Monolith Cocktail Blog

New Music on our radar, news and archive spots
Dominic Valvona

A new thread, feed for 2023, the Digest pulls together tracks, videos and snippets of new music plus significant archival material and anniversary celebrating albums or artists. The March edition features new sounds from Lonnie Liston Smith, Saba Alizadeh, Benedict Benjamin, Sebastian Reynolds, Brian Bordello,…plus from the Archives, a tenth anniversary piece on Crime And The City Solution’s 2013 rebirth ‘American Twilight’, and 50th anniversary piece on the Faust Tapes.

NEW MUSIC IN BRIEF

Lonnie Liston Smith ‘Cosmic Change’
(Jazz Is Dead)

Smooth soulful vibes, bulb-like notes and cosmic fanning rays from the great jazz-funk doyen Lonnie Liston Smith, who is set to release his first album in 25 years! Thanks to the overseeing facilitators of the enriching Jazz Is Dead label project, Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad have coaxed the legendary artist, ensemble bandleader and sideman for such impressive luminaries as Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Gato Barbieri and Leon Thomas, back into the studio; just one of many great names from the spiritual, conscious and funky-jazz rolls of inspiring talents.

Co-composing and collaborating with their chagrin Younge and Muhammad both work in the old magic with a sense of the new and forward; paying homage yet creating something new, performing the very kinds of influential music that had an impact on those who came later, namely the hip-hop fraternity (Jazzmatazz era Guru and the Digable Planets being just two such notable collaborators and acolytes).

I can’t wait to get a hold of the full deal.

Lonnie Liston Smith JID017 is due out on the 28^th April 2023.

Saba Alizadeh ‘Nafir (Clamour)’
(30M Records)

A very special, politically important vivid visual and musical statement from the evocative Iranian artist-composer and reputable virtuoso kamancheh (Iranian spike fiddle) player, Saba Alizadeh, ‘Nafir’ (or “Clamour”) is a metaphorical, symbolic encapsulation on life during the recent uprisings. Set in motion after the callous killing of Mahsa Amini and the strict authoritarian imposition of Islamic law and the violation of women’s right, last year’s protests in Iran were brutally crushed – with a number of executions carried out on the most tenuous of charges. And, if it couldn’t get much worse, there’s been an escalation of mass poisonings in girl’s schools throughout the country. The war in Ukraine, a continued war of words with the West over Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the growing pains of the economy have done all they can to bury the attention, brave opposition and movement for change since the initial spark in July of 2022.

As a reminder to the pain and suffering of that movement, Alizadeh has released this touching and moving video and electroacoustic suite. You can read his statement and press blurb below, which explains the thinking, process behind this incredible track.

“Nafir” is the sound of a million outcries channeled through the ancient string instrument Kamancheh” says composer and musician Saba Alizadeh about his latest single. “It’s the voice of the shed tears and blood”.

His instrument, the Kamancheh is said to be resemble the spectrum of the human voice, and it’s why he used it prominently in this piece as a metaphor for singing, for the gathered voices and cries of the oppressed, fighting against the darkness, the oppressor, here represented by the rhythm section.

Alizadeh explains: “This section is based on the rhythms of T’azie (traditional religious mourning ceremonies during shia commemoration Ashura) but at the same time resembles the sound of explosions (the sound that became the soundtrack of our lives in Iran for the past 5 months) and a respirator machine. It is at the same time a spray paint can that is writing slogans on walls or wiping them out.

At some point in the piece the rhythm section crescendos and tries to distort and destroy the kamancheh melody but it is not able to.”

In the video which is masterfully implemented by visual artist Siavash Naghshbandi, the voice of the Kamancheh and the beam of light interact with each other: the louder the voice of the kamancheh gets the brighter the beam becomes. It battles with the rhythm section and a metaphoric swarm of Kalashnikov bullets (as a universal sign of oppression). The finale gives hope: the cry of the Kamancheh and the warm bright light succeed defeating the bullets, the darkness and oppression.

