François R. Cambuzat
French, born in Saigon, Vietnam. Music and writing have always been his secret gardens, seen as autonomous ways of being able to travel freely. François R. Cambuzat founded The Kim Squad & Dinah Shore Headbangers, il Gran Teatro Amaro, la République du Sauvage, L' Enfance Rouge , the Putan Club, the Trans-Aeolian Transmission, Machine Rouge/Krasnaya Mashina and released about 24 albums and performed over 5000 concerts all over the planet.
First of all bass player then saxophonist (resident in Bedford Stuyvesant, at seventeen he played with Dizzy Gillespie at the New York ‘s Blue Note), his life was then saved from the American misery by the rock 'n' roll by interviewing Iggy Pop and so becoming an independent journalist for diverse medias, getting then enough money allowing him to fuck away from the States.
Of short return in France, he kept on avoiding it. François R. moved to London, then in Rome where he created the band The KIM SQUAD who signed for Virgin Italy, realizing endless international tours (as far as the Soviet Union).
Three days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he moved in wild Mitte and founded Il GRAN TEATRO AMARO, a totally acoustic project declining contemporary classical music and anarco-punk savagery, by working with Luciano Berio and Mauricio Kagel (among others) with Emanuele Luzzatti's scenographies (original scenographer of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat). Il Gran Teatro Amaro published three albums on the prestigious cutting edge label RecRec and was among others invited to the Documenta exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel (D). After the success of this project in the German-speaking space (with points of two hundred representations a year), tired to preach to the converts, François R. Cambuzat creates L’ENFANCE ROUGE (The Red Childhood) with the intent to cross rock music with certain revolutionary thoughts of the contemporary classical music (atonality,
deconstruction, polyrhythms).
In 2008, François R. Cambuzat returns in France, in the Saint Jacques district of Perpignan. Completely integrated into the gypsy community, Fran de la Frontera got lost in Flamenco with the maestro Alain Diaz.
François R. Cambuzat establishes then the PUTAN CLUB, a polymorph unit of artistic intervention developing an interaction between music, poetry and graphic arts, a powerful project regularly performing over 200 concerts every year all over the world.
In 2013 lost for months in the Taklamakan desert and Karakoram mountains (Xinjiang, PRC), François R. Cambuzat begins the realization of a very old dream: to travel in the most distant of untouchable countries, recording and composing with incredible local musicians. By establishing the TRANS-AEOLIAN TRANSMISSION, filming and recording an incredible project conjugating Road-Movie and Concert, François R. Cambuzat definitively brings down any artistic border.
In 2014, the actor Denis Lavant and François R. Cambuzat launche their KRASNAYA MASHINA/MACHINE ROUGE (Red Machine), a literary and wild trance made by misappropriations of poetry and musical techniques of ecstasy and elevation.
François R. Cambuzat moved and lived in Paris, New York, London, Brussels, Rome, Tunis, Ndar...
François R. Cambuzat works and created at present diverse projects with Lotfi Bouchnak ( TN), Lydia Lunch (USA), Eugene S . Robinson (USA) and Denis Lavant ( F ).
François R. Cambuzat is the Art Director of the Festival Trasporti Marittimi.
Creations
- Trans-Aeolian Transmission - distant elsewhere / film-concerts-road-movies
- Putan Club - artistic intervention unit
- Ndox Electrique - adorcist & post-industrial ritual, Senegal
- Xinjiang, Taklamakan & Karakoram - concert/research/road movie in Uyghur country, People's Republic of China
- Ifriqiyya Electrique - adorcist & post-industrial ritual, Maghreb
- Le Grand Orchestre du Désastre - conducting large orchestras of con-provised music
- Kabar Nwar - ritual of struggle and cursing, Reunion Island
- Alevilik Aşkına - concert & road movie, Alevism, Anatolia, Türkiye
- Machine Rouge - with Denis Lavant - literary trance
- Lydia Lunch’s Putan Club - interaction with American author Lydia Lunch
- Transcontinental - concerts, film concerts, workshops & film shoots across more than 40,000 km and over 21 borders
- Ruuhaania - with Lotfi Bouchnak - sufi & metallic incantations
- Canal d'Otrante - duende & adriatic sea
- Fran de la Frontera- flamenco
- Trasporti Marittimi - artistic agency and festival
- LER + Eugene S. Robinson - interaction with the writer-journalist-singer Eugene S. Robinson
- Low House - with Eugene S. Robinson - degraded state of earthly flesh
- L’Enfance Rouge - avant-rock
- Lotfi Bouchnak & L’Enfance Rouge - interaction with the oriental classical singer Lotfi Bouchnak
- D.J. Tewfik al-Firansyy - oriental djing
- Hong Hai Er - electric & electronic duo
- Cambuzat-Fortemps - interaction between music and graphic arts
Selected discography
The Kim Squad “Young bastards”,Virgin Italy, 1987
