First up is "La Plage", layers of synth sounds creating a strange
atmosphere, eventually joined by the sound of a woman laughing and vocalizing
wordlessly and gasping. Then there's another female voice singing
a melody kind of far off in the distance while the electronic noises
take the foreground.
Blues-rock electric guitar with drumas and upright bass start off "Rugby".
At first it's sort of a meandering jam with lots of reverb on the guitar
but then it unexpectedly starts an energetic groove with lots of
synth freak out noises and some weird male vocals, maybe in French, maybe
electronically manipulated.
More weird synth noises introduce "Theme Grave", which also
has a keening, siren-like line running through it. Eventually
there's a sort of bass line played on what sounds like one of the
synths, organ plays a sort of melodic thing and there's a smattering of drums.
"Ballade en Velo" is a normal, easygoing pop song with a familiar
structure and instrumentation, very laid back and mellow. This piece isn't
by Besombes but by bandmate Alain Legros. There's some fuzzed out electric
guitar in it too.
We return to ambient layers of synth sounds in "Les Diapos", which
also has some stabbing keyboard statements and various other weird
stuff and vocalizations scattered around. It's not too far off from
some of Sun Ra's stuff.
Hearing an organ play a familiar descending harmonic line in "Ceremonie"
is definitely a contrast. Eventually added to it is kind of an electronic
wind sound and then a vocal choir.
After that comes "Jaune", an acid rock freak-out with pounding
drums, groovy bass line and just kind of whatever happening along
with it, mostly from keybaords and synthesizers.
"PJF 261" starts with organ playing freely, snippets of dialogue
and then a lone female voice singing a slow, soaring but descending line
while fragmented echoes of unintelligible voices whiz by, along with
occasional spasms of keyboard playing. It's another one that sounds like it
might have been influenced by Sun Ra.
The interestingly named "Raggacountry" starts with sitar
and low drones. It eventually finds a country blues-ish
groove, with acoustic slide guitar, but keeps the sitar going.
I guess the title merges country with raga, despite the "ragga" spelling.
The A side concludes with "Boogimmick", an explosive blues rock
number with electric guitar soloing all the way and a much higher
energy level than anything else so far.
Side B starts with "Hache 06", which itself begins with electric
bass laying down a groove, soon to be joined by drums, for another
kind of trippy jazz/rock number. At first it's really
a feature for organ and other keyboards but then there's plenty
of electric guitar in there.
"Apple de Libra" and "Pursuit" are two short cues, the first
being a synth drone under female vocals, one singing an ethereal
line, the other speak-singing in, I guess, French—I hear the word
"Libra" a lot—before getting stomped on by organ. The second
has reerb percussion, more electronic, lower-pitched synth
sounds and what sounds like creaking floorboards, before
bass and drums come in with a groove that supports some
keyboard soloing, which might include clavinet.
The record then takes us to "La Ville", which starts
with drums and quickly finds kind of an old-fashioned
and easy-going groove. There's a lot going on here, sitar
playing and various other fuzzy and floating sounds as
well as maybe tape manipulation or other kinds of musique concrète.
"Les Cosmonautes" is a very spacy cue, with some high-pitched
synthesizer swoops that are maybe meant to sound like a theremin,
thick blocks of sound from the organ and ethereal female vocals
flying around. Later on there are some real space invaders-like
sounds that come crashing in.
An organ drone, keyboard freak outs, a distant female voice
frenetically uttering words and sounds: that's "Avecandista".
The record ends with "Tis a Song", another more familiar
rock/pop song, this one even with English-language vocals!
It's somewhat enervated, to be honest. After all the weirdness
and go-for-it rock/jazz jamming, it's a bit of an anticlimax.