Bureau B Announces Limited, 50th Anniversary Edition of Heldon's It's Always Rock 'n' Roll (Heldon III)

Third album from French spacerock electro combo - hand numbered, limited edition light blue double vinyl and limited to 500 copies.

May 22, 2025

Hamburg, Germany, May 22, 2025 — Bureau B announces a forthcoming limited, 50th anniversary edition of Heldon's It's Always Rock 'n' Roll (Heldon III). Masterminded by Richard Pinhas, the French spacerock electro combo lays another stone in their sonic mosaic, with synths, drones, fuzz and trippy improvisations. This limited anniversary edition of 500 copies is hand numbered and presented in light blue double vinyl.

As their darkest work, there’s something wicked happening on It’s Always Rock and Roll. Richard Pinhas’ essential attack of searing guitar and space-bound synthesizer didn’t change radically after the first two Heldon albums, 1974’s Electronique Guerilla and 1975’s Allez-Teia. But there’s dark energy coursing through this double album, a chilly aura that makes even the quietest pieces shiver with tension. “At this time, I tried to turn Heldon into a darker band,” Pinhas admits. “But dark is not negative to me.”

The darkness of It’s Always Rock and Roll is more about exploring what’s hidden and overturning convention — about diving beneath bright surfaces to find something more mysterious. If It’s Always Rock and Roll stands up in Heldon’s catalog, perhaps it’s due to expansion - both in the sense of big ideas and lengthy durations. Most tracks last over seven minutes, and two are side-covering epics. “I think the length of a track is part of the creation of the track,” says Pinhas. “There are imperatives. You can do something very complex with a lot of events in four minutes, and then some other things need to be done very slowly. You have to do the length that it demands.”

“We recorded this after having met with Philip K. Dick in California for two days,” recalls Pinhas. “It was such an event for a 23-year old; he was to me one of the last real prophets. We talked about Jung, we talked about a lot of things. Maybe this encounter gave birth to all of Heldon Third.” So the sci-fi master spawned a dark audio creation to rival his own work. Like the Heldon albums that precede it, It’s Always Rock and Roll is undoubtedly Pinhas’ baby. But its depth-probing sounds earned it a godfather, too.

Tracklist
A1 Ics Machinique
A2 Cotes De Cachalot A La Psylocybine A3 Mechammment Rock
A4 Cocaine Blues

B1 Aurore

C1 Virgin Swedish Blues
C2 Ocean Boogi
C3 Zind Destruction (Bouillie Blues)

D1 Doctor Bloodmoney

For more information on this and other Bureau B releases, please visit https://www.bureau-b.com/releases.

About Bureau B
Bureau B is platform for exciting varieties of electronic, free-spirited music. The spectrum ranges from pop to avant-garde, and the label has amassed an impressive catalogue of reissues and new productions in recent years, including classics from the genre of electronic music in the 1970s and early 1980s popularly classified as Krautrock (Cluster, Roedelius, Moebius, Plank, Schnitzler), alongside new recordings by such formative artists as Faust, Kreidler, Roedelius, Tietchens, Moebius, to name just a few. Bureau B is based in Hamburg, Germany.