LIVE '83

French ensemble NOETRA was first and foremost the creative vehicle of composer and guitarist Jean Lapouge. Active in various line-ups in the late 1970's and early 1980's, Noetra was the band that almost made it. ECM were initially interested in signing them, but as more material was produced the interest declined, and while the band did carry on until 1985 they never managed to release anything when active. Enter Musea Records, which some years later managed to convince Lapouge that the material recorded back then was worth releasing on CD. At the time of writing the end result of this process has been that material for three full length productions have been salvaged from Lapouge's archives.

Noetra's self described swan song, while somewhat more limited in instrumentation and due to that overall scope when compared to the previous two releases, is still the most interesting of the three archival albums containing material by this band. Generally better recording quality elevates the total experience a notch, and the performance by all instrumentalists is quite excellent. To my mind, this album comes across as the best one to explore if you want to get familiar with Noetra, and while that may be given recommendations go out to fans of chamber rock and jazz rock, with the former crowd arguably the ones who'll find this production to be most to their interest.