Gerard Manset

A work in trompe-l'oeil

First blows of brushes

At that time, he already wrote some songs for other artists French and Québécois, but not liking its voice, thinks more author and type-setter that interprets. Gotten rid of by several recording companies, it decides in 1968 to produce itself its first 45 turns, Animal one is badly :

- One day, I wrote an end of text, without thinking that can be the subject of a song. I plated it on an agreement. Only one! And I let the text come. It became Animal one is badly , which is perhaps a reaction so that was the song at the time. An artistic director friend showed himself interested by the trick, wanted to produce it… but it left in America, and that could not be done. But it had me at the head foutu the idea! By the force of the things, I managed to record and produce the titles of a first 45 turns: Animal , the woman-rocket and two others still.

Pathé Marconi leaves the title in May 68, at the time of the movement protester. In these unfavorable circumstances, the number of sold specimens is tiny. However its radio operator passage (buckles some due to radiophonic strike) makes it possible some to locate this new talent.

A few months later leave, under the same title, a first album. There some could detect a kind of research mystical (of I am God with One does not kill its next ). The disc obtains a success of regard.

Two years later, the Death of Orion , a rock'n'roll-symphonic oratorio with elaborate arrangements reveals the originality of Gerard Manset. The parts of very developed cords confer on the recording a certain lyricism. Sold with 20 000 specimens, remarkable number for an album of this kind, it is one of the first album-concepts French following the example Anglo-Saxons Pink Floyd or Beatles.

In 1972, its new production which carries the title Manset (with the back of the small pocket the mention “Gerard”) will be at the origin of the “Manset myth”. Generally called Long long way or the white album, (in reference to the Beatles, still) one finds there long beaches air, all connected between them: the Bird of paradise , Gives me and Jeanne , for example, which to date forms face 2 of this 33 turns ever republished out of CD.

At that time, Manset is one of the rare author-type-setter-producers to have his own studio of recording. It will produce there many artists, of which William Sheller ( Couleurs ) or Ange ( Any fire, any flame ).

The title It travels as a recluse , 1975, mark a turning in this work incipient and yet already rich and varied. The 45 turns is sold with 300.000 specimens and figure in good place in greatest successes of the time. This success disturbs the artist who does not see his mediatization of an good eye. In reaction, it records in 1976 Anything to tell , an album sinks container of admirable pieces, like the vases blue (E) S .

This turn takes the form of a rupture with, in 1978, the album very electric heading 2870 . But the movement is launched, a certain number of faithful follow it disc in disc.

The small pocket is as, if not more still, sumptuous as that of the Death of Orion . It is necessary to open an ECRIN of three small pockets imbricated to discover the disc. Realized by Hipgnosis, agency of design celebrates it which signed many small pockets whose some of the Pink Floyd, this small pocket is, paradoxically, revealing of the step of the artist. It makes of this disc an objet d'art to whole share while not being satisfied to wrap the engraved recording but by framing it with the manner of a masterpiece. The photograph of cover is enigmatic and, even if the face of Manset appears inside the booklet, one feels his image to grow blurred to leave room to the mystery, with the unknown.

The adventure

Consequently, inspired by its voyages in Asia and Latin America the artist will diversify his artistic expressions: Drawing, Painting (its first way since he attended the Arts Déco and exposed his fabrics in 1966), the Photographie and literature of voyage.

At the time of its stopovers with Paris, it records its albums: Kingdom of Siam in 1979, the workshop of the crab which contains the tube Marin' bar (title that Manset will regard as too commercial thereafter and of which it will allow the republication in CD only in 1999) and the train of the evening at less than one year one of the other, in 1981, then Like a warrior in 1982.

This same year, it exposes new fabrics - for the first time since 16 years - to the Maison of the Culture of Bourges, then three years later with the gallery Etienne de Causans in Paris.

1984, mark a new musical evolution because it is necessary for him to do without violins in arrangements. The place of the Violin in its music, rather Rock'n'roll, is like its trademark. Sometimes plaintive and throbbing, sometimes planing sound tablecloths, the violins confer on its titles a dimension characteristic of Manset. The same applies to its voice, as some find irritating, than the reverberation, the Re-recording and other sound effects make single and blazing.

Lights (1984) and Prisonnier of Useless the (1985) results from these meetings of recording. The nostalgia of childhood, loneliness, the melancholy mainly form the set of themes from these two opus.

