les gants blancs du diable

I returned to school this afternoon from an all-too-short mid-semester break. Not a bad coming home present though, this ghostly fellow was resting safely at my doorstep, directly from Vadim Music, a European label specializing in "rare grooves & reissues." It's the soundtrack to the bizarre, little known, 1973 animated film of the same name: "Les Gants Blancs Du Diable." Composed by the late, Karl-Heinz Schäfer, I bought this on sort of a whim. Given the massive quantities of library music I've been ingesting lately, in addition to the many "La Planete Sauvage" (Alain Goraguer) comparisons I've heard about this one, it seemed like a good fit. I'm going to let the Vadim Music sales pitch do most of the descriptive work for me, but I will say that although I'm enjoying this album tremendously so far, I think "La Planete Sauvage" is justifiably the better-known of the two. Goraguer is still the unrivaled king of atmospheric, martian funk in my book.

Vadim Music write-up:

"Within the oh so elusive club of the cult soundtrack, there exists one rare record which provokes a deep fascination and evokes a unique charm for those having heard of it, or those lucky enough to have listened to it (but an exclusive few). A veritable Holy Grail, relentlessly pursued by many, each hoping, one day, to own a copy of this unique and unrivalled work.

Les Gants Blancs du Diable simply isn’t like other records. Its preciousness comes, first of all, from the fact that it was never re-edited (neither on CD nor vinyl), before Vadim Music’s release, and that the rare copies in circulation suffered from a slight sound degradation, the result of a fault at the time of pressing.

Regardless of any imperfections of the technical kind, the music encompassed within its precious grooves instantaneously reveals its dreamlike and addictive character from the very first listen.

A drug for the senses, opening the doors wide into a fantasy world, shaped by unique musical forms: jazz tempos played on tablas and grooved with free form sitars, chords at the abyss’s very brink, held back by reassuringly rounded bass sounds, lightening electricity escaping from epileptic guitars, and the voice of an angel singing the colours of magic, existing only within this music.

Somewhere between feline jazz, crazed orchestral pop, opiate jerk and lunar funk, the music turns on its multiple charms, seemingly led by a longing for both violence and calm, the driving force behind the record’s dramatic power.

A power culminating in its two emblematic themes, Utopia and Couleurs, breathtaking and elegant melodies, casting a radiant light across all in their path.

A tragic beauty, somewhat reminiscent of the sombre notes of the La Planète Sauvage soundtrack, another hidden treasure from the 70s.

At the helm of this strange vessel we find a certain Karl-Heinz Schäfer, a discreet arranger of German origin, having led from the shadows of French studios (for Christophe, The Rockets and Claude Ciari amongst others...) and who would subsequently go on to writing other soundtracks, with varied success (La Grande Trouille, Zig Zig, L'Empy reinte des Géants, Extérieur Nuit, Polar).

The music from Les Gants Blancs du Diable entirely surpasses the (minor) status of the Laszlo Szabo film for which it was written, breaking its way free to attain its status as a totally independent and complete work."

Listen to some samples and buy it here.

The tracklist and download link are in the comments section below. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think! Also, if anybody out there has anything, and I mean anything, else by Karl-Heinz Schäfer or Alain Goraguer, please drop me a line. I would love to hear more.