Thierry Müller, the French musician, photographer and graphic designer initiated the Ruth project. As early as 1982, a first version of the track “Polaroïd/Roman/Photo” emerged. “I wanted to write a piece to make the girls dance and make fun of the boys. I plugged a small handmade clock on my Farfsa organ as a sequencer. I had a small Roland synth-guitar, I put the organ in it and that’s how it started.
Philippe Doray, a big name of French experimental music, is amused by the idea of working on a more pop project and offers to write the lyrics. Thierry works on other tracks for the future LP and asks some friends to write other lyrics: Edouard Nono, visual artist, writes the lyrics of “Mots”, Frédérique Lapierre those of “Misty Mouse” and “Tu m’ennuies”.
The album was finally released in 1985 on Paris Album, a small independent label but barely sells 50 copies. In 2004, two DJs Marc Colin and Ivan Smagghe discover the track “Polaroïd/ Roman/ Photo” and decide to exhume it from oblivion. They release it on a compilation called ‘So Young But So Cold: Underground French Music 1977 – 1983’ (Tigersushi) and then Born Bad Records includes it on the ‘BIPPP – French Synth- Wave 1979/85’ compilation in 2008. Thanks to them, the track and the album start a new life, which sees several limited edition (and now highly expensive) represses coming out between 2010 and 2015.