Ose - Adonia [Reissue Vinyl]

Recorded in June 1978 during a sweltering Paris summer, Ose's 'Adonia' captures a rare alignment of intellect, imagination, and emerging technology. At just 26, Herve Picart was living three parallel lives: scholar of rhetoric and ancient languages, journalist for the French music press, and guitarist/bassist in progressive garage bands. Drawn increasingly away from British prog toward keyboards and synthesizers, he began envisioning a more spatial music situated somewhere between Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk. That triangulation would define 'Adonia'.

Ose itself was conceived as a variable-geometry project devoted to concept albums, with narrative and composition as guiding forces. Picart imagined a platform that could accommodate shifting collaborators and literary or interplanetary themes. For 'Adonia', the collaboration formed close to home. Through his journalism, he had befriended Richard Pinhas of Heldon, a fellow academic and near neighbour in Paris' Latin Quarter. Their shared philosophical and musical affinities created a natural bond. Picart invited Pinhas not simply as a guest but as a key creative partner, overseeing electronic arrangements and contributing guitar and synthesizer work. Heldon drummer Francois Auger completed the trio, valued for his remarkable ability to play tightly against sequencers without losing fluidity.

Arriving with detailed demo tapes, Picart had mapped much of the material in advance, yet the studio remained a site of invention. Sessions took place at night in Barclay's large studio on Avenue Hoche, by day home to a grand orchestra, prompting moments of astonishment when classical musicians encountered the trio's imposing array of synthesizers, including the Moog 55 modular system. Recorded in a week and mixed in three days: a focused, pre-digital intensity emblematic of the era. Conceptually, 'Adonia' fuses ancient myth and speculative fiction. Its title references Adonis, a figure of renewal and desire.