DOWNLOAD Casimer vs. Casimir {Number One} by Casimer&Casimir 

{RUSTY ORANGE} two-tone done well. wish the tie was a tad longer, but perhaps i’m wrong.

Casimer&Casimir is a new American musical duo
Casimer&Casimir are uncle & nephew
Casimer&Casimir is Casimer Pascal & his sister’s son, VJ Casimir Caruso
Casimer&Casimir are variant spellings of the same family name
Casimer&Casimir were born in Detroit
Casimer&Casimir is now Chicago-based
Casimer&Casimir will release one song at a time
Casimer&Casimir issued the first English interpretation of “Anne Cherchait l’Amour”
Casimer&Casimir had their way with the lyrics & reworking the arrangement
Casimer&Casimir admire Elli et Jacno, the French duo who wrote “Anne…” in 1979
Casimer&Casimir recorded snare, guitar, vocals, computers, et cetera at Casimer’s
Casimer&Casimir had Trevor Naud c/o Parody Lion design the artwork
Casimer&Casimir appear courtesy of mydearsweet {analog to digital conversions}
Casimer&Casimir ask you to watch the version filmed by Olivier Assayas

{Anne Cherchait l’Amour} by Elli et Jacno

The move from uncle & nephew to Casimer&Casimir
After the final release of Casimer’s former group he moved his family to Chicagoland in order to escape the blight of their birthplace. VJ Casimir followed just after the turn into 2011 and took a room at his uncle’s home. During this period VJ asked Casimer to compile a list of must-hear music from the last 50 years. Uncle and nephew found they both enthusiastically responded to the same sort of sounds. With this as an impetus they began fiddling with knobs, strings, keys, and other noise making & noise capturing things. In the Spring of 2011 a duo was born.
 
Il buon tempo verra!

“A Boozy Creed”

Chain-smoking Frenchman—-aren’t they all?—-Denis Quilliard (1957 - 2009) was still in high school when he ditched his given name for the jagged mononym “Jacno“…the surname of the graphic designer who created the logo on his favorite pack o’ cigarettes. Unrest was a common theme of his early years as he battled middle-class mores, headmasters at the multiple schools he was expelled from, and France’s Gaullist politicians. It was at a fateful student protest in the spring of ‘73 where he met Elli Medeiros, a seventeen year old Uruguayan Trotskyist with an image of Alice Cooper emblazoned on her blazer. After a few false starts with other short-lived groups the duo founded, perhaps, France’s first bona fide punk group, Les Stinky Toys, who quickly pricked up Malcolm McLaren’s ears, got a coveted spot at London’s first punk fest billed right alongside the Sex Pistols & the Clash, got their young mugs on the cover of Melody Maker, and made a fanboy of Andy Warhol who—-as legend has it—-arrived in Paris with a Jacno button upon his lapel.

“Birthday” by Les Stinky Toys (Jacno is the gent in the white Levi’s)

“I Come From Elsewhere”

Jacno was never comfortable with the “punk” tag nor did he feel he was part of any sort of movement. In fact, throughout his entire career even when popular hits emerged he continued to feel at the fringe at best, often referring to himself as a “martian” in interviews.

After issuing only a 7” single and two LPs, by 1979 the Stinky Toys were all washed up. Throughout the remainder of that year Jacno gave his guitar a lil’ rest and began tinkering with the sort of synthesizers & machines he heard on his fave Kraftwerk records.

His dabbling with ARPs, Korgs, and Moogs accomplished three things:
{1} he recorded enough tracks for the suite of geometric-influenced instrumentals that became the basis for his first solo album
{2} he pushed a youthful contingent of the French music scene to turn their ears away from the sweaty noise of London toward the icy cool electronics emanating from Berlin
{3} by taking Elli along for the ride, having her sing on the only vocal track on his debut, he laid the foundation for their collaboration that would produce three 1ong 2laying r3cords, quirky singles that sold in the millions, and a baby girl named Calypso

“Cercle” by Jacno

 “All The Modern Young Things Love Their Mom…and Jacno”

With the release of his pioneering electronic album and the string of synth-centric hits that followed with Elli et Jacno, whether the former Mr. Quilliard liked it or not he became the godfather of the Jeunes Gens Modernes, a/k/a the modern young things of France’s burgeoning post-punk electro scene. 

