Faust - Faust Is Last

Klangbad Records, 2010

According to the band, this will be their final release. Sad news, but what a way to go out! This album kills! If you dig experimental music at all this will fry your brain. I sure hope they continue touring and come back to Toronto again. Saw them last year and it was disappointing. Not cuz of the band, but the venue. Just as the band was getting noisier and more intense the equipment shorted out (No doubt because the sound system couldn't handle Faust's all-consuming noise). It happened twice and while the techs were trying to fix it the first time we were treated to some great acoustic Faust (like the Sad Skinhead). then they fixed it again and started with Rainy Day Sunshine Girl and just as it was building to a profound wall of sound the sound cut out again and Faust called it quits and I wanted to cry. Please come back Faust!

"If faust announce a last record after 40 years then it might be a good idea to open up the ears, especially when the cover art is one big reference to their first record. The x-rayed "fist" appears again, this time with the fingers slightly more opened. 40 years lie between the two records. 40 years of many different line ups, record companies, financial disasters, artistic failures and successes. Whatever can happen to a band has happened to Faust. In that sense they are not an unusual group of musicians. What is unusual is that each project, each record, each concert over the last 40 years has been different. On the very first record they made clear (on clear vinyl) that they were in it for destruction. "All you need is love" and "Satisfaction" symbolically were set fire to. That same fire you will hear on this new & last Faust record. The circle will be closed by more circular music. A music that seems to come out of nowhere, sonic descriptions rather than songs. Timeless and not rooted in specific places and/or traditions. Maybe influenced by Cage's idea of chance, Dada, cut-ups, Sun Ra's free jazz organ playing and the second attempt after the German-American Monks to represent "a rock group as total artwork". faust in 1970 and in 2010 sound aggressive and 100 percent oriented towards the future. There is not a glimpse of nostalgia in "Faust is last". Turn up the volume and listen to this first, new and last Faust record very loud!" - Klangbad Records
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