Faust 2 Rockoper

After Berg, Schoenberg, Bartók and Stravinsky, Isabelle Faust now tackles Britten with Jakub Hrůša and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, revealing a little-known facet of the British composer. This concerto, highly personal in its language, combines drama with humour, seriousness with satire, in music of overwhelming emotional depth. The programme is completed by early chamber works.

For her first collaboration with the period ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, violinist Isabelle Faust performs the five Violin Concertos of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, along with three shorter concertante works. This is an extraordinary set, for the historically informed performances, the polished sound of the group, the almost palpable presence of the players, which Harmonia Mundi has captured with superior engineering, and for the unrepressed joy in the music. Faust is the center of attention, naturally, and her refined and expressive playing immediately pulls the listener in. These are far from the most demanding concertos in the repertoire, so Faust is less concerned with technical execution than with conveying the pure feeling of the music, which is delightfully buoyant and uplifting. Under the direction of Giovanni Antonini, the group provides warm and sparkling accompaniment that gives Faust all the support she needs, but there's no doubt that she sets the emotional tone for these exquisite recordings. Highly recommended, especially for devotees of Classical style at its finest.

After last year's 1971-74 box set release, containing the first four studio albums and for the first time ever this lost 'last' album recording, 'Punkt' gets a deserved and necessary stand alone release.

Faust's second album moves closer to actual song structure than their debut, but it still remains experimental. Songs progress and evolve instead of abruptly stopping or cutting into other tracks. The opening song "It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" begins as a repetitive 4/4 beat played on toms and piano with the title sung over the top. But for seven minutes the song adds instruments, including a lush analog synth line, and ends in a memorable sax riff. Faust's lyrical side appears on the acoustic "Picnic on a Frozen River" and "On the Way to Adamäe," whereas its abrasive side pops up on "Me Lack Space." "So Far," a jam shared by guitar, horns, and tweedy keyboard, rolls along with a funky hypnotic beat and wailing processed synths…

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.

Originally part of 2021’s Faust Box Set release commemorating the bands 50th anniversary Momentaufnahme I and II are now set for their own stand alone release by popular demand. This is for all those that missed out on the limited edition box set release. They collect together music recorded at the band's studio - a converted schoolhouse in rural Wümme between 1971 and 1974 in a similar vein to the way in which 'The Faust Tapes’ (released in 1973) was assembled. These two albums range from minimal electronic pulses, ambient dreamscapes, vocal collages to heavy drone, ritualistic percussion and psychedelic grooves. Highlights include the hypnotic space jams of ‘Vorsatz’ and ‘Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür’, the delicate acoustics of ‘I Am… An Artist' and the radiophonic workship-esq 'Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre‘.

Happily, Collector's Choice Music has re-released the first two albums by legendary German group Faust, on one CD. There's nothing new here, no previously un-released tracks or anything, but these are perhaps the two finest albums Faust ever recorded (one could also include the classic Faust IV album), and this budget priced compilation is a great way to start exploring what this band has to offer, or simply getting your hands on a couple of albums that have been difficult to find until recently. The first Faust album was so groundbreaking in its innovation that it was impossible to say what its influences were. Three lengthy tracks verged far from the standard rock paradigms of the day, bearing little resemblance to anything the genres of psychedelia, progressive rock, or space rock had yet offered…