Achwghâ Ney Wodei

French experimental music collective

The members of Achwghâ Ney Wodei (Françoise Boitière: drums, keyboards, vocals ; Didier ‘Higgins’ Copp: bass, percussion, vocals ; Eric ‘Riton’ Sterenfield: guitar, keyboards, percussion, vocals ; Phillippe ‘Wodi’ Royer: percussion, trumpet, bass, vocals) initially met at the Paris Tolbiac University in the mid-1980s, were they also befriended ex-punksters Lucrate Milk. They soon got associated with the artists community squatting in a disused Parisian hospital (Hôpital Bretonneau, hence the name of the squat: L’Hôpital Ephémère). The large squatted building provided visual artists, musicians, actors and writers with working studios, rehearsal space and a very favorable context for artistic experimentalism. Many punk and arty bands were created there between 1985 and 1997, including Bérurier Noir, Lofofora, FFF, Mano Negra, Les Négresses Vertes. Achwghâ Ney Wodei published their first 2 cassettes in 1986. The first was the legendary plaster model of a Citroën DS enclosing the cassette. Their last release was ‘Triptyque’, a 3×12” produced on New International Recordings by Simon Crabb in 1987, whose unique, handmade cover art was made by 10 French artists including Xavier Veilhan and Pierre Bismuth.