Benedict Benjamin ‘Furlough Blues’

I’m not sure I could put it better, but the high anxiety of the Covid era is as Benedict Benjamin (formerly of The Mariner’s Children and Peggy Sue) puts it, channeled through a merger of the Byrds, Electrelane and DJ Shadow. Folk bluesy pop meets the psychedelic the roll of breakbeats and even an echo of jazz on a pandemic journal that’s almost wistfully disarming in its vocal delivery.

Featured a while back in Brian Bordello’s column (and making last month’s choice music playlist), Benjamin has now painstakingly produced a video for the song, the first in a series of such visual storytelling accompaniments to songs taken from the upcoming Tunnel album (released in June).  A mix of collage and stop motion, the Furlough Blues video is a visual metaphorical feast of rocketed lighthouses and “evil catholic altars” that blast off towards the moon and fly across various digests, magazine backgrounds, beaming out their light.

Since that video’s official drop last week, Benjamin has released another single ‘White Noise’, which moves the music into another psychedelic folksy indie direction: “Elliott Smith crossed with Serge Gainsbourg” as Benjamin puts it. Have a listen here:

Abel Ray Remixes Sebastian Reynolds ‘Cheptegei’

A simmered techno reverberated dance vision of polymath composer and long-distance runner Sebastian Reynolds’ most recent athletics-euphoric and travailed inspired ‘Cheptegei‘ by Abel Rey, has just been dropped on Youtube. Feel the itching electronic vibes as Rey builds up a sophisticated remix of the homage to the 5000M Ugandan superstar Joshua Kiprui Cheptegei. The original version appeared on Seb’s Athletics EP last May, but there’s news of a new album, Canary, being released this summer.

Lunar Bird ‘Creatures’

I just have room to mention the latest diaphanous dream-pop single and video from those heavenly creatures Lunar Bird. Beach House with a taste of Italy and Cardiff, the brilliant, beautifully captivating group, swayed and floated along by Roberta Musillami‘s charming lush vocals, have been a mainstay of the Monolith Cocktail for a few years now. Once more they beguile and charm, even with the most plaintive and yearning of themes, on this infectiously spellbound new song. You don’t need much more than that…just give it your time and embrace the Lunar Birds magic.

NEW MUSIC/LONGER READ HIGHLIGHT

Brian Bordello ‘Songs For Cilla To Sing’
(Think Like A Key Music)

It is telling that Brian Bordello uses the title of a famous and lauded book/movie that depicts the desperation of a diorama of washed-up, failed characters willing to die in the course of winning a dance marathon, and so gaining the attentions of those who might save them from a life of pure poverty (and worst of all, obscurity and irrelevance) in America’s great depression. Horace McCoy ‘They Shoot Horses Don’t They’ melodrama, later turned into a film by Sidney Pollock almost forty years later in 1969, reflects the Shea Family patriarch and instigator of the Bordellos and soloist’s own, against all odds, desperations to get noticed; leading to one of the great “what ifs” in rock ‘n’ roll’s annals.

As ridiculous as it may seem on the surface, the lower than lo fi (making Sparklehorse sound like a flash git bombastic ELO in comparison), nee no fi King of the well-worn Tascam four-track and St. Helens idiosyncratic Les Miserable, was only one person away on the Venn diagram of Cilla Black’s orbit. His potential songbook of flange-y distorted (more through low grade recording techniques) and curmudgeon demos did make its way to the, then retired from singing, Liverpool songbird – in the three or four decades before her death more the star of TV presenting and hosting than performer.

We don’t know what the late Cilla made of it; the 80s Merseyside via Manc diy, C86 and Jason Pierce-echoed hushed unrequited and lovesick pop musings of Brian, recorded on the most basic of bog-standard equipment.

And yet, the aphorism, puns, and “desperation” prove melodically heart aching, touching and, above all, truthful. Use your imagination. Replace that guitar with a conducted orchestra, a touch of Abbey Road professionalism, and you can easily hear the one-time hatcheck girl personality turn songstress belt out some of these lamentable odes. Especially such fair as the shabby rain-washed ‘Betrayal’ and the vibraphone-like chimed ‘Impossible’. Saying that, the creepier, wallowed and spanked ‘Not Such A Bad Girl’ could easily be a nun-habit frocked Marianne Faithful number, and the lo fi breezy, almost continental bastardised, Paris meets Entertaining Mr. Sloan, ‘Handsome Jacques’ isn’t a million miles away from any Gauloise-fawned chanteuses of the 60s Belle Époque era.  

