Tag: 2005

FAUST + Ectogram – Newcastle Academy 2, UK, 8th November 2005

So, my first encounter with the group Ectogram. Two dueling psychedelic guitars underpinned by a powerful drummer and complimented by the vocals of one of those guitarists, Ann. It’s always tricky to judge a support group, particularly when you haven’t heard them before and are all hyped up for the main act, but still Ectogram managed to impress. I am going to have to track down some of their stuff.

As for Faust, well, I never! Where to begin? I go to gigs every week. Hell, this week I’ve got 4 gigs written into my diary. I have been a regular gig goer for around 15 years now. The point I’m trying to make, basically, is that I have seen a thing or two in my time. I’m not wet behind the ears or easily impressed [2022 note – think I was insecure about being new to krautrock].

I state all this because at this gig, I was more than a bit impressed. A bit bloody gob-smacked would probably be the right turn of phrase here. I’d seen the first rehearsals from this line-up of Faust on the “Connections” DVD. I’d heard them on the “Collectif Met(z)” box set. I’d read all about how good the tour was from the e-mails on the Faust List. I even knew the set lists for every previous night of the tour. I’d even heard about what went on in the stage show.

Somehow, though, even though I knew all about it, Faust still managed to completely surprise me. Maybe it’s the way they lulled me into a false sense of serenity by opening up with a lush, soothing rendition of “Listen To The Fish”. They followed that up with “It’s A Bit Of A Pain” and suddenly, Zappi’s no longer holding back and neither is Jean-Hervé. The new members Olivier and Amaury fuse naturally into the sound, adding a distinct edge of their own.

After breathing fresh new life into that old classic, Jean-Hervé begins to shout at us that “this is not music” and suddenly, he hops off the stage and unveils an ironing board at the front. He switches on the iron and persuades an audience member to take off their shirt for ironing. Suddenly, Zappi comes marching to the front of the stage with a load of metal bars and begins to hurl them off the stage onto the metal plate at the front of the crowd. A plate I’d been standing on until I stood back to give Jean-Hervé room to hop off the stage. Luckily, they’re fairly light pipes or I’m too enraptured by the whole thing to feel any pain when they bounced off and into me.

I’m feeling all cool and laid-back, when suddenly “oh fuck!” he’s wielding a bloody big lead pipe above his head and I start to leg it into the crowd when I realise he’s just banging it above his head and isn’t going to lob it at me. That sense of calm and safety is soon shattered when he begins using an angle grinder and fires sparks into the crowd. The security guard’s faces are a complete picture – horror, fear and helplessness as they shout into their headsets and walkie-talkies. One of them later on tells me not to dance near to the iron. Come on! They’re an avante-garde rock ‘n’ roll band! They may throw pipes off stage and shower us in sparks but they’re not going to leave the iron plugged in! They’re not barbarians!

By now, a big smile is stretched across the faces of nearly all the crowd (if not the venue staff) and then they only go and play “The Sad Skinhead”. After that, Zappi conducts a small group of beautiful young ladies [2022 note – single, much?] for a rendition of “I’ve Got My Car And My TV” and dancing like mad seems the only sensible option.

Then, Jean-Hervé begins the discussion: “Rund Ist Schön” when suddenly the local firemen’s marching band ambush us from behind and come to the front to jam with Faust. After this, you begin to wonder what next? An alien choir? What comes next is a fantastic selection of songs, mainly new which meld Zappi’s heavy but oh-so-danceable drumming with some head-banging guitar thrash-outs and heavy wildness. We get a blazing version of “Mamie Is Blue”, another marching band jam and some big smiles.

Of course, the crowd wouldn’t let them get away without an encore and very loud applause dragged them out to finish us all off with “It’s A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl”. How could you sum this night up? It wasn’t a gig, it was a happening, a special event and something that will stay with me for a very long time [2022 note – it certainly has and not just because it came out on DVD in the ‘Faust in Autumn’ set]. Blimey!

 

 

Huge thanks to Peter Kidd, David Enzor and to Emma @ AMG.

TUSSLE – KLING KLANG

TUSSLE – “KLING KLANG” (Smalltown Supersound)

What if……..

What if Danny Krivit did a disco re-edit of Neu!
What if Can’s disco experiments had really worked? A fusion of the Can sound with the finest disco rhythms?
What if the classic early P.I.L. line-up had been on E instead of speed?

What if? What if?

Here is the answer – “Kling Klang” an album by San Francisco act Tussle. These boys raise the kind of joyous noise you would associate with the likes of Can, Faust and Neu! and set it to a live but very deep, disco rhythm. Sometimes, the results veer close to the classic Public Image Ltd sound. The bass gets funky, percussion gets a good smack-down while the guitar and electronics get into the kosmische territories. Despite the association with two musical movements of the 70’s, Tussle manage to sound fresh, mainly thanks to the overwhelmingly live sound. In fact, for all their obvious orgins, Tussle manage to sound thorougly modern. The nearest likeness would have to be !!! (pronounced chk-chk-chk).

