Planam / Italy / 2010
For this latest “gollaboration,” French experimental unit GOL joins forces with British drum icon Charles Hayward, resulting in a music that is at once rough and delicate, intense and restrained—a paradox rendered in sound.
The studio side features four improvised sessions, each probing oblique interpretations of what “rock” might mean. The live side, captured at Paris’s 104 during the Sonic Protest festival in December 2008, pushes the collaboration further into psychedelic territory. GOL’s chaotic, home-built electronics find their perfect foil in Hayward’s unmistakable drumming—his This Heat-tinged command of kick, snare, and cymbal, where solid beats constantly fracture into inventive variations.
Unexpected moments abound: shards of pop sensibility, echoes of distant gamelan, and even a sudden song driven by frenzied electric organ. The record unfolds as a surprising, multi-faceted journey into sound exploration.
Formed in Paris in 1988 by Jean-Marcel Busson, Ravi Sharda, and Samon Takahashi, GOL here deploys modified synths and organ, bass guitar, handmade electronics, SH-101, and crackle box. This LP marks the third in their gollaborationseries, following projects with Dumitrescu/Avram and Charlemagne Palestine.
The package is as striking as the music: a minimal, reversible four-color sleeve with stark photographic portraits of Hayward and GOL, paired with a black-and-white inner sleeve containing track titles and liner notes.