Best known for their tenure with Univers Zero, bassist Christian Genet and keyboardist Jean-Luc Plouvier also comprise two-thirds of the rock trio NINOVE, and Plouvier is pianist for MAXIMALIST. Here Genet and Plouvier present nineteen creepy electronic instrumentals recorded between 1985 and 1990 for Belgian dance theatre productions. Music-box minuets, Residential twitterings, tinny fanfares, and poignant, reflective interludes ensue in rapid succession, with the most effective pieces betraying a troubled, careworn nostalgia, a tenderness informed by a cultivated sense of tragedy. The Sadean aesthetic implicit in the title manifests itself in perverse touches such as the lash of a whip intruding on the Satiesque delicacy of 'Le Petit Jesus', from the play 'Juste Ciel'. Like most incidental music for film or theatre, much of 'Plaisirs et Penitences' seems fragmentary and underdeveloped in isolation from its visual complement. 'Plaisirs et Penitences' never approaches the funereal majesty of Univers Zero, but it's a provocative, if musically slight, reminder of the Belgian affinity for the threatening dark side that underlies our lives.