The first solo album by
Besombes
,
Libra
, goes all over the place as
and company go wild on many different musical styles, from
space rock
and
free jazz
to
pop
, though always with an underlying
avant-garde
veneer. Whereas
"Poursuite"
"La Ville,"
with passages of
punctuated by abrupt changes and spikes of feedback, might point to early
Faust
, and the sitar and ethnic percussion on
"Raggacountry"
echo some of the more experimental stuff from
Dzyan
or
Between
, another track,
"Ballade en Velo,"
takes a totally different direction by starting off like
Sonny & Cher
's
"I've Got You Babe."
Fortunately, that piece veers off into something else, but the same can't be said for the clunky
song that closes the disc,
"'Tis a Song."
Otherwise, the rest of the album is a wild, eccentric roller-coaster ride through many musical territories, with
' tweaked-out synth going from drones to shards of disruptive
noise
, lots of guest musicians, even women screaming or moaning on a few tracks, and a lot of unpredictability. The whole mess is held together by a
psychedelic
strangeness and unconventional juxtapositions, even when the music is more conventional, like the synth swoops that punctuate the
blues
riffing of
"Boogimmick."
~ Rolf Semprebon