Present, Belgium

Zeuhl; Avant Prog; Chamber rock

Latest release: This is Not the End (2024). 

Certitudes (1998)

It was sometime in 1985, while visiting my favorite underground record store in Dallas (Record Gallery for those that were there), that I first discovered Le Poison Qui Rend Fou. Everything about it was new to me - the album, the band, the label (Cuneiform), and the music (what later would be dubbed avant prog). For me it was a new kind of complex progressive rock, and one that captured my 20 year old mind's imagination greatly. Unfortunately that seemed to be about it for Present. I later learned about their considerably more obscure debut (at the time) and their association with a one Univers Zero, a group I began to seek and collect as well. Present did pop up here and there in the next decade performing music that was not necessarily "Present-like", including the rather interesting Live blues rock album that I've written about on this blog already. So it was with much excitement that Present returned to form on 1998's Certitudes. This was the sound of Le Poison Qui Rend Fou moved forward. The complex layering, the haunting vocals (male instead of female though), the pounding piano, the searing electric guitars, and the impossible rhythms. This is the Present I first discovered and loved. The primary problem with a band such as Present is the music isn't particularly memorable. When one thinks to pull out an album such as Certitudes, the mind goes into this jumbled mess. Knowing that yes, this is sophisticated music, and the instrumentation is correct. But memorable melodies and passages? No.

But Certitudes is special to me for another reason, beyond the return to my mid 80s exploratory years. One fine evening in May of 1998, the band performed live in what was then our current home town of Denver. At that time I'd been married for just over a year. My wife, never one to embrace the music I enjoy, was still open minded about going to concerts and trying different things. I took her to this Present concert. It was an incredibly intense show resembling the Certitudes album (and with local Denver mover and shaker Dave Kerman on the drum kit, replacing Daniel Denis). During the show, while I was certainly enjoying myself, I began to really worry about my wife, as I suspected it was just too much for her young and untrained ears (fortunately we brought ear plugs). After the show, I asked her what she thought. She said it was really good, very different and intense, but she really appreciated the effort and the authenticity of the band. Wow! Fast forward 22+ years, just as I was to pop this into the CD changer (for the first time in the same 22 years), I asked her if she remembered the concert. She did and recollected pretty much the same sentiment. Again, I was surprised, as it's hardly been a Happy-Hour discussion topic. Funny though, she wasn't clamoring to join me on the listening session... 

And for all the reasons above, this is why I tend to revere Certitudes as one of Present's best efforts.

---12/14/20

Live! (1996)

An interesting live album from Belgium's Present. Sounding more like a psychotic blues rock take on their first 2 albums, the album has a rawness and deep soul missing from their studio works. Present always sounded to me like a typical mathy, ultra precise, avant prog unit. Here, they sound a bit messy, and even give into the odd guitar jam, just the kind of dirty soot the band needs. I've had this CD since it first came out, and never held it among the finest of their works, but I'm hearing it in a whole different light this go round. Hmm.

---6/13/16

Triskaidekaphobie (1980)

Only a European band whose roots are clearly planted in the Rock in Opposition movement would name their album after the fear of the number 13 - in French of course. Perhaps the listener will have the same fear as they are greeted with rhythms performed in 13/16. Present's debut is a hellish music where the blueprint is clearly Univers Zero, who are a direct parent on the ancestry chart. A blueprint that is dragged through King Crimson's 'Fracture' for the ultimate bad trip. Bad trip as translated in the avant prog language I mean...

---7/15/16

Other albums heard: Le Poison Qui Rend Fou (1985); No. 6 (1999); High Infidelity (2001)

7/15/16 (new entry)