Serge Bringolf — Strave (Reissue) (1980/2011)

Serge Bringolf is a drummer and composer hailing from France. He has worked with numerous musicians, the most well known of which is work that he did with Jaco Pastorius in the 1980s. Bringolf's music is often characterized as jazz-rock, but it is more appropriately placed squarely within the Zeuhl genre. One can hear very clear strains of Magma's influence throughout all of his solo work, nonetheless Bringolf's sound has more often been compared with that of early Zao, Art Zoyd and Jaques Thollot. His moves are outstandingly tight.

Bringolf released three albums under his own name in the early 1980s, two studio and one live. He also released an album with Siegfried Kessler titled Agboville in 1983. The latter is a drum and piano album without the largess of sound so notable in his other solo efforts. It is more reminiscent of the elemental tone which flavors Christian Vander's Wurdah Ïtah, yet it can justly be compared to many other Magma inspired efforts. In 1981 he was featured on The Alain Eckert Quartet's one private release, Quartet. Eckert was a guitarist with Art Zoyd, and the album displays a lot of similarity to Bringolf's first (1980) solo release Strave - colored with the discernable influence of Central European music. Vision, Bringolf's second release from 1981 [on whick Eckert also plays], displays a more inventive feel overall. There is still much here that will appeal to the 'standard' Zeuhl fan, but it has a distinct edge of its own to it; an air of originality which ventures beyond the 'traditional' Zuehl (Magma inspired) themes which he explored in Strave.