“Tic Tac Toc” by Elli et Jacno

“I am not a showman”

I am not a showman. I am a Martian. It is unusual for me to go on stage. I love writing, studio, building songs. This is strictly musical.

As soon as the duo seemed cemented within France’s pop charts Jacno started to step  out of the spotlight by firmly planting himself behind the mixing console to produce an eclectic array of up - and - comers. Jacno’s other preoccupations & Elli’s desire to get back to her Latin musical roots began to hint at an end. By the time they started working on what would prove to be their final album, the soundtrack to Eric Rohmer’s film Les Nuits de la Pleine Lune, Elli and Jacno were barely holding on as a duo and were definitely no longer a couple.  Before 1984 was over their personal & professional relationship was fin. 

“So much time (Tant de temps)”

During the 20 years that followed their split Elli continued to stay on the charts as a solo artist eventually transitioning over to an active film career that is still going today, while Jacno sauntered around Paris keeping busy mostly behind the scenes releasing the occasional solo record now boasting his vocals, as well as guest appearances from the artists he produced like Romane Bohringer, Pauline LaFont, Helena Noguerra, Stereo Total, and this very Gainsbourgian duet of Cher’s “Bang Bang” with former beauty queen Mareva Galanter…

“Jacno est mort.”

2006 proved to be a productive year for Jacno that included his collaboration with Mlle. Galanter, a reunion with Elli on her album “E.M.”, and a final solo record, “Tant de Temps,” proving that he still had much to offer. Like Elli he also had a few acting roles over the years playing his final part in a small indie film that also featured his last music credit—-a rendition of Under the Roofs of Paris (Sous les toits de Paris).

On November 6, 2009 the chain-smoking caught up with Denis who losing his battle with evil fucking cancer died in a Parisian hospital. He was 52.

“Jacno lives!”

Jacno’s death kicked off a renewed interest in the man and his music which lead to a series of reprints including his work with Les Stinky Toys, Elli, and his solo outings. Most recently a lavish concert dedicated to his songs was organized in Paris in tandem with the release of a tribute album entitled, Jacno Future. The collection came out in June of 2011 featuring former collaborators like Étienne Daho, Jacques Higelin, Stereo Total, and Elli, as well as the legendary avant-garde chanteuse Brigitte Fontaine, and various new Jeunes Gens Modernes including Van Wagner, Coming Soon, Chateau Marmont, and even Elli et Jacno’s daughter, Calypso.

Jacno Future has a good sampling of the Quilliard oeuvre, but I was surprised to see one key track missing from the lot, Anne Cherchait L’amour. This was the first song I truly fell for and the one I share with everyone who will listen. It’s the track that made Elli and Jacno = Elli et Jacno! Thus & therefore, in order to right this wrong I have taken up the task personally (along with the help of my dear nephew). More details and the track—-perhaps the first English-language interpretation—-to follow shortly. For now s’il vous plaît profiter de l’original…

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By now lots o’ people have heard of my Detroit compatriot, Danny Brown, but unless you have listened thoroughly to his new LP XXX (a/k/a Thirty) getting all the way to track 17 (a/k/a XVII) you might not have heard “Fields”. Having grown up in the same city limits as Danny I was struck by the somber regionalism of his poesy. The abandoned, burnt out homes from my childhood have become the much talked about feral homes and urban fields of today.