François R. Cambuzat “Notre-Dame des Naufragés”, Virgin Italy, Stile Libero, 1988
François R. Cambuzat canta il Gran Teatro Amaro “Uccidiamo Kim”, Virgin Italy, 1990
Il Gran Teatro Amaro “Port Famine”, RecRec Zürich, Suisse, 1991
Il Gran Teatro Amaro “Hôtel Brennessel”, RecRec Zürich, Suisse, 1993
Il Gran Teatro Amaro “Piazza Orphelins”, RecRec Zürich, Suisse, 1995
François R. Cambuzat et les Enfants Rouges “Swinoujscie-Tunis”, L’Enfance Rouge, 1995
François R. Cambuzat et les Enfants Rouges “Taurisano-Cajarc”, Polygram Italy, 1998
François R. Cambuzat et les Enfants Rouges “Reus-Ljubljana”, L’Enfance Rouge 1998
L’ Enfance Rouge “Davos-Leros”, Audioglobe Firenze, Italie, 2000
L’ Enfance Rouge “Rostock-Namur”, Audioglobe Firenze-L’Enfance Rouge, Italie, 2002
L’ Enfance Rouge "Krško-Valencia", Wallace Records, Italie, 2005
L’ Enfance Rouge "Krško-Valencia" (+ inédits), T-Records, France, 2006
La République du Sauvage "Constitution",, Irfan (F) + Wallace Records (I), 2007
L’ Enfance Rouge "Trapani-Halq al Waady", T-Records (F) + Wallace Records (I), 2008
L’ Enfance Rouge "Bar-Bari", Les Disques de Plomb (F) + T-Rec (F) + Wallace Records (I) + Musica per Organi Caldi (I), 2011
Le Grand Orchestre du Désastre "setlasevir", Great Arabian Recordings, 2011
L’ Enfance Rouge + Eugene S. Robinson "The First Will & Testament", Un Jour Peut Etre, 2013
Lydia Lunch’s Putan Club "Don’t pressure the man with the knife", Un Jour Peut Etre, 2013
Ifriqiyya Electrique "Rûwâhîne", Glitterbeat Records, 2017
Putan Club "Filles de mai", Toten Schwan, Records 2017
Ifriqiyya Electrique "Laylet el Booree", Glitterbeat Records, 2019
Ndox Electrique "Tëdd ak Mame Coumba Lamba ak Mame Coumba Mbang", Bongo Joe Records, 2023
Putan Club "Filles d'octobre", Toten Schwan Records, 2025
+ 53 various compilations
Filmography
Trans-Aeolian Transmission "Xinjiang, Taklamakan & Karakoram", Shamanism and Dolans in Uyghur Country (PRC), 2015
Trans-Aeolian Transmission "Ifriqiyya Electrique", Adorcist ritual of Sidi Marzug, Djérid Desert (TN), 2016
Trans-Aeolian Transmission "Alevilik Aşkına", Modernity of Alevism, Kurdistan (TR), 2018
Trans-Aeolian Transmission "Ndox Electrique", n'döep ritual of the Lebou people, Senegal, 2020
Trans-Aeolian Transmission "Kabar Nwar", disgressions of servis (kabaré, malbar,...), Réunion Island, 2022
Links
Machine Rouge (with Denis Lavant)
Putan Club
Kabar Nwar
Trans-Aeolian Transmission
Ruuhaaniia (withLotfi Bouchnak)
Some videos
Machine Rouge (with Denis Lavant)
Ifriqiyya Electrique
Ruuhaaniia (with Lotfi Bouchnak)
Putan Club
Lydia Lunch’s Putan Club (Théâtre Garonne Toulouse)
Support letters
Cultural Service of the French Embassy in Beijing
Thierry Zarcone, research director at the CNRS
Contact
+33 (0)669065721
Press-cuts
...singularities that give fragrance to reactive, sweet and acidic compositions, a dreamlike geography off the beaten track... Le Monde de la Musique - F
...The UFO of the season. You can smell the scent of freedom there.... Libération - F
…An unconventional encounter with local musicians…not exactly a smooth ride… The light lies in its raw authenticity and hardcore exultation, right down to the final remix, a techno nod to the universal power of trance... ƒƒƒƒ Télérama - F
...Incredibly innovative…this new album is a must-have…Quite simply: it can boast of having defined a territory like no other. We are thrilled to hear, a rare treat, a completely new sound. An experience.An irresistible flow... Muzzart - F
...A particularly disorienting journey: the music resembles the slopes of Vesuvius the day after an eruption… guitars with a slow burn, sometimes exploding in geysers of fire and piercing unpredictable crevasses. This way of working with electricity—with a brush rather than a club—pushes the notion of musical expertise to its most unprecedented limits… in France, few musicians seem capable of creating such scenarios... Les Inrockuptibles - F
…What if the future were trance? Like an answer to the Kafkaesque vertigo of our connected societies… There is no question here of watering down the Sufism of the project or making it a slightly picturesque veneer: trance, the real thing, is at the heart of the experience like a millennia-old echo of the sacred origin of all primal arts… FIP - F
…One of the most powerful musical recordings of the year.It's not an album of tracks or songs, but something that truly delves into the ritualistic nature of music and transforms it into an incredible artistic performance…François R. Cambuzat layers this powerful Sufi music with electric guitars and computers to create something extremely vital and gripping… ***** Evening Standard - UK
…best album of the year… Bandcamp - Worlwide
…The collusion of worlds plunges the listener into an unreal, imaginary landscape, somewhere between urban slums and desert vertigo, between the warm languor of Arabic melodies and the raw, repetitive urgency of European electric energy.Music that is both lucid and hallucinatory… Mouvement - F
