Permanent fatal error “Little red piano EP”

About

“1997 was an important year for Ulan Bator: our first steps in Italy (February), our first tour with Faust (June), the release of our third record, Végétale (November), followed immediately by our first tour in Switzerland and Germany. For the first time, being musicians was our only job.

Back in 1996, Alternative Press wrote about our 2° EP that we “may be the only band from that oversauced nation to be worth a damn in a long time—maybe since Metal Urbain or Magma.” What a review!

But a year later, partly because of the experience of touring with Faust, I felt that Végétale sounded a little too conventional on record. On stage, however, we were about to enter the original trio’s finest period: precise and powerful, at our best.

Most importantly, the fact that Amaury was singing in French — which was actually a very good thing, partly inspired by Faust’s Rien — began to create a misunderstanding among parts of the press and audience. By singing in French, we were unintentionally giving them a reason to misclassify us as just another French rock band, associated with the lifeless, fake post–Nouvelle Vague music of the time that we genuinely disliked.

At that point, my heroes were Boredoms, Naked City, This Heat and CAN. We spent our days listening to the latest Swans records, as well as Rien and Outside the Dream Syndicate by Faust and Tony Conrad. I was also fascinated by every release on the American label Table of the Elements, both for its aesthetic vision and its musical content.

Since Amaury and I shared a deep admiration for Swans’ Soundtracks for the Blind, I decided in December 1997 to track down its producer and ask him to work on the next Ulan Bator record. Michael answered personally: “I am the guy you’re looking for, and I like your work. Please send tapes of the new material.” (Ego:Echo would eventually be recorded a year and a half later, with a new drummer.)

Meanwhile, during the final days of December 1997, the songwriting process within the trio had reached a dead end. Nothing was working.

So I went down to our studio in the disused chalk mine, determined to release some tension by performing and creating something long, raw and improvised. I had very clear ideas about where I wanted Ulan Bator to go, but I had spent too much time talking about them. It was time to do something — to prove to myself that I could actually put those ideas into practice.

Back in 1996, I had found a simple piano melody that I liked, something vaguely Satie-like. There was no piano in the studio, so I used the SH-101 to create a large drone that ran for about fifteen minutes. Then I recorded the other instruments one by one, each in a single take and with no predetermined plan — guided only by the Satie-like melody, which I played on guitar. The drums came next, then finally the bass and the bowed parts.

Unconsciously, the original Satie-like idea was gradually overtaken by the influence of Tony Conrad and Jim O’Rourke’s Happy Days.

It did not become an Ulan Bator song but, unexpectedly, my first solo recording.

And so, this is Little Red Piano.

Be kind to it — I was only 26.”

Olivier Manchion,
Reggio Emilia, 04/06/2026

LA GUILLOTINE – PHOTO © eRikm 1998