Of course for me, as Brian’s editor at the Monolith Cocktail (our Brian has now been furnishing us with his reviews for the last four years or more) but also as a fan and obvious insider, I know and hear his passion for the spirit of a purer, more personality driven rock ‘n’ roll, and for the pop symphonies, ballads of such starlets and characters as Cilla and her generation. A nostalgia perhaps for simpler times, but also for a time when there was such a thing as the working classes getting on in the music and arts industries. That despite living it rough with a bog in the brick outhouse, no central heating and the fact you had to entertain yourself in those days, the greatest changes, such icons could reign.

And so this songbook is as much about the past as it is in catapulting another working class talent onto a bigger stage: hopefully through such patronesses as Cilla. That wasn’t to be of course, and so Brian continues to drag his arse up the coalface of obscurity each week. Saying that, as part of the American label Think Like A Key Music’s diy series, this album has had a small flourish of popularity, even making some lo fi amazon chart the other week. For a Collection of Cilla demos – some since released and transformed on other Bordellos releases – lost down the back of a proverbial sofa, it’s done quite well. If imagining Brian Epstein inviting Ian McCulloch to front The Tremolos, or The Red Crayola, Spaceman 3 and a budget Inspiral Carpets time-travelled back to 1962 sounds like one incredible proposition, then this songbook is for you. Unguarded, heart-on-the-sleeve honesty, pity and yet always with a wry sense of humour, Brian has conjured up a brilliant album: possibly despite himself. A national destitution, his name should join the pantheon of such notable mavericks as Stevie R. Moore, Roky Erickson and Saint Julian of Cope.    

ARCHIVES/ANNIVERSARY

Crime And The City Solution ‘American Twilght’
(Mute Records) 2013

The second/third/fourth rebirth, incarnation of the iconic cult Crime And The City Solution was launched in 2013 with, perhaps, one of the ensemble’s best albums yet: American Twilight. Ten years on and my original review, written for the Welsh-international indie webzine God Is In The TV, still stands.

Re-born, so to speak, after a twenty-year hiatus, the poetically forlorn Antipodes Crime & The City Solution have returned to document the miasma landscape of our troubled times.

Breathing in the toxic fumes of mass-unemployment, foreclosures and desperation, their re-location to what was once the industrial hub of America, Detroit, seems entirely apt. Home to the furious garage rock and political spit of the MC5 and Stooges (to name just two big guns from the motor city’s heritage) Detroit imbues its latest émigrés with a wealth of material to chew on.

The four horseman of impending doom have tested the waters lately, their scout parties observed on the horizon by the band, who announce to anyone that listens: “Here comes the rain!”  Though there is, thankfully, always a chance of redemption: “We must not let the doomsayers and the naysayers cause us to lose our faith. Because without love and without hope there can be no future.”

Morosely inquisitive, our ‘shined-on’ vessels wrestle with compassionate displays of belief and optimism in a very bleak world. Hardly strangers to the darker and seedier side of the boardwalk, the group’s numerous twists and turns since their birth in the late 70s, has seen them burn up the punk/post-punk scenes of Sydney and Melbourne; relocate to London at the invitation of Bad Seed, Mick Harvey; and end-up gaunt and morbid, residing in Wim Wender’s black and white ‘Wings Of Desire’ Berlin: their most productive but fabled swan song.

At one time or another their ranks have included members from The Birthday Party, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Einstürzende Neubauten and DAF. Now in the lord’s year of 2013, core founder Simon Bonney and ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’s’ Alexander Hacke and Bronwyn Adams are joined in their quest by visual artists Danielle de Picciotto, drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Cat Power), guitarist David Eugene Edwards (16 Horsepower, Wovenhand), bassist Troy Gregory (Witches) and Moog, keyboard operator Matthew Smith (Outrageous Cherry, Volebeats).

