Jan Faust, Jalil Jafar, Rado Zuska Raw Threesome

First available as part of the box set 1971-1974, Momentaufnahme II gathers non-album material recorded by German art rock legends Faust during their original run. Mixing raw fragments with studio experiments and freewheeling jams, both Momentaufnahme volumes are closer in spirit to the logic-defying collage of The Faust Tapes than the band's other albums from the time period, offering a peek behind the curtain at the group's creative process while functioning as stand-alone artistic statements. "Gegensprechanlage" laces a broken jazz-rock groove with brittle, fizzling electronics that eventually take over the track, though the rhythm faintly bleeds through in the background. "Tête-à-Tête im Schredder" starts out as heavy and abrasive psych-rock, then shifts reality with proto-dub studio trickery.

Fearlessly searching for new conceptions of sound and not caring where he found them, Garbarek joined hands with the classical early-music movement, improvising around the four male voices of the Hilliard Ensemble. Now here was a radical idea guaranteed to infuriate both hardcore jazz buffs and the even more pristine more-authentic-than-thou folk in early music circles. Yet this unlikely fusion works stunningly well - and even more hearteningly, went over the heads of the purists and became a hit album at a time (1994) when Gregorian chants were a hot item. Chants, early polyphonic music, and Renaissance motets by composers like Morales and Dufay form the basic material, bringing forth a cool yet moving spirituality in Garbarek's work…

The profile of Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen continues to rise through her regular appearance on Europe’s major opera, concert and recital stages, and she is consistently praised for her compelling blend of radiant stage personality and purity of vocal tone. This is her first opera arias recital and is focused on Handel and Mozart. Previously on disc, Eriksmoen features on Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Daniel Harding, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, both with Akademie für alte Musik Berlin under René Jacobs and Glyndebourne Festival conducted by Robin Ticciati, and in a ​“poised, elegant and persuasive” (Guardian) debut recital disc featuring songs by Grieg, Grøndahl, Wolf and Strauss with Alphonse Cemin (Alpha).

The members of Faust are the jokers in the Krautrock pack – jokers because they never formed with any serious intentions, and jokers, too, because whatever preconceptions you might have in approaching that most disreputable-sounding of sonic genres, Faust is guaranteed to explode them…