After “Télévision 1945 I” and “Télévision 1945 II”, the French label productionB presents another set of long-lost analogue treasures from Novocibirsk: “The Vasarely Project”.

Novocibirsk as a project is the product of experiments conducted by Hervé Isar between 1982 and 1993 in his home studio, connecting a network of synthesizers and analog sequencers to test their communications or synchronize their messages and speed multiplication, testing multi-oscillators pads out of mono generators, trying octave distribution, voltage additions and substractions.

Out now is a brand new video for the title track.

This new release holds 10 new analogue experiments also recorded in the late 80s / early 90s, culled from the Novocibirsk’s cassettes archives. The material was carefully restored and remastered for this new release. For this material Hervé Isar experimented with a very unique composition process: He transposed the painter’s color codes into electrical tensions programmed on three interconnected analogue sequencers with no preconceived idea of the outcome. It was subsequently played in front of a live audience in the Vasarely Foundation in Aix-en-Provence in september 1993 and recorded on audio tape, now available on CD, Limited 12″ LP and digital.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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Genre/Influences: Minimal-Electro, Electro-Pop, Experimental-Pop.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: French solo-project Novocibirsk was the sonic brainchild of Hervé Isar. He was active in between 1982 and 1993, but the French label productionB (subdivision of BOREDOMproduct) brought this old project back to life by re-releasing the “Télévision 1945 Volume I” in 2019. Old and forgotten material has been recovered from dust and five more songs found their way to this second volume of “Télévision 1945”.

Content: I’m not familiar with the original songs from this work, which moves on the familiar style of the project. Hervé Isar took us back to the past; creating a true minimal and experimental work, the songs are sometimes reminiscent of pioneers of the Electro-Ambient genre, but Novocibirsk also has its very own approach and sound. It sounds darker than Kraftwerk, but the analogue sound treatments and robotic (vocoder) vocals are clearly evoking the pioneers of Electro-Pop. The songs are well-crafted and filled with endless effects and sound manipulations. Some parts are melodic, others are into pure Electro-Space music; some are into reverie while others are driven by slow rhythms getting the production somewhat danceable.

+ + + : I already enjoyed the previous re-release, but I honestly prefer this new work. The songs are well-crafted, sophisticated and filled with this unique magical touch of analogue gear. It would have been a pity and even a shame to not re-release these great cuts. Especially “Nuclear Propagation” is a true masterpiece. It’s an instrumental track driven by melodic sequences and a slow rhythmic. This song reminds me a bit of Oil 10. “Baïkal Depths” and “Die Sonne Über Novocibirsk” both are other attention grabbers, but there’s no real song to throw away here.

– – – : I regret the album only features 5 songs (40 minutes), but I have to admit only great songs! But the main regret is this project never gained a deserved, wider recognition.

Conclusion: If you like to discover old-school Electronic music, this ‘new’ –and probably final, release by Novocibirsk is an absolute must-have.

Best songs: “Nuclear Propagation”, “Baïkal Depths”, “Die Sonne Über Novocibirsk”.

Rate: (8½).

Artist: www.facebook.com/novocibirsk

Label: www.production-b.fr / www.facebook.com/productionB.label

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

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Here’s a release which will interest the more eclectic readers. The ‘Novocibirsk’ project is the product of experiments conducted by Hervé Isar between 1982 and 1993 in his home studio, connecting a network of synthesizers and analog sequencers to test their communications or synchronize their messages and speed multiplication, testing multi-oscillators pads out of mono generators, trying octave distribution, voltage additions and substractions.

The result is artificial music inspired by pioneers of the 70’s and raw minimalism of the underground of the 80’s. Listening to the material you’ll inevitably will think of Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze. The whole is enriched with vocoder chants. Five of the tracks recorded back then are now being released on “Télévision 1945 (Volume II)”, the second series of Novocibirsk’s recordings that is being released on the productionB label.

“Télévision 1945 (volume II)” will be released on February 26. 2021, as digisleeve CD album and digital download and a 12″LP vinyl edition might be released later this year. Pre-orders are available here.

Here’s an edit of “Nuclear Propagation”.

