With "Tarbes", Agnès Gayraud (La Féline) reconfigures the cycle of life in reverse, with a kind of "return to the beginning", to her starting point: "in Tarbes, the city where I was born," she sings at the opening over a whistling drone, a sweet and frank melody, reminiscent of Tom Sawyer and America.
Thirteen tracks and as many adventures, "Tarbes" forms one of the most unsettling concept albums, recounting the formative years of a young woman in her hometown. It marks an era with its references, its emotional geography, and its landmarks, but it more generally leans towards a dialogue that shifts perspectives, spaces, and time between Agnès the narrator ("Don't go on the Quays of the Adour"), the confidante ("I danced lying down"), and the chronicler ("Everything must go"), playing with the poles of a very personal compass and the laws of attraction of a not-so-ordinary city.
