François De Roubaix – Commissaire Moulin Et Autres Scenes De Crimes (WéMè, January 2016)

Having spent 2015 drenched and even drowning in a widespread and uncontrollable fetishism for Italian film music, it’s been good to do some ear-cleansing this January not only with some dewey-eyed Vangelis but also with the work of François De Roubaix. For the uninitiated, De Roubaix was a relatively unsung French composer, who gifted the world a rather massive catalogue in his 10 years of work before his premature death in 1975.

Though he penned memorable soundtracks for box office hits (usually involving Alain Delon pointing his revolver at you from the poster), De Roubaix’s speciality was his unique talent in creating icy twinkling soundscapes which are in fact more appropriate to the small screen. TV efforts sadly circulate less than music for film, something put straight with this loving reappraisal of De Roubaix’s work on Belgian label WéMè: the bulk of the previously unreleased tracks pressed here come from one of musician’s last efforts, the soundtrack for popular TV drama Commissaire Moulin.

The record is more anxiety than horror, more suspense than crescendo; preferring poor, sparse melodies to round, sumptuous ones. This is music for corpses in kitchens, for municipal scandals, for waiting in a car for something to happen. For De Roubaix, the sound of crime is cold, surgical synthesis: irregularly interspersed bleeps and throbs squeaking their way onto tense soundscapes, fast-paced electronic gushes over dirty basslines, jewels strewn over an old investigator’s anorak. Frankly recommended for lovers of the French approach to dark synthesiser music, in whatever shape or form.

Francois De Roubaix & Bernard Maitre – Les Onix: Enregistrements Meconnus Pour Marionnettes: Theatre Et Television 1972-1976 (WéMè, May 2016)

I hope I’m not the only one that’s been progressively falling in love with Francois De Roubaix’s astonishingly heterogenous production via WéMè’s reissues – last year’s Commissaire Moulin Et Autres Scènes De Crimes is a must. If you are too, and you have a penchant for children’s TV music, then make sure you give this latest WéMè edition a good, hard listen. I say this as it would be easy to class this collection of ‘unknown recordings for puppets’ as a novelty record, but underneath lies something else, and something more. Yes it’s children’s tunes for TV and theatre; short bites and pieces of mostly manic, unhinged stuff. A lot of it is quite far in tone from that lovely “Le Labyrinthe Des Onix” theme WéMè put out earlier this year, replete with a majestic Jodey Kendrick remix. Yet listen hard and you’ll find thoughtfully playful musique concrète that delivers a rare balance of expertise and light-hearted eccentricity.

Listening to the collection you have to wonder what on earth these kids were watching. In this 23-track anthology there are talking springs, ‘monster generators’, fanfares on speed, whole sequences that feel like syncopated, upside-down merry-go-rounds, a plenitude of groans, squeaks, distorted voices, irregulars drums, echoed recorders and intensely high-pitched synths. And then there’s the odd car-chase melody, industrial clangs, foley sound – footsteps, machinery being wound up, cars and cackles – and the odd Morricone-style countryside waltz. Tracking down the images to these compositions is tricky, but a record like this makes me think of the importance of what you hear as a child, how it shapes your taste, your ears and your mind. Remember parents, the kids shows of today are the techno of tomorrow.