Plunderphonics
Tuesday August 11th, 2020 with Chris Lyne
The Story Of The Legendary Recording Studios At Le Chateau d'Herouville, France. An epic tale of Amour, Imagination and Reves. And of tragedy.

The Story Of The Legendary Recording Studios At Le Chateau d'Herouville, France. An epic tale of Amour, Imagination and Reves. And of tragedy. We'll hear how Michel Magne, a renowned French film score composer, fell in love with and bought a dilapidated chateau to the north of Paris, imagining himself writing and recording his TV and film soundtracks in a studio that he would build there. By the mid-60s the chateau had attracted the interest of his many friends and colleagues in the French arts world, some of whom recorded music of their own in the chateau's studios. As his dream developed further, the studios added increasingly sophisticated and expensive recording equipment. And then Magne hit upon a novel idea: to convert part of the chateau into residential quarters, enabling artists to record and stay on site, the first of its kind in France. And so began the chateau's most prolific recording period, attracting a wide range of artists and bands from overseas. We'll hear a selection of tracks from albums and tracks recorded there. We'll hear, too, how Michel Magne's dream began to go wrong and how he, and the studios themselves, were to eventually fall silent.