Ame Son - Primitive Expression (Reissue) (1976/1998)

Ame Son was a progressive rock band from France formed by Marc Blanc and Patrick Fontaine. Both were members of the first line-up of Banana Moon (the band that later would become Gong).

In 1967, Marc Blanc and Patrick Fontaine were introduced to Daevid Allen after his departure from Soft machine. They both played in its Bananamoon band in Spain during summer ’68 and in the south of France at the beginning of ’69. They formed Ame son in June ’69 with François Garrel on flute and Bernard Lavialle on guitar. The “Catalyse” album has been released in 1970. Ame son played in all the greatest festivals like Amougies, Les halles, Biot, Le Bourget and had a lot of success from both the audience and critics. The music was strongly influenced by early Gong with long psychedelic jam- sessions leaded by flute and guitar. They split in June’71 for the first time. They start again with a different formation in 1973 and are still playing together from time to time.
This posthumous archives release is comprising of Ame Son’s Catalyse period including when they called themselves Les Primitiv’s, some of their recording sessions from 71 and some post-second chapter mid-70’s recordings. Fairly aptly titled Primitive Expression, most of these tracks present on this album are not in their polished stages, but are nonetheless worthy of investigating if if you are an Ame Son and Gong fan or like raw psych.
The opening track was an Ame Son aggregate formation doing a soundtrack piece for a movie where singing-flutist Garrel’s brother was playing. It sounds very much like what you can hear on Catalyse (meaning not that well recorded either), even if it is Garrel’s brother playing guitar. As often on Spalax releases, track timing are inaccurate, with a second short track of 25 seconds (instead of the 3 announced minutes) is just a short but enjoyable plaything. Rather incredibly, the next Ame Son track was recorded by the Quai D’Orsay (French foreign Affairs) in 71 to promote French culture around the world (that’s what the booklet says anyway) and again sounds psych rock very similar to Catalyse’s sound and last six minutes as opposed to the 3.5 announced.
The next five tracks are a five-part demo track (recorded on a Revox also in 71) lasting around 20 minutes, for a demo, the quality is rather very acceptable and on the whole this excellent Je Veux Juste Dire (I just Want To Say) is absolutely gorgeous 20 minutes of instrumental psych. Apparently this was used for varying over-dubbing experimentations and the result are giving splendidly.
The next two tracks were a 75 rehearsal of their 68 tracks (written by Stisi, when Ame Son were still known as Les Primitiv’s) and at that time they sounded Yardbirds-(Beck era)-like, both tracks sticking out a bit like a sore thumb with the rest of what’s present on it, even if Dédoublement is clearly related to Ame Son. The last track is from 76 a reformation concert of Ame Son and of medium interest as well, but not devoid of interest either.
Although of uneven quality, this album is still quite worthy for the first three quarters. But this should be for confirmed Ame Son fans.