…We are transported, lulled by exotic instruments, when – BANG! – we find ourselves shaken like rarely before in an electric fury worthy of Einstürzende Neubauten's best days… The fact remains that one cannot imagine a more sharp north-south axis than this one.And one that rises much higher, and much lower.On one side, the velvety oriental splendor led by a master of the oud, on the other, a pure virtuosity of chaos, resolutely unleashed, between cascading feedback and seismic ruptures… Magic - F
…What is most striking is François R. Cambuzat's complete mastery of his art, hidden beneath an atonal and fragmented exterior. Always on the verge of implosion, François R. has chosen to position himself on the razor's edge, a choice that results in an almost constant sense of tension, but one that often ignites the tracks into a blazing intensity.(…) His music possesses a life of its own, a highly organic, fluid quality that strongly captures the listener's attention, and therein lies its strength: a fiercely singular style that cannot leave anyone indifferent and speaks to both the mind and the gut. An album that doesn't seek to seduce, but ultimately convinces through its coherence, its originality, and the perfect alignment between its message, never complacent, and its starkly cutting aesthetic… Versus Magazine - F
Praised by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and touted as experimental and unsettling, L’Enfance Rouge literally blew the audience away (in the best possible way). This guitar, bass, and drums trio unleashes an uncommon power, a veritable sonic cataclysm where the song is crushed by a brilliantly noisy guitar, a monstrously groovy bass, and a violently jazzy drumbeat. (…) François R. Cambuzat's music is so disturbing that it can keep you up at night or keep you awake at dawn, reassured by the sunrise.It's a safe bet that this band's performance will be talked about for a long time to come.A sonic deluge on stage, and a killer album. Concert&co.com
...Innovative and brave... London Evening Standard - UK
...How to enrich traditional world music without being dishonored ? How can you work on improvisation and reworking compositions without losing roots, bowing to traditional music ? François R. Cambuzat gives the answer, half way between tradition and technology, at the hub where you instantly get acquainted with raw emotion. Or as he formulates: " elevation, sweat, blood, poetry and tears... Written In Music - USA
A completely dazzling performance, a display of simply exceptional stage presence, boundless energy, and a demonstration of sheer, electrifying power. Suffice it to say, it was impossible to resist; a concert that definitively cemented all the good things one could think about them. Perfect! As usual... Xsilence.net
This album powerfully showcases the pride of his own independence. Il Mucchio – I
...an instrumentalist who set his mind on transcending the boundaries of all genres and all times... La Repubblica - I
... a furious and never-defeated melancholy, the pride of one's own independence, both physical and intellectual. Brain - I
....one of the finest albums of recent months. A masterful electro-acoustic experiment... Raro - I
...the nakedness and radicalism of a conceptual noise, of a sound permeable to improvisation, of an atonal tribalism and of a technical minimalism confronted with a conceptual gigantism with explosive effects. Rockerilla – I
...a manifesto of freedom and idealism ...raw monologues, unwilling to compromise, just like the music that accompanies them ...music for those who refuse to surrender ... Rumore - I
Anxious, stateless and gaunt.François R. Cambuzat is one of the few for whom I would put my hand on fire for his sincerity, cultural and human ...guitar intuitions, sonic introspection ...phrases charged with force in the meter worse than the crowd in the Tokyo subway cars ...maximum votes with academic irreverence ...album of the year. Music Club – I
...avant-rock dealing in ethnomusicology research, theatre, film and from what we can work out, a hell of a lot more more. It sounds tribal, like a ritual, it sounds wired, it sounds threatening, gloriously so.... The Organ Thing - UK
...Wild, organic and uncivilized... LIBERATION (F)
...Libertines & Libertarians...following their own needs and desires... Battiti, RADIO RAI3 (I)
Being an artist is a choice one makes first and foremost at a fundamental level: either one chooses to express the conservative structures of society and is content to be a mere tool in the hands of power, or one addresses the progressive elements of this society in an attempt to establish a revolutionary relationship between art and life.
Gian Maria Volontè
The world is rotting away in a state of complacency that is nothing but selfishness, stupidity, ignorance, gossip, moralism, coercion, and conformism:
To contribute in any way to this rot is, now, fascism.
Pier Paolo Pasolini (Vie Nuove n.36, sept. 1962)
If we don't allow travel the right to destroy us a little, we might as well stay home.
Nicolas Bouvier (The old shittrack again)
