Le vieux fusible / The Singles is a two-CD set that moves between warped ‘n’ corrupted synth-bound muzak, scrawling avant jazz, post-industrial unease/ grey wonkiness, with some darts into electro-toned noisemaking. It brings together Frenchmen of experimental music/ sound-  Quentin Rollet(Nurse With Wound, Emmanuelle Parrenin, Pointe du Lac, Jours de grève, Laurent Saiët, Mendelson, The Red Krayola), and Romain Perrot( Vomir, Trou aux Rats, Roro Perrot, KILL, Free As Dead, Maginot, Meurs).

The first CD in the set Le vieux fusible is somewhat of a stand-alone studio album- taking in eight tracks. Whereas The Singles- complies together tracks from two 8’’ lathe cut vinyls,  and a 3’’ CD. As well as an unreleased twenty-five-minute live track featuring Richard Francès(Acid Fountain, JUJU) on synth. Sonically the duo plays the following Rollet: alto & sopranino saxophones, synth, electronics, voice, drum machine. And Perrot: keyboards, electronics, voice, drum machine, alto saxophone.
 
So Le vieux fusible opens with “Scotomisation” which shifts between rapidly pulsing ‘n’ beaded electro texturing, stuck/ warped Mazak, and electronic noise tone stretch ‘n’ lazer slice. We have murky ‘n’ buffeting traffic field recording like rushing churn meets taut ‘n’ warbling sax tones of “Mecadef”. Or there’s the gone wrong new age keyboard wonderings meets shambling ‘n’ demented guitar pickings & fumbles of the title track. All in all, it’s a most varied, wonky, and nicely unbalancing album.
 
Moving onto “The Singles” disc, and we find seven tracks featured here. These go from eerier texturally shake ‘n’ brush-meets- muffled dada/ demented vocalizing of “Brain” which sounds like someone slowly going mad in an endlessly floating around the star's cell. We have just shy of twelve minutes of “Vengeance” which pares cluttering ‘n’ greyed noise texturing with moodily baying & mournful horn work. With the disc playing out with the twenty-three-minute live track “Tranchée”which moves through reedy ‘n’ vibrating sax work, sinister-to-spacey electro tone texturing, and demented guitar scrabble meets demented dada vocalizing- as it sails between the moody, uneasy, and lightly bayed.

There is no doubt that Rollet and Perrot play off each other well to create a wonderful wavering ‘n’ wonky sound which dips its toes in genres such avant jazz, warped Mazak/ electronica, and post-industrial soundscape. So let us hope there is more collaborative work in the pipeline from these two- as Le vieux fusible / The Singles is a most unpredictable, yet compelling ride. To find out  more