About Novocibirsk

Hervé Isar, the brain behind the project, is actually a French law professor at the university of Aix-Marseille. Unlike other musicians Isar has always considered his ‘music’ to be a technical research rather than music. Nevertheless in 1997 his album “Excerpts And Experiments” was released on the newborn French label BOREDOMproduct (home to Celluloide, Dekad, Foretaste, …).

20 years later the French label launched a subdivision called productionB focusing more on minimal electronic works and decided to reactivate Novocibirsk, releasing ‘old’ songs for the very first time on CD. “Télévision 1945 (Volume I)” was released in 2019 with “Télévision 1945 (Volume II)” being released in 2020.

You can read an interview with Hervé Isar right here.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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Behind the French solo-project SIGNAL~BRUIT is hiding the enigmatic ‘Member U-0176’. Electro-pop lovers for sure know the man from his involvement with Cellloïde and Thee Hyphen while he’s still running the label BOREDOMproduct and the sub-division productB. Four years ago now he unleashed the debut-album “Planisphère(s)” on Sevren Ni-Arb (X-Mark The Pedwalk) label Meshwork. The work clearly revealed a retro-electro approach reminding pioneers in the genre, but still a space-minded ambient/soundtrack style. The new album “Hyperborée” has been released on productionB and moves a step further, revealing a new concept and a more elaborated and intelligent sound creation. “Hyperborée” is a truly masterpiece I can only recommend.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You this year released the second album of Signal~Bruit, but can you tell us how this project saw the daylight?

U-0176: In between two albums of Celluloide, I’m always searching for ideas, experimenting sequences and creating sounds, testing new settings with synthesizers… which we keep in store for incorporating into Celluloide’s pop format later.

Sometimes I decide to record my improvisations when I feel it has an interesting mood, though it isn’t obviously made for Celluloide.

I was reading the book “Flatland” and I had the kind of feeling that the book left a mark on the ‘atmosphere’ of what I was creating when turning knobs and improvising notes and sequences. 

So I had the idea to keep these tracks to illustrate important parts of the book with sound atmospheres and melodies… like a soundtrack for a book.

Q: You’ve been –and still are, involved with different projects such as Thee Hyphen and of course Celluloïde so what brings this new project and music experience in your artistic career? Is there a kind of specific sonic identity or quest behind this new work?

U-0176: I think it’s very difficult to write songs… so it takes a lot of energy and time to write new songs for Celluloide or Thee Hyphen… maybe it’s too much demanding for me now.

So experimenting sounds, effects, patches is more like a recreational time for me. I have no other objective than ‘feel’ the sound change when I turn the knobs.

Then organizing all these experiments into something that makes a consistent piece is a completely different work than writing a song, and I like this a lot.

Q: Signal~Bruit clearly sounds as a wink to some electronic pioneers; the creation of sounds and especially atmospheres appear to be some essential elements in the process. Can you give us a bit more details about it all and also about the way of creating this music (and sounds)?

U-0176: Yes, I have always been influenced by lots of different electronic music and of course pioneers like Tangerine Dreams. I’ve always been fascinated by their albums of the Froese/Franke/Baumann era, and the solo works of Froese of the same period… But I’m also a huge fan of Lassigue Bendthaus or Clock DVA, and I like very much the experiments of Autechre… I just want to do something similar… not similar in sound but, trying to test new things, new ways.

Creation of sounds and effects is essential because it’s where it starts, when I have an interesting texture, I play with it and try to find the notes that work best with it. Tracks are constructed bit by bit until I get to something. It can be very long and requires a lot of post-recording rework…

Q: I noticed an important evolution in sound and production from the debut album “Planisphère(s)” and “Hyperborée”? How do you perceive this evolution and what have been the main changes/evolutions from the first album till “Hyperborée”?

U-0176: Evolution in sound is simply led by the story I’m trying to illustrate… These two albums illustrate very different stories, so they sound different.

So that’s the story beneath that influences the result. You cannot make a soundtrack for a Western film sound the same as a sci-fi movie, that’s just it.

Sound and productions are quite similar, but I probably used more digital synthesizers on “Hyperborée”, and a lot more effects, so it could have made a significant change.

