Review by Rolf Semprebon
Potemkine was a French jazz-rock group and Foetus, from 1975, was the first of their three releases. The music is far closer to jazz than rock, with loose, free-flowing arrangements that are quite complex and plenty of solos for the guitar, electric piano, and violin. Several tracks have high-pitched vocals, where instead of conventional singing, the voice is used as another instrument, blending rhythmically with the rest of the sound and adding an almost spiritual quality to the music. Because of the vocals and other elements, their music sounds a little bit like Magma, and even more like the Magma-offshoot Zao, but Potemkine are a bit more relaxed than those bands. Several tracks like "Zed," "Hymne," and "Loolitt" offer flowing rhythms, and "Loolitt" gets almost aggressive with a wild electric guitar solo. "Laure" gets downright funky in spots, while "Cedille" is a far mellower workout with piano and acoustic guitar, and "Nuit sur le Golan" is more abstract and ambient. Foetus definitely sounds somewhat similar to other French groups that straddle the rock-jazz nexus, but the record offers enough originality and charm to make it distinct.