Angine de Poitrine in 2, FLACs limited time only

 

The band title refers to cardiac angina, the medical condition.  Information here (about the artist, not the diagnosis)

These guys, from Quebec, Canada, have specially built guitars which play quarter tones. (That is, compared to a normal guitar, there are frets halfway between to make the notes between semitones accessible for play.)  Way back when you might recall, or rather probably don't recall, I posted the 2 LPs from Americans Other Music, the best example I know of, and maybe the only one, involving progressive rock plus quarter tone music.  I can repost these if there's any interest.

My beloved Teo Macero, who I posted before on this blog, also made some quarter tone music, you can see here discogged.  Of course the music sounds very strange, and you could make a case that it's quite unnatural given the unnatural dissonances.  The reason it's unnatural for those who don't know is because the 12 notes of the scale are based on whole integer ratios, for example from C to G is a ratio of 3 to 2 (in vibration frequency), from C to C is double, etc.  Others would say it's a natural extension of atonal music or more dissonant music within the realm of the 12 note scale that we currently have.  But no doubt it does sound bizarre and not due to cultural conditioning, as you'd expect.  As well, it's difficult to make melodies with quarter tones, though I think Teo was most successful in that dept.  More straightforward is to do those angular Frippian repeated patterns, then build on those, which is what these guys do.

Despite the zeuhl-like titles to the tracks, which are all instrumental of course, there is not much Magma influence here, as well there are only the guitars and nothing more (though violins can also do quarter tones of course, having no frets) with repeat patterns and staccato arpeggios, plus a little bit of ethnic influence as you'd expect, because in some cultures eg Indian music these quarter tones are encountered, but not overly much.

From the first album, Tohogd:

From the second, Sarniez:

What about the masked disguise, what do people think about that schtick?