Q: “Hyperborée” seems to be a conceptual album so can you tell us a bit more about it? Did this conceptual work need some kind of preparation and how did you finally achieve it?

U-0176: “Hyperborée” follows the journey of Pythéas from Massalia to the North Pole in 300 BC. This is a true story, but we lost the details from this expedition. We only know that he discovered the Northern seas, territories and people while he was trying to prove the earth is a sphere. I read several books on his story, and we’re not sure how he made it, but he did.

So I tried to imagine a possible path for this antic adventure that I see as thrilling as discovering space in the modern age.

Q: To me Signal~Bruit stands for intelligent electronic music, but unfortunately there’re less people interested in ‘intelligent’ music. What does it evoke to you and how do you as label owner look at bands with intelligent and sophisticated compositions?

U-0176: Yes, releasing albums for Signal~Bruit or Novocibirsk as we did with productionB is quite risky, but we’re not doing it for success.

I hope that we’ll find enough people to buy our records so that we can keep up the flag high as long as possible, that’s our objective.

As you can see, we stated it right from the start when launching productionB

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Electro-ambient, experimental, minimal-electro.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.

Background/Info: Signal Bruit strikes back with a second album, which comes nearly four years after “Planisphère(s)” which was released on Meshwork Music. Member U-0176 –who’s also involved with the French electro-pop project Celluloide, now released this album on his own label –which is a subdivision of BOREDOMproduct. This album is a kind of conceptual work inspired from the Greek mythology and more specifically about the voyage of Pytheas.

Content: “Planisphère(s)” was a pleasant work, but this new work is clearly more elaborated. Inspired by synthesizer icons like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream ao this work is a fusion between pure retro electro-ambient music and a very own approach. The songs are instrumental edits, revealing the magic of vintage electro sound treatments. The work features 9 songs, which never stopped catching my attention. 

+ + + : Signal Bruit has seriously improved all aspects of the production. If the debut work revealed some real good ideas and cool songs, this album clearly moves several steps further. It’s a pretty sophisticated composition built up with ingenious sound treatments, great vintage sweeps and effects. I’ve been impressed by some of the deep, resonating bass lines and the minimal electro approach mixed with space like atmospheres. There are numerous outstanding tracks featured in this work, but “Baltique” and “Sirēnes” both are little sonic wonders. The slow rhythmic carrying the songs make the composition only more accessible and accomplished.

– – – : The major difficulty with intelligent electro compositions is to reach a wider audience. Therefore this kind of production remains a challenge… which I fully support!

Conclusion: Signal Bruit has released a truly masterpiece, which I highly recommend if you like intelligent, vintage electronics.

Best songs: “Baltique”, “Sirēnes”, Lacydon”, “Pentēcontēre II”.

Rate: (8½).

Artist: www.facebook.com/signal.bruit

Label: www.production-b.fr / www.facebook.com/productionB.label

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com

Electro-pop lovers know the French label BOREDOMproduct. This label is the host of bands such as Celluloide, Dekad, Foretaste… but do you remember the first ever released album on the label? It brings us back to 1997 and the album “Excerpts And Experiments” by Novocibirsk. It was a minimal-electro production inspired by the sound and especially the machines from Kraftwerk. It also remained the single CD-album ever released by Novocibirsk. More than 20 years later the French label launched a subdivision called productionB. The label seems to focalize on more minimal electronic works and decided to reactivate Novocibirsk, releasing ‘old’ songs for the very first time on CD. I’d a chat with Hervé Isar.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: The album “Télévision 1945 Volume 1” takes us back from the early 80s till the early 90s. Can you remind us what incited you to set up Novocibirsk and what were the main sources of inspiration?

Hervé: My first source of inspiration is Kraftwerk and in particular “Radio-Activity”, since I bought the LP when it came out: In 1976 “Radio-Activity” (the single) was played on many radios. It was an unexpected success and a small report was broadcasted on TV. This is where I saw for the first time a synthesizer (Minimoog type if my memory is good and actually only a few seconds) and especially a kind of electronic drum (apparently handmade by the band), but of which came out percussive and metallic sounds that immediately captivated me. In addition, this repetitive music brought me a feeling of certainty and security that hypnotized me.

