Richard Pinhas

Pinhas is one of those producers that was part of the developing electronic music scene in France back in the '70s, alongside the like of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. Reading up on the life of Richard Pinhas is as interesting as listening to his music. In addition to being in various bands like Schizoid in the late '60s and Heldon in the '70s, Pinhas studied and taught philosophy under and then alongside the likes of the late Gilles Deleuze. Deleuze would have a strong influence on both the writings and music of Pinhas, who made dissertations on neat concepts like time in science fiction. (Deleuze also influenced the naming of labels like Mille Plateaux.) The music on Event and Repetition is in fact similar to that of Tangerine Dream and Robert Fripp - one hears lush textures of wailing guitar loops and vast billowing synthesiser sweeps forming continuous patterns. A total of five tracks range from three minutes to just under half-an-hour, and one of the strong points on this album is how the musical loops sneak up on the periphery of the listener's consciousness until he/she is engulfed in intense crescendos. Yet as beautiful as this album sounds, the music really belongs to the '70s and '80s and not to the present, as the synthesiser sounds are dated and the guitar work has already been well mapped by other established artists. It seems that Pinhas is stuck in a time fold and I strongly recommend that he search for new sounds. Until then, he is just re-treading already well trodden territory.