Label: Staubgold/Klangbad format: CD It would be difficult to predict the outcome of a collaboration between two such disparate musical outfits as these. I mean Hip-Hop and Krautrock, or whatever category Faust‘s music falls into these days, don’t suggest themselves immediately as likely partners. Or perhaps that’s just my perception. […]
Paul Donnelly
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall 27 March 2004 Described as a ‘brilliantly conceived concert’ by The New York Times this promised an evening of aural and visual assaults from across a century. It almost seemed too much to squeeze into one performance but, with the exception of the interval, all video/visual material […]
Label: 130701 Format: CD Richter’s work follows the releases by Set Fire To Flames and Sylvian Chauveau on FatCat’s 130701 imprint. In addition to the carefully wrought instrumental arrangements, he has chosen to use words sparsely. The work of Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz is integrated, along with parts of Kafka’s text […]
Label: Mute Format: 2CD Diamanda Galás has never been timid about exploring the darkness and horror of her chosen territories. She’s been doing it for some years and these latest recordings are no exception. Defixiones, Will and Testament is rooted in Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides carried out by Turkey […]
Label: Bomb Mitte Format: 7″ The first Faust record I owned was on vinyl and now they have another release on the shiny black stuff. This time its a limited edition 7-inch collaboration with Dälek and is a taster of an album which will appear later this year. Collaborations appear […]
Midnight Sun : Sounds Of Norway Unity Theatre, Liverpool 27 May 2003 It was with some trepidation that I went to Liverpool to see the 21st century’s version of the “package tour”. I’d been told, by someone whose opinion I trust, that most of the evening had been crap when […]
Label: 130701(Europe)/Alien8(North America) Format: 2CD Some bands and their sound are inextricably linked to their chosen recording environments. Can and Faust immediately come to mind with place and process being inextricably linked. So it is with this thirteen-piece Canadian collective. Their last CD Sings Reign Rebuilder derived much of its […]
Label: 4AD Format: CD I‘d heard of, but not heard, HNIA and that’s my loss. Still, you can’t be expected to hear everything, can you ? So this turned out to be one of those almost magical and rare recordings that upsets your expectations and surprises you in the best possible ways. It isn’t […]
Label: Tone Casualties Format: CD Can You Smell The Rain Between? was accompanied by “Enjoy ?” written on the press leaflet. Was I not meant to enjoy it ? Should I have endured an unpleasant hour or so ? The press release sets out to create an impression of something […]
Label: Thrill Jockey Format: CDS A five remix CD of a track from his album The Golden Age presents the man in full Seventies flow with lashings of Disco, Pop and Soul all decked out in fake chest wig, flares that defy measurement and cripplingly fashionable platform soles. The almost […]
Label: Snapper Format: 2CD Summoned by that shadowy entity, The Pongmaster, the Ozrics come to you live from the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, a gathering place of eldritch forces. This troupe of space minstrels are celebrating 20 years of tantric trucking. Their vehicle, laden with synthesisers, flutes and guitars, has been […]
Label: Staubgold Format: CD,LP I have to admit that now Faust are probably no longer a touring band I must rely solely on their studio recordings to feed a habit formed in the early 1970s. Their sound may have mutated from the early days to the vast, churning soundscapes of […]
Label: Klangbad Format: CD,LP If any band is ripe for some re-mixing, it is Faust. The elements that combine to form their music have already been through a process involving a stripping down, transformation and reformation both in the studio and in ‘live’ performance. To offer these elements to those […]
Label: Soleilmoon Format: 2CD Shifts is a solo project by Frans de Waard, ostensibly to produce ambient music using interwoven guitar patterns with various added effects and special recording techniques. In this collaboration the Shifts recordings have been taken and reprocessed by Asmus Tietchens and vidnaObmana . Each artist was […]
Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool 11 October 2001 Whatever combinations of players you find Keith Tippett in there is always an element of the spiritual, in a broad sense, in his playing. He says he plays to ‘move people’ and ‘remove them from chronological time’ and often that’s just what he […]
Label: 130701(UK, Europe)/Alien8(North America)/P-Vine(Japan) Format: CD,2LP This recording contains the result of collaborative jamming from musicians including members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Fly Pan Am and Exhaust. They set up in a house in Montreal, ‘an old falling down monstrosity’, and recorded solidly for five days more concerned with […]
Label: Clearspot Format: CD,LP This ‘trio’ are in fact a sextet, including the brothers Marcus and Micha Acher who enjoy playing with the conventions of jazz and introducing dub and electronics alongside improvisation. The first track, “United World Elevator”, is a good example, starting in a fairly minimalist style with […]
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts 25 February 2001 The present-day composer refuses to die, according to Edgard Varese, a man with legendary eyebrows. He also influenced the guy whose music an eager bunch of resurrectionists revived in the Paul McCartney Auditorium. The Liverpool based-band The Muffin Men and the classical […]