So I immediately went by bus down the Canebière where was, at the time, the ‘big’ record store from Marseille. I entered the store for the first time, and asked for the ‘Germans that are played on the radio’. They had it, I paid, and I rushed back home to listen to the record on my father’s record player once, twice… a hundred times! I still have this record that I keep as a kind of relic. Then it was Tangerine Dream, especially “Rubycon” and “Stratosfear” and finally a concert of Klaus Schulze related to the album “Mirage”. I do not remember the date, but, I think I was 13 years old or so. So, very young, and almost by accident I met this type of music, that I had no idea how it was made, as long as I did not see with my eyes this concert of Klaus Schulze, which took place in a cathedral. It was a complete hallucination. I had a cousin older than me, very into music, who offered me to go and see a concert of Klaus Schulze in Marseille. I had never been to a concert, I did not know what it was, and no idea who was Klaus Schulze then. The concert was held in the cathedral of Les Reformés at the top of the Canebière.

My parents dropped me there and went to the cinema, while we went to see the concert. And I went into a universe that I really did not know; I did not know what a modular looked like, for example… let alone a concert of junkies, because you had to see the wildlife that populated a concert of Klaus Schulze at that time, there was about a meter of smoke of canabis that covered the whole church, there are even people doing injections… it was still rather ‘particular’.

It was during this concert that I discovered, finally, what a synthesizer looked like -what I did not know, and that I decided to assign my first salary to it: I thought ‘the day you work, your first salary will be spent on the purchase of one of these machines’. I did not know how much it costs, or anything else, of course. Then I continued to listen a lot to this type of music, and then one day I had a first salary. I was 20 years old and I went for a synth… but it did not exist anymore. We were already entered a period the digital was making its appearance, we were at the beginning of digital, almost at the time of the appearance of the DX7 which would become the fashionable machine.

But I was not interested at all by a DX7, I wanted a Moog or a modular, which I had seen at Klaus Schulze’s concert. This is where I realized that it was not available anymore. So I did all the music stores in Marseille and the surrounding area, visiting their cellars and that’s how I started to build my collection, my ‘studio’, piece by piece, with synthesizers of collections that people no longer used, which nobody wanted. As a result, this machines often did not have a user manual, and for someone who did not know anything about it, without instructions for use, without knowing what a VCO or ADSR is… believe me, it took me quite some time to worked it out! That’s how it began.

Q: And so you set up Novocibirsk, but have you been involved with other projects and were you still in touch with the electronic underground scene?

Hervé: Absolutely not. I was never involved in one way or another in a group or linked to a scene… I spent my time experimenting in my apartment, without any other ambition.

Q: A lot of things have changed/evolved throughout the years; from the equipment (analogue towards digital) to the format (cassette and vinyl towards CD towards streaming) to recording techniques to the rise of social media etc. What do you think about all these evolutions? Pros and contras?

Hervé: I think that the technological evolution, both of the synthesizers and music diffusion, has increased tenfold -at least, the possibilities, but I do not have the feeling that the imagination in term of musical creation, the innovation in term of composition or experimentation has changed a lot.
The potentialities seem to me today much better than those I have known, but the imagination that could have accompanied these advances, I do not see it in the same proportions.

Q: How did the re-release of “Télévision 1945 Volume 1” happened and what’s your feeling about the final result –the songs having been re-arranged and re-mastered?

Hervé: These songs were absolutely not intended to be diffused and were only recorded for reasons of technical constraint to simply hear what I did.

But I met someone insane enough to be released in this kind of things, to whom I gave these cassettes, unsorted, in a plastic bag. He digitized them, sorted them, which gave names to the tracks and next followed a first confidential edition in CDr and cassette, very amateuristic way.

Then with this same person, and the creation of this new label (productionB) these pieces have been given an official release, CD, LP and streaming.

Q: I get the impression you were more focalized on the creation of sounds instead of writing a ‘classical’ song format (chorus – verse). What was it really all about and what can you say about the equipment you used?