The version of the album that I have is the European one which comes with some great bonus tracks and remixes. Perfect for alternative dancefloors, krauty-parties, half-converts, dancefloor weirdos, bass-lovers, percussion-heads, Jah Wobble fans, hypeactive Kosmische fans and punk-funk lovers.

Faust in a box

It’s taken me a while to get round to reviewing this box set, as it takes a lot of getting your head around. The first disc is more rehearsals from the new Faust [JHP, Zappi, Olivier & Amaury]. The second disc is a live album they recorded in Paris in 1996 with the same line-up under the name Collectif Met(z). Disc 3 features solo material from Jean-Hervé Peron and Zappi. The fourth disc is an 8 minute VCD of footage from after the 1996 concert.

Let’s begin in the present with disc one – the modern Faust. Sometimes heavy drone-rock, sometimes lighter and more song-based. These are not studio recordings but more recordings of the new Faust in rehearsal (like the excellent Connections DVD). Someone once described acoustic performances as being “a band naked” but in many ways, these raw, primal sessions are the closest music gets to naked. Just a band playing and something in the corner recording. Not that for a minute you should associate such abrasive sound for anything substandard. It takes a certain confidence in your art to release your music in such an unrefined format, a confidence which recently led to the band Arctic Monkeys selling out large venues in the UK before they’d even released a single thanks to their demos being all over the internet. We’ve all heard great songs with massive production, now the public’s thirst for something new craves great songs without any studio trickery. That’s disc one for you.

Disc two is 6 solo tracks from Zappi and 3 from Jean-Hervé. All the tracks on here are playful and quite laid back. As you can imagine, Zappi’s pieces are heavy on rhythm, while Jean-Hervé’s are more song based. JHP’s epic “Rund ist Schoen” is a 15-minute
meditation from somewhere outdoors in London. His other 2 tracks “Melancholy on Three Strings” and “Decisions” are acoustic, laments sung in his mother tongue (French). Zappi comes up with some great songs and some equally great song titles: “Mufflet” and “Stumpling” both being delicious words that I have never heard before.

The third disc is the 1996 concert. This is a heavier, more firey kind of a beast. In fact, it’s fair to say this is a sonic assault. Brutal, provocative and, of course, utterly enjoyable. Here Faust (or Collectif Met(z) as they were known at the time) go full-on. Things unknown roar and rumble, while JHP takes to the microphone like he was summoning demons. The rhythms are heavy, driving, skull-crushing and immense. The noise is hypnotic.The sound is intense. This is a chugging beast of a concert. No old songs are played, although JHP does sing “Mamie Is Blue” at one point, but the music is so different it seems more like a nod to the original than a reworking. It sounds like the audience don’t know what to make of it – the crowd noise could be rapture or could be rage. It’s probably both.

The 4th and final disc is simply an 8 minute video filmed as the live set on disc 3 ended. One of the tracks from the set plays while over the top we hear the audience’s joy and confusion. As the camera darts around the smoke-filled venue and then does close-ups on people talking a language that I don’t speak, the effect is a disorientating as being hit repeatedly in the face with an invisible brick.

It’s a cracking little box, full of magic and indispensable for the Faust fan.

Remembering John Peel

I have just finished this book and I am left feeling very emotional by it. How can I begin to explain how important John Peel was to me? As a lover of music, his show educated me so much and he opened my eyes to so many styles of music throughout my life. As a broadcaster, you knew he was being his own self. As a person, he seemed to me incredibly endearing, humble and witty.

I still remember where I was when I heard the news. I was in a car with Boo, who I work with in my day job at Alive magazine, delivering our rather fine gig guide to Saltaire, near Bradford (little did I know at the time that this was where his wife Sheila was from). My Ryan Adams tape had just ended, so I pressed eject and caught the last few moments of a song before Colin Murray announced that they had some very sad news. I was surprised at just how much it upset me. I’d always been a bit disdainful of the public displays of grief over the death of Princess Diana, but there I was utterly shocked and upset over the death of a man I never knew.

So, this is the book John was working on when he died. What can I say? John’s part of the book is pure John. You can hear his voice in your head as he tells you his life story. It is everything you would want it to be – moving, engrossing, unpretentious and very funny. His widow Sheila and their children all got together to research the rest of his life and then Sheila finished the book off. My heart goes out to his family for this and I must express my strong gratitude for what must have been a very difficult labour of love.

No-one else could have finished this book other than Sheila and John’s dry sense of humour and skill with an anecdote appear to have rubbed off on her very well. In fact, this approach benefits the book, as John managed to cover most of his life before Sheila and getting a different point of view for the second half somehow adds to the books feeling of authenticity.

