Raymonde - Ce qui est en bas, est comme ce qui est en haut... 2xLP

In his philosophical ideas, René Descartes supports the concept of automatism, referring to the mechanical reactions generated by stimuli from our friends in the animal kingdom. To illustrate: “If I press a dog’s paw, he systematically barks.” Yes, systematically, yes.

Here we are in the presence of another system from outre-Quiévrain named RAYMONDE (what a strange name for an electronic group - why not Simone or Josiane?) coming from the gastronomic capital of France, Lyon.

Ideologically, he does not identify with the French cartesian tradition and the harm that its approach to the senses and “the other” has caused in the world (« You will come visit me in the colonies »). The ZAD has, in the second decade of this century, become the raison d’être for the vibrant youth of the so-called hexagon - but RAYMONDE doesn’t identify completely with it either. Yet… the machine! It is now 2019 and all the post-war critics thought they’d dissected the beast, but the beast is tough. RAYMONDE makes music, the ultimate gate of the senses along with cyphers such as letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, pamphlets and sums; its magic is capable of durably healing our contemporary maladies (the burn-out/bored-out coupling)... RAYMONDE goes for it. Without any hesitation or discomfort, he spreads it all out: his mess and the whole mess in front of us, the machine and the world - he goes deep into it, and then he throws it all back at us: everything he’s tinkered with and concocted, everything he continues to explore as he throws it at us.

RAYMONDE leaves his basement...and spills onto the hippest dancefloors, like his German peer DON’T DJ but messier. The machine becomes the bird, and idealized folklore and tradition are still around, trans-formed into its current form, that of a 21st century generation. Well done, and long live this record.