Geins't Naït - Archives 1-3 (2019) [Hi-Res]

Killer-mode Industrial curveballs from cult French duo Geins’t Naït recorded between 1986-1993, the first instalment in a planned trilogy of archival compilations on Low Jack’s Éditions Gravats. They make a sound somewhere in the orbit of minimal Prince/Linndrum productions played at half speed and crossed with early Muslimgauze E.g Oblique Graph. In other words, deadly gear...

Following on from the legendary duo’s class 2018 salvo on Vladimir Ivkovic’s Offen Music, Low Jack throws another curveball on Editions Gravats’ with a trove of unreleased Geins’t Naït material showcasing the sexy swivel and atmospheres that distinguished Thierry Merigout and Laurent Petitgrand’s band from the rest of the french industrial scene. Turning inspirations from the Surrealists and Situationists into a rawly fascinating mixture of slow, pendulous rhythms, chattering electronics and over-the-shoulder vocals, the results are evidently a prime fit for Gravats' expanding catalogue of psychedelic, percussive oddities.

‘Archives 1/3’ volleys 11 examples of the art brut pair hewing at the coalface of industrial music, locating rich seams of rhythm-driven experimentation that still sound vital, over 30 years later. In the process, it highlights a tangible link between early industrial musick, its tribalist reference points, and the current state of play in dancehalls across the world, where everything from ragga to techno and noise are fair game.

To be specific, DJs and dancers will be in their element with roughshod aces such as the swivelling might of ‘Fix’, the industrial martial arts of ‘Quivala’, and the squashed pressure of ‘La Plus Belle De Tout’ and ‘Abs Trac 1’, but they’re best heard in context of the whole, alongside more possessed workouts such as the Muslimgauze-in-tongues vibe of ‘Rossi Aldo’, the Godlflesh-like seethe of ‘Roman’, and the kind of necrotising, slowed-down EBM darkness in ‘Cameo’ which wouldn’t sound out of place on the ‘Decoder’ soundtrack.