Of all the Krautrock pioneers, Faust have made the most unpredictable, contrarian, and sometimes just confounding music. Their biography is pretty complicated too. Disbanded in 1975, they reunited in the 1990s, only to split into two groups-- both called Faust-- a decade later. One, a rotating collective lead by founder Hans Joachim Irmler, released an album last year called Faust Is Last that was thought to be a swan song but never officially confirmed as one. The other, centered on founders Jean Hervé Peron (bass) and Werner Diermaier (drums), has also shuffled members but since 2007 has been a quartet with guitarist James Johnston and singer/keyboardist Geraldine Swayne.
Given that confusing history, the most surprising thing about Something Dirty, this lineup's first studio album, is how solid it is. Not to say it's predictable-- looping jams shift into subdued mediations, thick noises fall to near-silence, and loose sprawl morphs into accessible tunes. But there's a distinct cohesion to these songs and the way they move together. Nothing feels wilfully obscure or defiantly abrupt; each pause or shift in momentum serves a purpose. Something Dirty plays like a well-paced movie, with tonal arcs that dissolve into each other, cut back and forth, and build repetition into crescendo. It's often the kind of abstract mood-soundtrack that comrades Popol Vuh once mastered for the films of Werner Herzog-- but with Faust's sound-stories, pictures aren't really necessary.
If Something Dirty has a weakness, it's that Faust set their own bar too high. The first three tracks-- a grimy rocker, a Pink Floyd-ish psych-out, and a soaring symphonic jam-- are so well-crafted and timed, it's hard to imagine the band holding to that standard for another 30 minutes. But it's fascinating to watch them try. They revisit peaks more than a few times, winding through Swayne-led torch songs, ambient noise-scapes, and a pair of stunning guitar destructions called "Dampfauslass 1" and "Dampfauslass 2". All those moves show up in closer "La Sole Dorée", which melts Swayne's echoes into crunchy feedback, ending with a hard-cut to silence. That sudden stop is the only moment on Something Dirty that could be called a gimmick, but it feels oddly right. A fade-out would be too easy-- better to bluntly suggest that there's more music beyond that final frame, and encourage the rumor that this version of Faust is far from finished.