Hervé: You’re absolutely right, the approach that was mine, was not to compose music, but to use electronic machinery to try to master it technically, to create sounds and sequences that I liked. And besides, the structure of the songs is systematically the same, it is a form of “Bolero”, with tracks (even if it is not really about tracks since at the time everything was live) which are layered on each other one by one. In fact, it’s simply because I increased the volumes of each synthesizer manually, and then when these volumes were almost where I wanted, I pressed keys to change the notes, mainly to keep the oscillators syntonized.

The objective was mainly associated with the production of sounds, the mixing of sounds, but not necessarily with the elaboration of a piece of music with a melodic structure, an organization in the time… I didn’t really think of it. In fact, these pieces are just technical tests.

Since these machines were relatively rare (and less expensive than today), I bought them when I found them. And I made new tracks, especially when I had a new synth, to test its abilities and make it communicate with the others. I did not feel any limitation, since I was always testing a new machine and networking with others, which was the second goal of my approach. I would say, it was both ‘tension’ and ‘trigger’. Things have been built over the constitution of the collection.

Q:  Are there some plans to re-release other ‘old’ Novocibirsk productions and do you’ve plans to release new material or getting back ‘into business’ again?

Hervé: Back to ‘business’, well, I’ve never really been into it, and it’s been a long time since I have unfortunately no time to control VCOs anymore… so I do not think so, no… even if I think that I would always have a great pleasure in playing with these machines.

I think I still kept a bag with several cassettes… it would have to be found somewhere in the cellar of my parents, but the most interesting things have certainly been digitized already. Of course, it’s the label that decides, and I think there’re plans for “Volume 2” and maybe another album. I’m already satisfied like that, but I will not oppose other releases, of course.  

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Experimental, minimal-electronics.

Background/Info: ProductionB is the brand-new subdivision of the French electro-pop label BOREDOMproduct. The French label released its first album in the early 90s. Novocibirsk got the honor to release the first album on BOREDOMproduct and this project now also releases the first album on ProductionB. It features electronic experiments recorded in between 1982 and 1993 and originally released on CDR. These songs have been remastered for this album. 

Content: Hervé Isar was the man behind this project and he clearly takes us back to an imaginary sonic lab filled with analogue gear. We feel like going back into time, awakening in the early 80s. Somewhere in between electro-wave, pure experimentation and minimal-electronics this album sounds as a bit as an ode to early electro-underground music. A few robotic vocals only accentuate the retro-vision of the album. I don’t want to compare Novocibirsk with other formations, but it’s the kind of sound that might clearly appeal to lovers of Kraftwerk.

+ + + : Was Hervé Isar a musician or a sound engineer? The work clearly reveals an experimental approach, which might be also considered as visionary for its time. “Train To Novocibirsk” is for sure one of the songs that will catch attention for a more ‘musical’ approach. It first of all is a work bringing the unique analogue sounds alive. I also have to say a word about the cool artwork. Novocibirsk also released a second volume of “Télévision 1945” so I hope we’ll get a re-release as well.

– – – : The experimental side of the work is not the most accessible one, but you’ve to place this album in its original context. Some of the tracks are pretty short, somewhat fragmented and give off  the sensation of unaccomplished.

Conclusion: ProductionB takes us back to the origins of electronic music. That was a long time ago and some of you weren’t even born, but it’s still a magic period!

Best songs: “Train To Novocibirsk”, “Flugzeug”, “Hydrotexture”, “Bahnfahrt”.

Rate: (7).

Artist: www.facebook.com/novocibirsk

Label: www.production–b.fr / www.facebook.com/productionB.label

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com

The people at BOREDOMproduct have seduced us for years with great electropop releases from bands such as Foretaste, Dekad, Celluloide, Neutral Lies, Happiness Project or Thee Hyphen. But as it happens the people behind the label also love electronic sounds composed of sequences and tones. Minimal electronic you might say.

As a result they are now launching a sublabel, called productionB, to release this kind of music. As for the reason not to release it under the BOREDOMproduct umbrella the label says: “We think it’s unfair that some projects should remain unreleased simply because they could be more demanding… For this reason we are launching a second type of production, our production B.”

Here’s an idea of what to expect. A first release is currently being produced.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

side-line.com