and is interrupted by electronic percussion beats, with the sounds of children’s laughter becoming more prominent. The piano plays softly in the background while the cello plays a short melancholic solo, followed by a short fanfare-like section that is repeated a few times. The melancholic cello theme returns, this time accompanied by the piano and chilling synthesizers. The repetitive keyboard pattern and the growing mass of noise increase the tension. The noise covers everything else, but alongside it rise sequenced tsch-tsch rhythms, interrupted by massive synthesizer beats and some kind of orchestral drums. Zaboïtzeff begins to chant wordlessly over the music, which only further emphasizes the eerie atmosphere. Violins rise to accompany the sequenced rhythms and the increasingly desperate singing. The section repeats itself with minor variations for several minutes until the singing fades away and bell-like synthesizers rise to the surface. The children’s broken, nightmarish laughter ends the song elegantly.

Next, we hear perhaps the most central piece on the album: Gérard Hourbet’s rhythmically extremely complex composition ”Cryogenèse (Rêve artificiel)”. As it begins, the children’s laughter from the previous composition still echoes in the air for a moment, but the soundscape is dominated by the insistent ticking of a metronome and the occasional echoing of a trumpet. The music is quite minimalist, and its instrumentation consists mainly of the ticking of the metronome, the trumpet (which sounds like an alarm siren), string ostinatos, and occasional synthesizer sounds.

Rhythmically, the music is extremely complex despite its minimalism. The polyrhythms in irregular time signatures create a fascinating, bouncing and effervescent mass of sound that only becomes more complex after the first five minutes, when the music of the interlude becomes more minimalistic again. The metronome returns, ticking more intensely than before. The piano strikes rhythmically at times, at other times playing atonal chords in different time signatures. The piece ticks forward like a time bomb, and a furious flock of overlapping trumpets begins to chirp on top of the rhythmic fabric. The chaotic flock of trumpets falls silent and is replaced by a single, demanding, muffled trumpet. The metronome continues to tick. An ominous-sounding organ begins to play carnivalesque music, and the synthesizer strikes rhythmic accents powerfully alongside it. The metronome continues to tick. The music becomes more and more oppressive. The intermittently blaring trumpet joins in. Finally, the rhythms change and, alongside the intermittently striking synthesizers, various strange sampled animal sounds, mostly birds, begin to chirp. At the end, the intermittent breathing of a distressed human voice rises alongside the crows and irregular rhythms, until the music finally falls silent with a bell-like ticking.

The 18-minute ”Cryogenèse (Rêve artificiel)” is a real trip and one of Art Zoyd’s finest compositions. Its rhythmic complexity is truly fascinating, and I must admit that my own mathematical mind cannot keep up with it. Joe McGlinchey from the now defunct Ground And Sky website has analyzed its rhythm as follows:

If you think the polyrhythmic activity of King Crimson’s ”Thrak” was challenging, then sink your flimsy teeth into ”Cryogenèse (Rêve Artificiel)” Two particular sections come to mind. One is right at the beginning, with accented notes against a (required…believe me) metronome ticking away. Seventeen beats in, the first accented note occurs. This is followed 10 beats later by a double-accent, then a single accent 9 beats after that, and a double accent in-between the 9th and 10th beat after that, before the cycle repeats. Then there’s the section that begins at 4:56. Here the metronome clicks off a 31-beat cycle, with accents on the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 12th, 16th, 21st, and 24th beats. After one of their trademark lengthy, dynamic buildups with triplicate polyrhythms and sinister organ chordal washes, the music suddenly gets flushed and the 31-beat pattern played over with a five-beat lag.

After the epic “Cryogenèsen,” we hear Zaboïtzeff’s three-part “Io” series. The first part represents the lightest offering on the album and is the musical equivalent of a rusty gate swinging back and forth in the wind in the courtyard of an abandoned mansion. In the second part, ominous low synthesizer ostinatos are accompanied by clanging percussion, buzzing synthesizers, and sampled human voices, creating a nightmarish atmosphere. The third part of the series plays with repetition and a siren-like synthesizer pattern.

The second part of ”Cryogenèsen,” ”Cryogenèse (Les portes du futur),” is a natural continuation of the first part and includes, among other things, the return of the metronome ticking. ”Les portes du futur” feels a little more straightforward rhythmically than the first part, but on the other hand, it is also harmonically richer. The first half is colored by majestic but intermittent organ chords that create a melancholic atmosphere. The second half is more rhythmic and violent. The trumpet sounds striking, piercing through the tingling organ mass in the background. The final minutes are chillingly punctuated by a noise that sounds above everything else as the music increases in intensity through repetition and subtle changes.

The album’s closing track, ”Sortie 134 (Part 2),” which is less than four minutes long, offers a kind of catharsis after all the nightmarish music. Relying on light, synthesized rhythms, it repeats the themes of the first part, but in a more relaxed and cheerful manner. The eerie children’s laughter returns, but it no longer sounds as ominous. There is also a glimmer of hope in Zaboïtzeff’s wordless singing. However, the music still has a dissonant quality, and at the very end, the laughter that turns into a shriek, the atonal minor chords, and Zaboïtzeff’s fierce cries make it clear that the conflict (whatever it may be!) has not been completely resolved.

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The 68-minute Le mariage du ciel et de l’enfer is a very heavy odyssey to listen to if you’re in the wrong frame of mind. When the moment is right, however, it’s a stirring experience.

For me, Le mariage du ciel et de l’enfer is Art Zoyd’s most impressive album overall. Le mariage is in a way Art Zoyd’s last album of their ”transition period.” Its complex music still has a hint of the band’s avant-prog roots, but due to its compositional sophistication and completely non-rock instrumentation, the music of Le mariage is probably best classified as modern art music. Le mariage still retained some of the band’s original organic sound, but in the future, the band moved more and more towards electronic minimalism. Art Zoyd’s albums no longer spoke to me as powerfully as their first six iconoclastic albums, which so uniquely managed to blend several different musical traditions.

Best tracks: ”Sortie 134 (Part 1)”, ”Cryogenèse (Rêve artificiel)”, ”Cryogenèse (Les portes du futur)”, ”Sortie 134 (Part 2)”

Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI

Rating: 5 out of 5.
Read also: Review: Magma – Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh (1973)

Tracks (CD version)

  1. ”Sortie 134 (Part 1)” 11:00
  2. ”Cryogenèse (Rêve artificiel)” 18:12
  3. ”Io 1” 3:51
  4. ”Io 2” 2:15
  5. ”Io 3” 5:15
  6. ”Mouvance 2” 3:34
  7. ”Mouvance 1” 5:54
  8. ”Cryogenèse (Les portes du futur)” 14:30
  9. ”Sortie 134 (Part 2)” 3:48

Art Zoyd

Gérard Hourbette: viola, violin, electric piano, grand piano, keyboards, percussion, Thierry Zaboïtzeff: bass guitar, cello, vocals, tapes, keyboards, percussion, Patricia Dallio: electric piano, grand piano, keyboards, Jean-Pierre Soarez: trumpet, percussion, Didier Pietton: soprano saxophone (3, 5)

Author: Art Zoyd
Label: Cryonic Inc.

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