Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Faust – C’est Com… Com… Complique (Bureau B/Inertia)

Posted: 26 Jul 2009 07:06 AM PDT

I have a confession to make (please don’t sack me, o editors). I’ve never heard a Faust album before. The odd track yes, but I came to krautrock relatively late and early Kraftwerk and a mild Neu! obsession seemed enough to sate that particular appetite. So I’m not really able to come to any real conclusion as to whether this album of all new material sells out, or rides on, or develops Faust’s 35 year old ideals. What I can say, though, is that if I tried to imagine what Faust would sound like based on the descriptions I’ve read and what I think good outsider avant-rock might sound like, it would have to be excitingly close to this.

Bureau B has been, until now, a reissue label of everything from obscure German postpunk to obscure German disco to obscure German easy listening. Which has the potential to render C’est Com… Com… Complique as mere nostalgia. But this is the label’s first release of all new material and Faust are in no mood for being retrograde. The album is awash in skewed drones, starting out with ‘Kundalini Tremolos’ – 9 minutes of tremoloing guitar, Mo Tucker tom and tambourine pounding and an ever building tension never relieved by the promised freak-out. ‘Accroché À Tes Lèvres’ starts with the sound of a bag of coins landing on the floor. But there’s no associated betrayal, just a mournful organ solo with drums joining in along with bile spat french lyrics. The band (these days a trio consisting of founding members Jean-Hervé Peron and Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, alongside Amaury Cambuzat) are not afraid to throw anything they fancy into the mix. ‘Che Chemin Est Le Bon’ dissolves into ‘Stimmen’s extended interlude of Tuvan throat singing, only to be followed by what approaches gravely french chanson in ‘Petits Sons Appétissants’, albeit punctuated by flailing cymbal explosions.

What is most noticeable is the lack of any of the sort of polish normally associated with veteran bands. When the drums pound, they are in the room with you. When it’s a drum machine at hand, it’s grainy, simplistic and repetitive (in the best possible way). Guitars fizz and feedback is barely contained. The mix is often off-balance, giving a grand exploratory sense to proceedings. Vocals are coarsely delivered, adding to the texture. Samples loop with the gaps showing, pieced together with stickytape. And the extended repetitions of everything are mesmerising.

I’ve really been enjoying this album. Of course, I now want to go back and listen to the canonised parts of the Faust back catalogue, but they’re going to have to be mighty amazing to impress me as much as the new stuff. Faust in 2009 can stand tall amongst the current crop of noise-pop and psych/freak artists pointing the way to yet another future.

Adrian Elmer