Softcover, 530pp
Roundtable Books, Brisbane, 2025
While music fans worldwide celebrate Germany's Krautrock revolution, the equally radical French underground scene has remained largely hidden from view. Ian Thompson's groundbreaking Synths, Sax & Situationists finally illuminates this extraordinary movement that emerged from the revolutionary ferment of May 1968, revealing a generation of musicians who produced some of the most distinctive and vital experimental music of the entire decade.
At the dawn of the 1970s, French musicians resolved to tear down musical conventions and build something entirely new. What emerged was a uniquely French synthesis of political radicalism, post-psychedelic experimentation, free jazz liberation, and electronic exploration that challenged both sonic conventions and social structures. The radicalism of May '68 provided not just ideological inspiration but an entire infrastructure of alternative venues, independent labels, and countercultural media that enabled unprecedented artistic freedom.
Thompson's meticulously researched narrative chronicles celebrated innovators like Magma, whose cosmic jazz-rock mythologies redefined progressive music possibilities, Gong's psychedelic space-rock odysseys, Etron Fou Leloublan's anarchic deconstructions, Art Zoyd's chamber rock experiments, and Heldon's electronic assaults, alongside the almost-forgotten pioneers: Cheval Fou, Fille Qui Mousse, Barricade, Lard Free, Komintern, Red Noise, Mahogany Brain, Triangle, Zao, Moving Gelatine Plates, Spacecraft, Camizole, Dharma, Placebo, Univers Zero, Cos, Goutte d'Or, and Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes.
The book's title perfectly encapsulates the movement's character: synthesizers provided new sonic possibilities, saxophones brought jazz's improvisational freedom, while Situationist theory offered the revolutionary framework that distinguished French experimental music from mere technical innovation. Through extensive interviews with surviving musicians and careful examination of rare recordings, Thompson reveals how electronic technology, free jazz instrumentation, and radical philosophy combined to create music that was simultaneously forward-looking and rooted in traditions of intellectual resistance.
