Jean-Louis Rizet & Philippe Besombes - Pole (1975) [Remastered 2015]

Pôle started as an album, Kotrill, and a Pôle Records label run by Paul Putti and his wife in the mid 1970s. Putti is the only consistent member of Pôle on their two albums; he doesn't appear on all tracks but he does take credit for arrangements and production. A second LP, Inside The Dream, quickly followed the first. Putti focused on the Pôle Records label after that.

There are only two Pôle project releases, and Pôle Records as a label only existed from 1975-1977, releasing some influential experimental electronic music by many French musicians. This and the Internet helped create the myth that they were a band or a formal collective when it was just a guy funding it all who recognized he'd built a recognizable brand around a few studio projects and the label.

Pôle sometimes gets described as a loose collective of French experimental/electronic artists. The name was also used prominently on covers of other releases on the label, making it appear that releases by Henri Roger and Philippe Besombes/Jean-Louis Rizet are Pôle 'band' projects when it's better to look at Pôle as a label branding in that context. Rizet only appears on some tracks on one of two Pôle 'band' releases. Besombes has stated that the name was used without consent from him or Rizet on the double LP titled Pôle, purely for marketing purposes by the label.

One way to look at Pôle is as a project concept along the lines of a Hector Zazou project, or Hal Wilner or Bill Laswell hooking up players for a specific release, and the label as based around a loose unofficial collective of musicians who helped each other out and recorded various projects for the short-lived label. Putti sold off the Pôle Records label and masters to Tapioca in 1977 and started a successful porn magazine with the proceeds.

Nods from the NWW List of influences and another famous electronic band taking the name as an homage have helped build a cult following around the label and name Pôle.