Never does the book get boring at any point. It is touching, sad, very funny and full of wonderful anecdotes. Anything other than a wonderful book would, quite frankly, have been unacceptable but between them, John & Sheila have managed to deliver the book that had to be written and that we needed to read. Now all we need is that young buck John always feared would suddenly turn up and take his place to finally materialise [2020 note – still waiting].

Faust “Connections” DVD

A new Faust has been born, fusing Zappi & JHP from the original line-up with Ulan Bator members Amaury Cambuzat and Olivier Manchion. This DVD allows you to witness the birth of this new line-up. We begin with the plane containing Amaury & Olivier landing and then you get their first session. Unrehearsed, spontaneous music with no overdubs.

It’s a brave move for a band to release a DVD of their all-new line-ups first ever session but, let’s face it, they all know how to play and the results are nothing short of exciting. 6 new, spontaneous songs that let you know a brand new Faust is coming.

As you would expect, the visuals are as disorientating and entertaining as the music. Sometimes words scroll across the top of screen. At times they seem to be translations of the lyrics, at others times they appear like invocations on the themes of the lyrics.

Zappi really is a hell of a drummer and Jean-Hervé the perfect foil to his power. These 2 have a musical bond built up over years, so it’s incredible to hear the new members finding their place in the music immediately.

As fun as it is fascinating, “Connections” is a very well produced DVD and definitely one that I’ll be watching again and again.

OOIOO – GOLD & GREEN

OOIOO (pronounced oh-oh-eye-oh-oh linguistics fans) is the all-girl quartet headed up by Yoshimi of The Boredoms (also immortalised in song by The Flaming Lips). However, don’t expect quirky pop-punk like Shonen Knife or quirky pop-rock ‘n’ roll a-la The 5, 6, 7, 8’s. OOIOO seem hell bent on pushing the boat out sonically and trashing any kind of genre convention. What is their music? There are little hints of post-punk, krautrock, post-rock and things not yet invented. With OOIOO the music leads the way, with vocals seemingly casually added on, like just another instrument taking part in a shared creative process. If I’m making it all sound arty, laboured or pretentious, then I am doing OOIOO a great disservice, as this album bounds along with energy, joy, innovation and is very danceable for a left-of-centre rock album thanks to some awesome drumming. “Green And Gold” is great fun to listen to and will surprise and delight in equal amounts.

AOKI Takamasa + Tujiko Noriko – 28

“28” is a collaboration of intuitively beautiful music. It is a marriage of the electronic and the voice. This album holds a warmth and soulfulness rarely encountered in digital electronica. The gorgeous, haunting vocals of Noriko are treated too at times with stuttering, layering and subtle effects. Digital funk underpins the laid-back soundscapes they create. It’s a wonderful collaboration that builds a whole world between your speakers (or in the space between your headphones). The musical marriage of cutting edge digital sound and the human voice makes a match in heaven.

LUNZ “LUNZ/REINTERPRETATIONS”`

Lunz is a collaboration between Grammy nominated composer Tim Story and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. For anyone not yet familiar with Rodelius contributions to German cosmic music, I’d recommend Cluster “Cluster II” and Harmonia “Musik Von Harmonia” as excellent starting points.

However, enough of the past, let us move on to the present. What does Lunz sound like? The music is dominated by the piano with subtle, analogue electronic accompaniment which at times serves the same purpose as an orchestra playing some of Gorecki’s more minimalist symphonies. Not until “Wobbly Flu Twilight” do the electronics begin to raise their head a little higher and take the lead. By the time we get to “Akimbo” they’re dominating the experience, rumbling along like some kind of classical music meets dub.

U2’s The Edge [2022 note: I was quoting him to try and give the music mainstream mass appeal] described this album as “A beautiful train ride of a record” but to me it’s less of trip and more of a story. It sounds like the soundtrack to some fantastic film, a journey of inner discovery and realisation like “American Beauty” but with a rural setting. The album “Lunz” has a great beauty and a gentle strength that overwhelms. This is not the sound of a man chasing past glories but a powerful and fresh piece of work, packed with inspiration and charm.

Although in some territories, “Lunz” and “Reinterpretations” are sold separately, in others they come as a double CD pack. “Reinterpretations” sees a varied array of remixes. Forget any notions of “dance remixes”, for all these reworkings seek to represent the music in a new guise but none of them seem to be trying to ‘work the dancefloor’. Instead, the remixes seem to be coming more from the leftfield, with people like former Fridge member Adem keeping large elements of the original and adding his own vocals, as does Half Cousin. Astrid Kane chips in a great remix which adds in Lloyd Cole on vocals and Manchester’s current finest Elbow also do their own remix. One of the most striking things about these remixes is how faithful they all seem to be. All of the songs are still recognisable, have a similar spirit but each one has the remixes own personality stamped onto it.

2022 note: the Bandcamp embed below is for a recent reissue of just the original album but remastered and with bonus tracks