Mob-handed their wide-screen panoramic sound seems more spiritual and relenting, though still informed by that Gothic, almost Lynchian, twang: amplified through the country blues and Americana that’s absorbed by the group on this American Twilight odyssey.

Released as a teaser a few months back, the beatific, choral backed, ‘My Love Takes Me There’ exudes a haloed magnificence, yet equally darkened with distorted guitars and plaintive vocals that hail back to the bands earlier brooding soliloquies. A mature romantic nature is also found on the leading single, ‘Goddess’, an Apache toms-beaten power paean to a mythologized beauty: perhaps the bands most commercial anthem yet, though still permeated by those esoteric layers of lapsed Catholicism and scuzzy strident rock.

Meanwhile ‘The Colonel (Doesn’t Call Anymore)’ is a chilled reading from the scriptures, complete with a teetering Tower of Babel and ravaged roaming wolves, Bonny comes on like a mix of Scott Walker and a jaded Bob Dylan. And the ‘Domina’ is a gospel swaying, minor lament, heavenly remorseful and waning.

Looking for inspiration, whether it’s in the atavistic spiritualism of ghosts of the desert or in the sepulchre of organised religion, Bonney and his pilgrims move towards the light on their expansive return to form.

Faust ‘Faust Tapes’
(Virgin) 1973

50 this year, the second Faust album release of 1973 was a publicity stunt of subterfuge on the general public. With a ridiculously silly throw-away price tag, the Virgin label had a massive loss-making exercise in stupidity on their hands with the launch of their German malcontent signings. Now iconic, a cultish collage of propagandist machine music, industrial snores, the avant-garde, and krautrock break-outs of performed scraps, the Faust Tape may have sold over 50,000 copies in the scramble for a good deal, but it did little to help the fortunes of the band. Here then is my original lengthy essay on that story and album, taken from my night 20 year-old kruatrock odyssey series.

Virgin records began life in 1972, the brainchild of Richard Branson, Nik Powell and Simon Dapper, the story of which began with a shop in Notting Hill gate and a backroom mail order business known as Virgin Records and Tapes. The company name reflected their in-experience and self-confessed, but enthusiastic, naivety towards business. Starting out at first to sell other labels material and to unearth those hard to get underground releases, these three rather green long-haired upstarts, quickly transgressed to setting up a label of their own within a year of starting. Specialising in import records, Virgin relied upon a dedicated customer base of like-minded heads, who would inform them of what was currently worth checking out. This included turning the trio of entrepreneurs onto the burgeoning Krautrock scene of the late 60’s and early 70’s.

Requests began to roll in for obscure German bands, so many in fact, that Drapper contacted the infamous Ohr label, putting in an order for the more hip-happening groups of the moment. Soon a rich bundle of over thirty titles arrived on Drapper’s desk, comprising mostly of ‘Utter rubbish’ – Drapper’s words – and a few highlights, such as Tangerine Dream and Faust. But by this time, Virgin had already made an early play for the proto-spiritual ambient pioneer Mike Oldfield, whose Tubular Bells opus would become the first official release on the label. Overtures then, were made to both the Tangerine Dream and Faust, who it seemed were just about to drop ship from their current paymasters Polydor.

Uwe Nettlebeck and his band of crazed, freewheeling insurgents had finally over-stayed their welcome with that major label, testing the patience of the boardroom just a little too far. Faust’s last album, So Far, failed to toe the party line as more commercially viable big-seller. Continuing instead to follow there own agenda, the band hurried along an uncompromising avant-garde pathway of revolutionary deconstructive music. A move that drew much celebrated reactionary pats on the back, but did little to shift copies of their albums. Cast adrift, Faust now welcomed the attention of Virgin, deciding to sign a deal, though Uwe had no intention of making life easy for them, insisting that the first release must be sold for free to the public.

Uwe then handed over a collection of cutting room floor ideas and musical experiment excerpts, left over from the previous album recording sessions, giving the content away to Virgin for a nominal fee: zero in other words. This set of 26 unique snippets, sound collages and cutaways, would be bundled together and be titled “The Faust Tapes”, and end up being priced at the reduced token rate of 49p – at the time the price of a single – to cover expenses. Virgin to this day insists they never lost any money on the deal.

