Ruth Polaroid/Roman/Photo Import LP

Born Bad Records present a reissue of Ruth's Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, originally released in 1985. Thierry Müller, who initiated the Ruth project, was already an established artist when the album Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, including the eponymous track, was released in 1985. His older brother, Patrick, along with one of their cousins, was responsible for his musical education, and he quickly became familiar with contemporary and experimental music.

He started to tinker quite early with sounds on old tape recorders by himself, but it was in 1977 that Thierry launched (with some friends) his first band, Arcane, while studying at the School of Applied Arts. Alongside Arcane, Thierry was already working on his solo Ilitch project/concept, an experimental and innovative work, whose first album, Periodik Mindtrouble, was released in 1978. The album brought Thierry recognition and success in the very elitist circles of experimental and underground music.

Ilitch's musical focus was too narrow for Thierry's ceaseless experimental curiosity, so he developed a punk project called Ruth Ellyeri with the author, actress and photographer Murielle Huster. The title is an anagram of Thierry Müller (the complete name is Ruth M. Ellyeri).

At the end of 1978 he met Philippe Doray at the Oxigene office. Doray was another big name in French experimental music. Thierry moved to his home near Rouen, a remote farmhouse with a DIY music studio. They worked on their respective creations but met from time to time to experiment together, including the project Crash (a tribute to JG Ballard).

As early as 1982 a first version of the track "Polaroïd/Roman/Photo" came out under the name of a new project, "Ruth." Philippe was quite amused by the idea of working on a more pop-oriented project and offered to write the lyrics. Thierry worked on other tracks for the future LP and asked some friends to write more lyrics; Edouard Nono, visual artist, wrote the lyrics to "Mots"; Frédérique Lapierre wrote those of "Misty Mouse" and "Tu m'ennuies." It is her voice you hear on these two tracks and on the first version of "Polaroïd/Roman/Photo."

Later, Thierry settled down in the Anagramme recording studio to carry out acoustic sound recordings. However, when the sessions were over, the two musicians were not too happy with the results of Polaroïd/Roman/Photo - according to them, the tracks lacked "flamboyance." The two subsequently decided to record a new female voice with a professional singer, and the sound engineer Patrick Chevalot offered to mix the track in the Synthesis studio "so that it blows up."