Paris (AFP)

Ina is making noise: far from the cliché of sleepy archives, the National Audiovisual Institute, among all its activities, publishes records, nuggets from the past or original creations, like that of the electro ferryman Arnaud Rebotini.

In the buildings of Bry-sur-Marne, in the Paris region, on the sound restoration floor, no technicians in white coats.

Ian Debeerst, 27, soundgarden grunge t-shirt under his shirt, handles a 1946 78s. The beginnings of radio are captured on this type of medium.

And it is there that sometimes nestle rare or unpublished recordings of myths - Serge Gainsbourg, Barbara, Jacques Brel, Ray Charles, etc - which will experience a second life on vinyl, a new version of Ina since 2017 in association with the start-up Diggers Factory.

The circuit to get there is full of surprises.

Ian Debeerst begins by cleaning an old record with ... washing up liquid.

The young man is a "pure product of Ina" - sound engineering studies passed in alternation at the Institute - as he describes himself for AFP.

It does not operate only on 78 rpm records used from 1933 to 1958, but also from magnetic tapes that appeared in the 1950s.

After the system D sequence, head to the office-laboratory-recording studio with cutting-edge equipment for the rest of the restoration and digitization.

- A song is called "Chloroquine" -

At the beginning of October, Ina published a 33 rpm record of 13 songs by Yves Montand, performed between 1948 and 1953, in concert or on the radio, including two recorded before their discographic transpositions.

But the National Audiovisual Institute is not just a treasure chest of yesteryear.

Ina is publishing this Friday a set of four vinyls (limited edition of 1,000 copies) of "This is quarantine", a work by Arnaud Rebotini born during the first confinement in spring.

The buccaneer of French electro had released every Friday on the networks a song related to the health crisis (one of the titles is "Chloroquine").

Each song was illustrated by a clip fed from the archives of Ina, like those people filmed in the 1950s with gas masks.

"It is a project in reaction to this period when we had our morale in the socks", explains to AFP the musician, who involved in this adventure other accomplices for remixes.

- "Heritage-concert" -

"+ Chloroquine +, it's the most rock'n'roll song, the one where I make fun of people who had an opinion on everything, I had become a little voyeur in front of the talk shows of the TV channels", s' amuses Rebotini.

And in "Minimize contact between people", he mixes musical and literary influences, "between Kraftwerk and Orwell".

The rest should have happened on stage, with the public, since a concert, in partnership with Ina and Fip, was to be held at the end of November at the Mutualité in Paris, before the reconfinement led to the cancellation.

Because this is another activity of Ina, partner or designer and organizer of musical events.

There is, among others, the Inasound festival, dedicated to electronic cultures.

Last year, Ina was also an actor and driving force behind the concert tribute to Alain Bashung at the Grand Rex in Paris.

"This is a new concept of a heritage concert, which features a cult person of song, reinterpreted through archives (here projected on the big screen) and other artists live; in this case, Salvatore Adamo , Jane Birkin, Feu! Chatterton, or Radio Elvis, etc., in all about twenty artists, all generations together, ”says AFP Bertrand Maire, director of communication at Ina and producer of Inasound.

And to open up other perspectives: "We can do it with people who have left, but we could very well do it with figures who are still there".

© 2020 AFP