From the mere glancing explorations in piano, drums and voices to encouraging moments of startling produced promising songs, chaos reigns down, with pitched intergalactic warfare breaking out amongst the spillage from some industrial accident, to make this bundle of tracks far from boring or uninspired. God only knows what the public would make of this LP, with its Bridget Riley Op-Art black and white cover and reputation scaremongering press clippings on the back, to the missing track list and controversial price tag.

Well, the first week of release alone they shifted 50,000 copies, doubling sales not soon after and putting the band in the charts – for the first and only time – at number 12, though they would be removed on the grounds of the cover price. The heads and public seemed to go into a sort of feeding frenzy, buying into this relatively unheard of act from the fatherland, as if it was a competition. A large number of people hated the record, once they actually got it home, and as a consequence the follow up record, released at the end of the year, Faust IV, sold quite poorly in comparison. Branson, carried away in the initial overnight success, was convinced that they’d created a new ingenuous business model with which to break new bands – he would quite quickly rethink that strategy.

The Faust Tapes were an enigma, with small mystifying scraps of info and those untitled vignettes; the album became something of a cult. John Peel added to the aloof campaign that went with the record, by announcing a list of mock titles for the as yet unnamed tracks, stirring up the listeners in anticipation to quickly grab a pen as he would only read them out once. As it turned out, old Peely was in on the act, swindling many fans including Julian Cope with a disdained gesture of ridicule.

Virgin decided to back up the over-whelming success of the 1973 album by bringing the guys over for their first ever UK tour.
Fair enough you might think, only Uwe and co. had other plans; like throwing some turbulent spanners into the faces of the label.
The band’s Hans-Joachim Irmler and Rudolf Sosna refused point blank to embark on the tour, unless a ridiculous advance sum of £500,000 was paid – half exuberant and half antagonistic, fully encouraged by Uwe. A now apparent rift formed within the ranks, leading to Werner Diermaier, Jean- Hearvé Péron and Gunter Wüsthoff and a hastily recruited Peter Blegvad of Slapp Happy infamy, to fulfil the live dates. In true rebellious style, Uwe conceived a sort of auto-destructive performance with pneumatic drills, TVs and a cement mixer acting as props, waiting to be interacted with or smashed to smithereens: If anyone in the band got bored by all this reactionary antagonism, they could take a rest and play on the handy pinball machine, which would also deck the stage. All of this was of course meant to test the audience’s patience, on top of the proceeding ear splitting, innards dislodging hailstorm of sound that would leave them feeling sick.

Borrowing a PA from none other then the world’s one time loudest band The Who, Faust upped the ante and went one louder, channelling the most insane industrial gut wrenching music through their engineer, Kurt Graupner’s satanic black box of tricks, whilst chewing up the stage with the many building site strewn tools. This resulted in an often gob-smacked audience reacting in disbelief at the musical equivalent of having a bucket of pig shit poured over their heads. Even Blegvad remarked that it was the worst music he’d ever heard, and that it induced countless bouts of nose bleeding, leaving him with feelings of misery and nausea – and that’s one of their friends and band mates He went on to describe witnessing one over-enthusiastic young man headbutting the stage floor in unison to the bass drums incessant pounding, the resulting streaming blood worn like a badge of honour.
Despite all this, their fans were quite forgiving and sympathetic to the cause, even happily lapping up the handed out manifestos of intent, though usually in that typical pleasant English manner of ours, which never really leads to acting on our convictions.

After the uproarious set of concerts, Faust were scheduled to record their fourth album; Virgin insisting on them recording in England at their very own choice studio, the famous Manor House in Oxfordshire. Uwe objected at first but backed down, his band of misfits agreeing under a certain duress. Irmler and Sosna must have agreed to set aside their demands, as they both appear on the record. Faust IV would be their third album proper and cause many upsets, tantrums and even lead to arrests – don’t worry I’m saving this till the next chapter for you.

