French post-industrial group · founded in Nancy in 1986 by Thierry Mérigout and Vincent Hachet, both students at the Architecture School of Nancy, with Laurent Petitgand joining a year later · six albums between 1986 and 1993 on the French label Permis de Construire · a punk attitude refined into post-industrial collage, the rough material given musicality through guitars, piano and classical instruments · largely influenced by the Surrealists and Situationists
Geins't Naït was founded in Nancy in 1986 by Thierry Mérigout and Vincent Hachet, both students at the city's architecture school, with Laurent Petitgand joining the following year. Across 1986 to 1993 the group released six albums on the French label Permis de Construire, whose name, "building permit", nods to the founders' training. The work has a recognisable shape: rough pieces issuing from a punk attitude, which Petitgand refined into post-industrial collage by adding guitars, piano and classical instruments, giving the noise a fragile musicality.
The group is routinely compared to Einstürzende Neubauten, Coil and Test Dept, but it is not pure classic industrial; its closest affinities are with the Surrealist and Situationist currents that ran through the French scene as a whole. On its own, that comparison would not be enough to file the group. It is the existence of the French scene around it, the Nancy pole alongside Vivenza's Rhône-Alpes and the Parisian hubs of Le Syndicat and Pacific 231, that gives Geins't Naït its place.
The Bureau files Geins't Naït as the French scene's Nancy node: a provincial pole in the national network, brought back into view by the Editions Gravats archive series of the late 2010s and held here as part of the scene rather than as an isolated act.
Scene. Filed under the French scene at S·010 as its Nancy node.
Peers. A provincial pole alongside Vivenza in the Rhône-Alpes and the Parisian hubs Le Syndicat and Pacific 231; adjacent to Étant Donnés.
Comparison points. Routinely measured against Einstürzende Neubauten, Coil and Test Dept, all filed, though the group sits to one side of pure industrial.
Forms. A collage-and-tape practice near the post-industrial and power-electronics field rather than at any single form.
Geins't Naït is the French scene's Nancy node: an architecture-school group that turned a punk attitude into fragile post-industrial collage across six albums on Permis de Construire, and was brought back into view decades later by reissue. It earns its file not by comparison to the German and English acts it resembles, but as a pole in the French national network the archive files at S·010.
Filed at Tier II and cross-filed under the France scene, the file is held open against the continuing reissue of the catalogue.