Between 1978 and 1980, the Asociaux Associés (antisocial associates, TN) recorded the second of the two albums which appeared under their name: Nouveaux Modes Industriels. Philippe Doray, with the help of his 'Associés, evermore iconoclastic and numerous, backs up his anguished poetry with customised krautrock, hallucinatory pop and rock Suicide. Much more than a memory of the then surprising (and disturbing) Swinging Rouen, this album is an intergalactic ambush.
Following the publication, in 1977, of the first of two albums under his own name, Ramasse-Miettes Nucléaires, on the label Gratte-Ciel, Philippe Doray didn’t waste any time before writing new obscure and experimental songs. As proof, between May 1978 and January 1980, with his Asociaux Associés (antisocial associates, TN), he recorded ten of them in the farm in which he lived (and shared) close to Rouen.
In 1980, Nouveaux Modes Industriels was published thanks to the support of Invisible, the label of the Société Coopérative d'Ouvriers-Producteurs Artistiques (S.C.O.P.A., the Cooperative Society of Artistic Worker/Producers,TN) run by, amongst others, the ex-manager of Crium Delirium Jacques Pasquier. This meant that Doray had free rein for his electric poetry, his personal delirium, to be heard. He had already shaken up French music with his mix of pop, krautrock and free jazz; a few months later he would undergo a change which would be the precursor of his future projects.
Before collaborating with Thierry Müller under the names Ruth and Crash, Doray let loose one last time, with his Asociaux Associés, his anguished poetry into the face of the urban labyrinth, his nuclear dynamite… It is no coincidence if the album cover is similar to those by Urban Sax, the spirit of the times was anguish as a creator of beauty. Doray’s version had the advantage of still knowing how to sing.
Never forgetting his interest for dance, the musician gets Cluster moving to a boogaloo, foments a Suicide on synthetic jaw harp or invents elevator music for tower blocks… All of which hotchpotch feeds into his Nouveaux Modes Industriels. If the last track of the album states “no after-sales service”, it is simply because there is no need.
