La Féline
Tarbes
★★★
KWAÏDAN. CD/DL/LP
Erudite French investigation of a personal history’s psycho-geography.
Agnès Gayraud grew up in Tarbes, in the south-west of France. For her fifth LP as La Féline, she’s returned there. In Paris and as a philosopher, she’s complemented the music with writing for Libération newspaper, generating a lengthy academic bibliography and lecturing at California’s Stanford University. Her 2016 paper Are There Any Skills Required To Listen To Pop Music? was followed by the 2019 book The Dialectic Of Pop. Tarbes the LP, then, is a form of French-language musical memoir with an emphasis on discovering what is still tangible from her past. The self-analysis is framed by music akin to a vaporous filtration of Can’s Future Days allied with an Air-esque funkiness. While unsurprisingly deliberate, an overriding warmth enfolds. In essence, herewith a Gallic counterpoint to Saint Etienne’s similarly contemplative last LP I’ve Been Trying To Tell You.