A new book by Australian musician and journalist Ian Thompson, titled Synths, Sax & Situationists, sheds light on France’s overlooked rock revolution of May 1968. While the student protests that shook the country are well documented, the music that emerged from the movement remains little known outside France. Thompson stumbled upon a box of old French prog-rock vinyl on a trip to Paris and was captivated by the inventive, politically charged sounds of bands such as Magma and Gong.
Magma, a collective that sang in an invented language called Kobaïan, created a genre they named Zeuhl, blending jazz fusion, symphonic rock and neoclassical music. Gong, co-founded by Daevid Allen of Soft Machine, explored space-rock with heavy synthesisers. Other bands like Red Noise embedded anti-police slogans in their songs, while Ame Son combined pop arrangements with improvisational flute, drums and explosive breaks. Thompson described the discovery as akin to the excitement of finding Krautrock in the 1980s, calling the scene ‘truly subterranean’.
The musical revolution was fuelled by frustration with the dominance of Anglophone rock. French musicians of the 1950s and 1960s often produced carbon copies of American and British acts, such as Johnny Hallyday or Les Variations, imitating Elvis or the Rolling Stones. The new generation sought original inspiration, rejecting what they saw as the fascist police-state apparatus of the Gaullist regime and the influence of the Algerian war, which had politicised a generation.
Key influences came from black American jazz, with Miles Davis a frequent presence in Paris, along with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. Experimental rock acts like Frank Zappa, Soft Machine and Captain Beefheart, as well as minimalist composers La Monte Young and Terry Riley, also shaped the sound. Bands such as Crium Delirium, founded by the Magal brothers, played in jazz clubs like Le Chat Qui Pêche before meeting future Magma members Klaus Blasquiz and Christian Vander.
The May 1968 protests saw many band members take part in street battles, with some art students from Beaux-Arts printing the iconic posters that declared ‘Beauty is on the streets’. Thompson’s book argues that this underground scene, though largely forgotten, had a decisive influence on later French successes such as Air and Daft Punk, cementing its legacy in modern music.