The Faust Tapes finally gained a track list when transferred to CD, which basically rectifies to a certain extent, what is actually taking place on each piece of sound or music. Some tracks have French or German titles, such as ‘J’ai Mal Aux Dents’, which translates as “I have toothache”, or ‘Der Baum’, which means “the tree”. Most remain untitled still or are referred to as exercises with maybe a bracketed explanation for a guide.

BUT WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE?

Out of the eerie discourse of enigmatic sounding disturbances, fades into view a rumbling low bass and ivory tinkling cramped run down, as various sets of hands feel up the grand piano for a thrill. The rumble turns into a drone over this short rift, like a squadron of B52s flying overhead on their way to some unfortunate target. Our first exercise is over in under a minute, interrupted by the next, a call and response loop that features some garbled compressed drums and saxophone gargles. Sharp intersected snippets of screeching car brakes are dispersed throughout the track, as someone blares out an illegible cuckoo taunt in a fraught hysteria fashion.

‘Flashback Caruso’ gently flows in with some embracing wistful acoustic guitar picking and delicate artful strumming, in the manner of an English psychedelic folk number, with wry token impressions of a Germanic Syd Barrett, who sings of marshmallow sandwiches and Lewis Carroll garden parties. A leftover from the late 60’s, this delightful foray even has the vocals bounce from speaker to speaker, as gentle waves of beautiful percussion and piano head towards la la land – the first highlight of the album.

Next up, a return to the exercise labelling with an otherworldly effects driven voices segue way. Elephant like trumpeting and disturbed bellowing is dripped in reverb, delay and echo to create an unsightly incident in the middle of a Marrakech bazaar, before swiftly leaving the scene and stumbling into the next track. ‘J’ai Mal Aux Dents’ shambles in, falling over a mix of proto-punk and staccato Stooges, conducted by a jittery guitar, its erratic rhythmic workout attacked by various thrown in sound effects and a rather obtuse saxophone. Disregard for conventional grooving gets under way as the song moves into uncharted territory, though it awkwardly has all the appearance of Them’s ‘Gloria’ being played by Devo or Dr. Feelgood met with a torrent of situationist sloganeering.

Moving on, we eavesdrop onto an atmospheric recording of the band going about their daily routine washing up, stacking bottles, listening to the radio and continuously stomping up and down a never-ending flight of wooden stairs. An answer machine unravels its un-translated message, which could imply something serious or banal. Funky zip zapping break beat drumming announces the intro of ‘Arnulf and Zappi on drums’, an explosion of Silver Apples, UFO’s and hurried phasered sounds that interject over the glorious rhythms. Péron knocks up a soul shaking krautrock bass riff to get this party truly off the ground.

‘Dr. Schwitters’ whips up a mesmerising diagnosis of baroque electro synths, holy sounding melodies and futuristic brain food on this far too short and promising exquisite burst of ethereal bewitchment. The good doctor of the title certainly knows his pills, liberally dishing out some kaleidoscope inducing mind benders for this track. Soon we are thrust into the melancholy, as the next vignette has dark moody shifting mangled soundscapes to chew on; ones that suffocate the listener in their grip. A further couple of excerpts also stray towards the shadows, comprising of short uncomfortable bursts of Trappist monks solemnly groaning or delayed soaked chainsaws from space, cutting through an incessant tribal esoteric led drum barrage. All the while choral accompaniments float in the background, sending the willies right up you with their stirring macabre spooky wallowing.
Our good doctor returns to duty with another charmed moment of grooving, though it doesn’t have any of the same identifying themes of its counterpart, this quick shot of falling apart drums and whirling dreamy organs sure taste good though.
Side one finishes on a de-tuned untitled cacophony of cosmic slop, as chaotic forward rolling drums and alarming synthesizer currents of sparks bash away together in the primordial soup.

Side two opens with more untitled bouts of fun and trickery, as phasers, delay and echo conjugate round a shifting space age theme, before jumping head long into a menagerie of saxophones squeaking away in confused unison. These haunting animalistic sirens of sax sound like Sun Ra on a real downer, as they wallow away like a herd of brass wildebeest drifting across the Serengeti in pained expressions of woe. Storms now gather overhead on our next stop, with curious metallic sounding strings wrestled through a speed shifter grinder and taken on some oriental styled esoteric nightmare. A last departing gesture of Gothic evoking piano leaves its mark on this occult oddball.

