I needed to look at the Discogs catalogue to remind myself when exactly I got this next record – Acintya – La Cité Des Dieux Oubliés. This must have been on a day when I was digging online through the Ricardo offers in search of something rare and interesting in 2023. I am not that big of a collector and this feeling of wanting to find something in a sea of nothing is one that I share with the more successful ones.
Undoubtedly, the only record I have that is made by a band from Nancy, France. The boy from 1986 that I once was would have immediately offered the only known fact about this place in France: that’s where Michel Platini started his professional career in 1970s. Acintya too started in 1970s and remains a progressive rock fan possible interest, not a music fan’s necessity.
The name of the band (Achnitya in English) is the name of the supreme god of Indonesian Hinduism, particularly revered on the island of Bali and equivalent to the metaphysical concept of Brahman of Indian Hinduism (thank you Wikipedia).
The record is the only one the band ever made. Two reviews I was able to find note the eclecticism of the compositions, influences of the classical and electronic music, a great display of virtuosity from the violinist Philippe Clesse and the keyboardist Philippe De Canck and rate it at about 3 and 3.5 out of five.
I would say that this is the kind of record I might play when stumbling upon it late at night, completely oblivious to what the music sounds like but willing to play it just because it will take me back to this evening when I was digging through Ricardo’s virtual crates in search of something curious.
