Classroom Classroom

The lost Belgian blueprint of Brussels based jazz fusion and how free form Franco-Flemish punk put Zeuhl school in the Classroom via to the conception of COS.

Emerging from behind the same clouds that kept formative Belgian progressive jazz records like Brussels Art Quintet and Kiosk’s Mona Call in tangible obscurity, these impossibly rare early Euro jazz recordings shed a new ray of light on the intricate foundations of the scene that elevated COS, Marc Moulin, Placebo, Marc Hollander and Telex to Zen master status, while also capturing one of Europe’s best female vocal artists in the midst of her wide eyed and uninhibited prime.

Idiosyncratic, intrepid, psychedelic, scholastic? Affirmative. But not once do these recordings resemble pages of a dog-eared sketchbook. Expertly executed and recorded, this semester of progressive proto jazz fusion symposiums capture the group as they unveil the unique strain of experimental ‘Flower Music’ (a title worthy of a lost Don Cherry album?) that would imminently blossom into the trailblazing COS powerhouse. Listen closely and hear the sound of this outernational mutating quintet as they tear up the rule book and still graduate onto the International jazz rock scene with flying psychedelic colours. Fans of COS tracks such as Mein maschine ist schön and L’Idiot Léon will herein identify the foundations of Pascale Son’s early experimental, non-lyrical and onomatopoeic vocalisations which would earn the band favour amongst early Zeuhl aficionados, thus winning the group support slots with Magma and historically leading directly to the Classroom/COS overnight metamorphosis. These recordings capture that precise chink in time and the eureka moment where Daniel Schell’s experiments become a leading life force. Constantly forward-thinking with a don’t look back mantra, these recordings have remained nestled on old acetates and magnetic tape akin to similar lost Low Country albums such as Alain Pierre’s mythical L’enfant grandit synth opus and Placebo’s coveted Three Days In April TV recordings.

Never before released on vinyl, these tracks provide us with a sonic chalkboard of Daniel Schell’s ambitious musical equations, recalculated by precocious polymaths, then conveyed via Pascale Son’s inquisitive child-like vocal explorations. For those keen to learn the Histoire De Melody COS? The classroom door is open – prepare to be schooled!