Exposing its paintings in 1985, then its photographs in spring 1986, it takes its distances with its musical production, affirming even to want “to be classified with the row of the corpses”, and publishes in 1986 its photographs in the deliver-album Chambres of Asia and in April 1987, its first novel Royaume of Siam . These two collections reveal an esthetics of the voyage, a singular, and sometimes disconcerting glance in Royaume of Siam , on the exoticism and the childhood which can only evoke Paul Gauguin.

In 1988, it decides to withdraw trade its 33 turns, which it wishes to replace by CD. It is the occasion for him to return again in studio. It launches out in the digital remixage of its work (without the Death of Orion which will arise only in 1997). Thus a box of five CDs ( Enter the dream ) is marketed.

Gerard Manset leaves a new album Matrice in 1989, work resolutely rock'n'roll, realistic and blacker than ever, “one time to be vomitted, the history will say to us what it is necessary to retain… ”. Criticisms are eulogistic and the public follows. Matrice was regarded as one of the best French albums of the decade. More than one hundred thousand specimens are sold.

Carried by general enthusiasm, Manset repeats eighteen months later by publishing Revivre . The sober small pocket slices with the topics approached: tropics, Indians, the Amazonia, etc

In 1993, it publishes a new account entitled Wisut Kasat .

In 1994 leaves the valley Peace , its fifteenth album. The small pocket quasi Psychédélique is very coloured. Manset develops its favorite topics and continuous to engrave texts like Paradis , the simple one, extracted the album. Nevertheless, he asserts it like a positive album, while seeking to demolish sad image which sticks to him with the skin.

In 1998 appears a new album entitled Jadis and at one time . As the blotter drinks the ink is the simple one which was extracted from the album. For promotion, Manset is satisfied to grant talks to the written press. It does not make any more a TV for a long time and even less scene. He declares on this subject: “I find impudic, ridiculous to sing vis-a-vis a public”.

The following year, it supervises the exit of four double CD of republications: one containing Shepherdess which was initially to be reproduced on the album Matrice , Pavillon under snow on Like a warrior and - more minor - Artificiers of declining the on Jadis and At one time as well as a “Best off” on which one finds in particular the title Marin' bar .

February 15th with the March 4th 2000, the gallery >auteurs accommodated the exposure photographs the valley of peace . The book 72 hours with Angkor appears in May 2000 with the editions the Beautiful Letters, followed by a new exposure of photographs: Gerard Manset, Of Siem Reap with Khajuraho .

These last years saw re-appearing the composer-songwriter, even the producer. After its contribution to the album With light the of Jane Birkin where it signs two titles: Voyage at the end of the night and And if all were false , made up a song for the album of Indo-China Paradize , the night of the fairies , it took part in the first disc of Raphaël Haroche ( Hôtel of the Universe ) with which it wrote Être Rimbaud and the text of memory of the days for its second album Reality . To the same time, it gave I played under a bench with Juliette Gréco and titrates it of its album Aimez you the ones the others or disappear , extracted from this song.

March 2004, the new album is entitled the language forgotten , its first album entirely recorded numerically, which was to belong to a vaster project including/understanding a homonymous book and second CD. During promotion, always minimal, the man let escape two tracks: the scene, like a future possibility and the desire for more often realizing of the albums.

In an interview, Gerard Manset acknowledges itself to regard himself as a “being of refusal and failure”.

Lately, it took part in the third album of Raphaël, Caravane , left in March 2005, by writing the text Peut-être he dreamed .

In April 2006, it leaves a new album entitled Obok , composed of nine songs “written for the scene”. He Co-sign with Raphaël the song As water remembers for Florent Pagny ( Abracadabra ). For the first time since years, it accepts that one publishes a photograph of him on full page in Paris-Match , and announces that it enters in repetition for a possible song recital in 2007 (In Olympia?).

The artist: the myth, or how to maintain it…

To follow…
Mystery will have which was created around Gerard Manset was born from the scarcity of its media appearances, the absence in concerts, and especially from the character except modes, without compromisings, singular and poetic of its work. Thus is it of the death of Orion already evoked or CAESAR , short symphonic work in Latin (extracted the Guerre of Gaules ) drawn with 200 specimens except trade on one 45 turns single-sided; a version of French CAESAR also exists. These productions are revealing special place of this artist on the French scene.

Discography

1968 : Animal one is badly
1970: the Death of Orion
1972: the white Album
1975: Y' has a road
1976: Nothing to tell
1978: 2870
1979 : Kingdom of Siam
1981: the Workshop of the crab
1981: the Train of the evening
1982: Like a warrior
1984: Lights
1985: Captive of useless the
1989: Matrix
1991: To revive
1994: the Valley of peace
1998: Formerly and at one time
2004: the language forgotten
2006: Obok

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