If one can remember anything of French-Lebanese musician Gabriel Yacoub, it’s of the time he fronted progressive folk group Malicorne. Under Malicorne, one could hear ideas fomented from prior work with the Alan Stivell band. A mix of forgotten Breton music and experimental folk, Malicorne sounded like little else (closest brethren being Clannad, elsewhere). As a solo artist Gabriel untethered himself from the past and look towards the future — in sonics, melodies, and inspiration — to point a to a different kind of Gallic music. An Elementary Level Of Faith is a wild listen. Taking cues from Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, and other sampler-heavy avant pop artists, Mr. Yacoub rearranges what one expected from him by applying similar techniques to his leftfield ideas.
Elementary Level Of Faith seemed to be born out of the ashes of Malicorne’s final album Les Cathédrales De L’Industrie. On that album Malicorne had traded their “traditionalist” garb for a hyper-modern, Pop, sound. Songs like “Big Science (1.2.3.)” tipped their hat at what they were after. They still sounded as Bretonic as ever but now they were running their sound through electronics, heavily of the New Wave kind. In attempting to aim for the charts their old fans seem to leave them, en masse, and new school fans were hard to come by.
Searching to distance himself from the Malicorne name, as a solo artist, Gabriel tried to strip away nearly all of his folk influence and to experiment with newfound sonics entirely. Recording solo sessions, in Paris, with equally wayward Hungarian multi-instrumentalist “folkie” Ivan Lantos (see: Kolinda, Hungary’s own Malicorne-style “world” music folk group), both musicians tried to make an album inspired by city life itself.
Far more industrial sounding than proper “industrial” albums, Elementary Level Of Faith synthesizes through synthesis sounds that are rhythmically of real life. Train tracks, cracking doors, sweeping car whooshes, IRL sounds are approximated and converted to impressive groove-based tracks that allow Gabriel to adjust his tone to more hypnotic effect. Who would expect a track like “Elle Se Proméne (Dans Ma Raison)” to slink around as a creation from artists not known for stuff like this — but tracks like that exist here.
Other tracks like “Mon Été Triste” harken back in some way to the folkier beginnings of Gabriel Yacoub, albeit in a way that is far more contemporary. “Bon An, Mal An” spin electronic minimalism (of the Reichian vein) into a tap head of intriguing neoclassical balladry with Alan Stivell making a brilliant cameo plucking electric harp in ways that seem random, yet organic to the music.
Standouts for this album are obvious ones, simply hear the first track I highlighted. Others, like “The City” introduce, you to the atmosphere of the whole thing. Sung entirely in English, it evokes the similar sinewy music of later-day Scott Walker and Peter Hamill, where a personal plea is something far more profound — here, heavy, lo-fi beats only serving to cut through the slightly dark romanticism. “Papa-loi, Maman-loi” takes cues from angular funk to do its own, wayward trek where the sum is intriguing. The album also careens with other ambient balladry, like “Elle A Des Cheveux D’or”, which touches on classic Gallic chanson but does it in a way that’s really alien (to much I’ve ever heard done in that style). Drum machines that sound like sifted sand work wonders on that one.
Somewhat forgotten on Bill Laswell’s Celluloid Records isn’t a good fate for it to languish under. Elementary Level Of Faith, at least to me, always sounds like a cult record that has no cult behind it. It’s warm, intimate, but it’s also quite askew. Here’s hoping a few more fans grow into discovering it.