Those low humming aeroplane drones are back on Sosna’s little suite of keyboard and guitar excursions; he is given a trio of tracks to bewilder the listener with. Firstly he builds up a Dune evocative sweeping veranda of humming bass and oscillating spirits, then lets loose on a promising piano score, played with alluring and poised composure, before ending on drip-dropping dabs of ghostly cosmic effects. These droplets work towards a rhythm and are accompanied by more over-head bombing raids and reverberating nonsense.

An old world calls from the mists on the following bundle of non-titled tracks, as an atmospheric caustic blowing soundscape is built up for a wandering set of drums and unobtrusive xylophone. This is dragged into an attention-starved moment of up-tempo tumbling rhythms, menaced with an onset of gongs, drills, rattles, scaffold tubes, which are processed through heavy reverb.
Then a twitchy guitar is let loose, pinging around and fiddling while the background burns away. Some light percussion and piano quietly go about their business, neither adding nor taking anything away from this aimless ditty.

We’re now into the final few furlongs, which are all more conventionally song based, though that’s a slight misleading description, as they’re anything but conventional. ‘Stretch Out Time’ starts with jangled guitars, bass and tambourine and Zappi’s cardboard box/tin pots sounding drum kit. The vocals ape the title and offer such poignant romantic reflections as:

‘Stretch out time, dive into my mind and sign,
Get answer and hold dime,
But not into the coco smile.
Love is really so,
Love is really true.’

Faust attempt to be loved by the listener!

‘Der Baum’ is a lo-fi affair, which constantly stop/starts over its duration. Tight delay on the drums and emphasised cymbal shimmers, go all proto ‘Jennifer’ on this warmly felt ode. A descriptive analogy to the environment is used to express some memories of a failed love affair:

‘See her sitting on her chair,
When she stops kissing I know she won’t care.
He opened the door, turned on the light,
And it hurt my eyes.’

They continue with a final regretful, but touching verse of:

‘Feeling like a tree today,
And it’s a nice feeling, yeah.
The wind has come now,
So the leaves, they’re gone,
Because the wind has come.
See her lying in her bed,
Must be a nice feeling for her head.’

The final song ‘Chère Chambre’ translates as “dear room”, though the colourful narrated French/German prose gives few clues as to whether the vocalist is spewing forth his thoughts from a lonely room, dictating an abundance of ideas to his secretly or reading aloud from a Dear John letter. Thankfully I found a transcribed translation that seems to describe a free-flowing uninterrupted spewing of motorway journeys, emotional wellbeing, questions and state of mind, all told in a story telling like rendition.
A twee folksy guitar plays all the way through in an affable manner, whilst the narrator switches languages and continues to eloquently lay down genial tones.

The Faust Tapes act as a jump-off point for the next album. With startling insights and textural ideas it draws obvious comparisons to CAN’s Limited Edition LP, which likewise dips into the psyche of the band, digging up promising snatches of pure gold. It differs however from the Faust studio albums, which tend to follow a particular theme through to a conclusion, whereas this album hops quite erratically from one idea to the next. Generally an impressive futuristic and de-constructive collection of tracks, with touches of pulchritude and effulgent wonder that further enhances the reputation of Faust as trailblazing counter culture visionary misfits.

MEMORIAL

Ye Gods….the jazz messenger, doyen of melodious free jazz and teacher of the ways, Wayne Shorter has sadly passed away. Blue Note deity, still making it, still pushing at the envelope and still relevant even in his 80s, saxophonist/clarinetist/composer Shorter leaves behind one of the most accomplished and enviable catalogues in the jazz cannon. Where do you start? Art Blakey. Miles Davis. Weather Report. Herbie Hancock. Gil Evans. The Power Of Three. Esperanza Spalding. The list goes on and on, and across so many eclectic planes; electronica to opera. And so here is just a smattering:

Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.