HOPI MESA
A typical Label for "Unclassifiable Music"

It is not a formula borrowed from shamanism but a lucid equation between the passionate reflection of a producer-publisher (Jacques Marbehant) and the passion arousing music of four of the most creative composers in the French constellation of music without a label : René Aubry, Henry Torgue, Serge Houppin and Jean Philippe Goude.

Free from all complexes, they are venturing into a type of new composition, following an amplification movement of the material - from baroque to minimalism, passing through music-hall, pop and rock - and sources of sound - from the crystal organ and the accordion to electric guitars and synthesizers. The result is a class on its own in the highly conservative and "revivalist" panorama of the French music industry.

For unlike music for sound illustration, the music productions of Hopi Mesa are visual crossings along the meridians of subconscious and down paths buried in emotion. They can be compared to an intuitive search for the fascinating inspiration behind a discourse which discloses itself to the recurring tempo of memory.

Hopi Mesa is proud of its six years of improbable existence which can be seen as a bold denial of the claims by record publishers that it is impossible to gain any profit out of current innovative music.

Hopi Mesa is now celebrating the 75 thousand copies of "Steppe" it sold during this period and the 30 thousand copies of "Ne m' oublie pas" bought during the past year. These recorded albums by Aubry who, in this case, is the most conspicuous of the "house" artists, are two good examples of a harmonious compromise between artistic and commercial imperatives.

The common feature among these musicians, it should be noted, is their invisibility, What they produce are convergent movements of sound which cannot fit into any category, they are like worlds open to the mobility of bodies, to action full of imagery, to the gesture language of performance.

The Hopi Mesa musicians concentrate on the actual work of composing and recording rather than on stage performances. Yet what they create is a music for the stage in that it is mainly composed as part of a more complex, theatrical or choregraphic show (the collaboration between Aubry and Carolyn Carlson and that of Torgue and Houppin with Philippe Genty and Jean-Claude Gallotta are particularly well known).

It is also a music that leans toward the cinema and is coveted by music lovers with a discerning sense of hearing despite television. Although this unclassifiable music is frequently attached to new music because of its tonality and minimalism, it reveals influences that are both pop and classical.

These songs without words, as René Aubry is fond of saying, continue to live independently of original shows, as the best "quatri-therapy" against noise pollution.

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