FRENCH TV - FRENCH TV - 1984

French TV biography
This fun band comes from Louisville (Kentucky) and has existed since 1983. Led by the leadership of bassist Mike Sary, FRENCH TV has released 7 albums of music for musicians, deftly nodding to prog-masters like NATIONAL HEALTH, SOFT MACHINE, ZAPPA, BRUDFORD, BRAND X, HAPPY THE MAN, and SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA, among others. To describe French TV's music is simple and complicated ... All the band's other issues contain moving moments; a hybrid of Canterbury, RIO, Fusion, and Insanity, not to mention random little snippets of other styles.

"The Violence of Amateurs" is one of the best jazz-rock album of the last ten years. This is somtething that should easily appeal to fans of Canterbury, Fusion or even the more minded symph fan. On the whole, the music on "The Case Against Art" represents a very innovative manifestation of Classic Symphonic Progressive with the elements of Jazz-Fusion and Prog-Metal.
http://www.progarchives.com

Review:
Recorded at various European performances from the spring of 1972, this is a substantial addition to the catalog of a band that only put out two studio albums. The sound is good, and the performances almost wholly instrumental art jazz-rock, not far removed from those heard in the early 1970s by the Soft Machine, drummer/singer Robert Wyatt's previous band. It's electric pianist Bill McRae who wrote most of the material on this disc, and it's the sort of cerebral, intricate, serious fusion-y stuff that might appeal as much, or more, to jazzheads as to prog rockers. Wyatt goes off into some wordless scats at one point, but these aren't conventional rock-songs-with-lyrics at all. There is an admirable variety of textures with some distortion and buzzing, cooked up by McRae and guitarist Phil Miller, but it doesn't boast very accessible melodic ideas, preferring to furrow into angular and at times ominous progressions. The eerie, electronically treated vocal scatting on Wyatt's mischievously titled "Instant Pussy" is a highlight. Five of the nine songs, incidentally, do not appear on the band's studio albums.
allmusic