HELDON
Allez-Téia
(Superior Viaduct)
Throughout the 1970s, the French progressive group Heldon released seven great-to-essential albums. Their 1975 sophomore album, Allez-Téia, captures Heldon during a phase when they were more about lofty hovering ambience than the infernal propulsion and dystopian nightmare visions that would mark their last few full-lengths. Throughout Allez-Téia‘s seven tracks, there exists a scintillating contrast between otherworldly synths and Mellotron and earthy acoustic and electric guitars. “In the Wake of King Fripp” is a gorgeous tapestry of those instruments paying tribute to Heldon leader Richard Pinhas’s foremost influence: King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp. Pinhas and Georges Grunblatt capture the Frippian muse in its most majestic and serene state, in the vein of Fripp’s classic ambient LP with Brian Eno, Evening Star (which also came out in ’75). “Aphanisis” features guest Alain Renaud and Grunblatt on acoustic guitars, their exquisitely filigreed melodies spangling and frolicking with delicate panache. It’s ideal for Sunday morning contemplation. Dedicated to Fripp and Eno, “Omar Diop Blondin” tips another plectrum toward Evening Star, as Alain Bellaiche and Pinhas duet on guitars: One growls in gentle agony, the other undulates with a mesmerizing oceanic drag…
