Pôle Records

Pôle started in 1975 as an album by Pôle (2), 762244, and a Pôle Records label run by Paul Putti and his wife Evelyne Henri. Pôle (2) released two albums produced by Putti that year, who then focused on the Pôle Records label after that. Putti sold the label and masters to Tapioca in 1977 and started a porn magazine as his next business venture. Supposedly the records were marketed door to door by college students. This probably oversimplifies things to sound structured and organized when it was more likely a loose network where batches of the releases were distributed through a social network similar to how underground newspapers and drugs circulated back then. While label only existed from 1975-1977 it released some influential experimental electronic music by many French musicians and it documents a scene as varied and interesting as the Berlin krautrock era. The NWW List of influences cites a number of the releases on this label, and another famous electronic band taking the name as an homage has helped build a cult following around the label and name Pôle. Pôle (2) and/or the label sometimes gets described as a loose collective of French experimental/electronic artists. The name was also used prominently on covers of other releases on the label, making it appear that releases by Henri Roger and Philippe Besombes/Jean-Louis Rizet are Pôle (2) 'band' projects when it's better to look at Pôle as a label branding in that context. Besombes has stated that the name was used on the cover without consent from him or Rizet on the double LP titled 565217, which seems to contradict web pages suggesting Besombes ran the label. He ran a recording studio with Rizet around then, and sold Mellotrons, and the two releases under his name were some of the best selling records on this label. The Besombes/Rizet record sold around 20,000 copies as a 'best seller', suggesting that most releases on the label saw less than 20K copies pressed.