Delired Cameleon Family

This article is about the self titled album. For the band, see Clearlight (French band).

Delired Cameleon Family
Studio album by Delired Cameleon Family
Released	1975 (1975)
Recorded	Pathé Marconi studios, Boulogne, Paris, France March 1975 (1975-03)
Genre	progressive rock
Length	44:30 (or 48:30)
Label	EMI
Clearlight chronology
Clearlight Symphony 1975 Delired Cameleon Family 1975 Forever Blowing Bubbles 1975

Delired Cameleon Family is a progressive rock album by the group of the same name, released in 1975 on EMI Records in France. It is now regarded as the second album by Clearlight who adopted the name later that year, in response to the success of Clearlight Symphony (1975), which is now regarded as their first album.

Recording details

After the release of Clearlight Symphony, the band returned to France to record their next album in March 1975 at the Pathé Marconi studios in Boulogne, Paris under the name Delired Cameleon Family. The group includes Ivan Coaquette of Musica Elettronica Viva. The music was also used as the soundtrack to the film, Visa de Censure No. X. The group were under contract to Virgin Records, but the album was issued by EMI Records who owned the film soundtrack rights, and effectively used its soundtrack status to do an end-run around the group's contract with Virgin, as the album is not really presented as a soundtrack. "Musique du film Visa de Censure No. X de Pierre Clementi" appears in small font at the top of the front cover, printed light blue on dark blue to reduce its prominence, and the film title is not mentioned at all on the label. The credits (in French) state: "produit par Pathé et Virgin" (Pathé Marconi was EMI's imprint name in France).

In this incarnation, the band featured a greatly expanded line-up which was to become typical of subsequent albums. The style of this album is looser in production, and less symphonic than its predecessor, with a strong emphasis on rock and jazz fusion jamming. Like other Clearlight albums, this one is performed in the style of psychedelic and new age music. The album is mostly instrumental, but with a few vocal pieces: two in French and one in English. "Raganesh" is in the form of an Indian raga, while other songs include jazz elements.

The controversial cover art shows a chameleon breaking out of a cube which could represent either a building or an LSD sugar cube, and folliage on the back cover composed of marijuana leaves. A whimsical attitude toward narcotics is also expressed in one of the song lyrics.

Track listing

Timings printed on the label are quite different from what the cover says. Timings from the cover are shown first, followed by the label's timing in brackets (not shown in one instance where they are the same).

Side one

1. "Raganesh" (Cyrille Verdeaux) – 6:00 (6:50)
2. "Weird Ceremony" (Verdeaux) – 4:30
3. "La Fin du Début" (Verdeaux / Valérie Lagrange) – 4:00 (5:10)
4. "Le Bœuf" (Yvan Coaquette) – 7:30 (8:50)

"Le Bœuf" is credited to Yvan Coaquette on the cover, but to Cyrille Verdeaux on the label.

Side two

1. "Novavana" (Coaquette) – 7:30 (13:10)
2. "Anantà" (Coaquette) – 14:00 (10:00)

Side two appears to have three songs, banded separately with gaps of silence, and nothing musically to indicate which two pieces belong together. The label suggests the first two are one song, while the cover suggests the latter two go together.

Personnel

• Cyrille Verdeaux – grand piano, organ, electric piano, harp, percussion, glockenspiel
• Yvan Coaquette – electric guitar, electric piano, shaneï guitar (sic; a shaneï or shehnai is a wind instrument)
• Christian Boulé – electric guitar, tortured and backtracked guitar
• J.-C. Agostini (Jean-Claude d'Agostini) – bass guitar, lead guitar
• François Jeanneau – soprano saxophone, ARP synthesizer
• Jean Padovani – drums, percussion
• Gilbert Artman – percussion, vibraphone
• Olivier Pamela – vocals
• Joël Dugrenot – vocals
• Tim Blake – tampoura, truckman (tampoura probably means tambura which Blake is known to have played on another album)^[1]
• Antoine Duvernet – electric alto (saxophone), big dry beans (sic)
• Ariel Kalman – tenor sax
• Aude Cornillac – transgalactic voice
• Valérie Lagrange – sings "Le Phœnix" (lyrics for "La Fin du Début")

References

1. ^ Personnel list from Fish Rising album (1975) by Steve Hillage