“Sitting on porches of abandoned houses
Or sitting in the field on bed bug-ridden couches
It’s like they all forgot
Nobody cares about us
That’s why we always end in the prisons instead of college
I’m living in the system working the kitchen for chump change
Lost in the streets niggas playing that gun game
Where nobody wins just a bunch of mommas losing
Dead body in the field nobody heard the shooting
Living in the streets where the options is limited
Because there’s burnt buildings instead of jobs and businesses
And where I lived it was house, field, field
Field, field, house
Abandoned house, field, field”

Danny Brown {Fields}

…we move from Greece to Belgium, from the hard to spell to the uni-named.

Carol sings, Micky Mike pushes buttons. There ain’t a ton of info to be had concerning the duo, but I have found that Mr. Mike, a/k/a Marcel Thiel, plucked bass strings for the late 70s punk group, Chainsaw, and went on to front a one-man-electro-band called Snowy Red. Carol seems lost, but I found Micky and unfortunately he’s no longer among us.

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further {found}
Apparently Carol also provided lead vox for another Belgian group called Rive Gauche on the single, “Friends And Friends” in 1984

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Lena Platonos

Greek avant-garde electronic performance artist c.1985

Many moons ago I was in a lil’ musical group with a tall, lean talented fella named Trevor Naud. We luckily pulled him in at a time after his first band faded and he was just dabblin’ betwixt a few projects. As time took over, Trev along with a some other musiketeers started kicking around the name and concept for “Zoos of Berlin” culminating in their first release in 2007. At the time many of them were still involved in other Detroit groups, but I believe their focus now, as it should be, is on Zoos. 

The troupe has just released a new collection of recordings cryptically entitled, Pallister Chant. My first go at crackin’ the code would be that it is some testosterone-fueled allusion to the Manchester United fight song Come On You Reds by Status Quo that name checks the great footballer Gary Pallister. The Zoos’ batteur/studio wizzard, Collin Dupuis, has achieved an exceedingly high-fidelity sound that seems a match for the EP’s all-grown-up songwriting. Being a person of refined taste & meditative powers you should listen to all four traxx, but I thought I’d pluck out the collection’s sultriest slow jam for you.

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Vyatcheslav Mescherin’s Orchestra

This is a very special find courtesy of my good pal, Kati. I’m just rummaging through the links she sent over to me now, but apparently Merscherin & his band were early adopters of electronic instruments (theremins, early Soviet synths like the Ekvodin I, mic’d up trad Russian instruments) and created music that would become the soundtrack of Russia’s Sputnik space-age set.

further {reading}

:: transcript from a radio piece regarding the release of two compilations of Mercherin recordings called Easy USSR.
:: an article that came out around the time of the release of Easy USSR The Orchestra of Electro-Musical Instruments Swings the Sputnik Once Again

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Attica by Frederic Rzewski (pictured on the far right)

An amazing piece of music…new music, if you will, from 1971. Attica is the middle section of a three-part suite composed by Frederic Rzewski (pronounced SHEFF-skee) that includes a spoken—-almost sung—-text from a letter written by an inmate of Attica Prison who was among the principal organizers of the Attica Prison riots in September 1971, in which ten hostages and twenty-nine inmates were killed. Rzewski used the following for the suite:

I think the combination of age and the greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing time. it’s six months now and i can tell you truthfully few periods in my life have passed so quickly. i am in excellent physical and emotional health. there are doubtless subtle surprises ahead but i feel secure and ready.

As lovers will contrast their emotions in times of crisis, so am i dealing with my environment. in the indifferent brutality, incessant noise, the experimental chemistry of food, the ravings of lost hysterical men, i can act with clarity and meaning. i am deliberate—sometimes even calculating—seldom employing histrionics except as a test of the reactions of others. i read much, exercise, talk to guards and inmates, feeling for the inevitable direction of my life. 

                                                                            -Samuel Melville, Letters From Attica

further {reading}

:: Follow this link for a very deep analysis of Coming Together

:: View Rzewski’s performance notes for the composition

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