fAUst (GIG-GOING ADVENTURES)

Jazz Cafe, London
Tues 18th April

With Faust it’s not even you’re never sure what you’re going to get. Since the revival there’s been different permutations of everyone’s favourite legendary anti-art neo-Dada Krautrock combo, so you can’t even be sure who you’re going to get. 

The last release I’d heard of had been founder member Gunter Westhoff, who had previously forewarn all reunions, joining up with drummer Zappi. The album, ’Daumenbruch’, was the more freeform side of Faust (who are fairly freeform to start with). And as the Jazz Cafe seemed a suitable version for such a thing, I’d wondered if that Faust would be this Faust. But I'd guessed wrong, and Jean-Herve Peron emerged to greet us. Still, he’s scarcely an unwelcome sight…

(Though it seems there is an insider’s tip to telling Faust from Faust. Peron’s version is styled fAUst, while Westhoff and Zappi go with faust. I don’t know if that adds to the fun or spoils things. But if Irmler is tempted to revive his version, they’re now going to have to go with fauST.)

Last time I saw fAUst was six months ago, reworking ’Faust IV’ with a large ensemble at the Union Chapel. This time, befitting the smaller venue, they’re more a lean machine. There’s still eight of ‘em in all, but only for the finale do they really take to the stage en masse. In a telling detail, last time when ensemble members had nothing to play they’d sit back and flip through books, stage management Brechtian style. This time the taskless vanish until needed again.

Not unusually for Faust there’s a spectrum of musical styles on offer, from full-on free-form noise (aided by angle grinders) to acoustic ballads done as a duo. At times there’s even Faust tracks for you to recognise.

Over time, Peron’s daughter Jeanne-Marie Varian has developed from band member to frontwoman, taking to the role with some aplomb. Her sheer glee at at it, somewhere between childlike joy and devilish delight, is very Faust. For one track she stages a psychotic episode, running from mania to fury, the music mirroring every turn.

True, not everything works as well as it might. ’J’ai Mal Aux Dents’ is given a more skanking rhythm, the keyboard player bopping like Jerry Dammers. But the backing vocals lack the required insistency, and Geraldine Swayne’s recited lead line don’t have that stream-of-consciousness quality the song needs. (Varian might have served better.) And one number was cool jazz. Venue befitting perhaps, but a worrying sign.

But the highlights were classic Faust in full swing. On ’Sad Skinhead’ Varian and Swayne traded vocals like it really was a love song, both charming and absurd. (It’s odd how what was once of their weaker numbers has since come to feel like a classic.)

There was a long floating drone number (name unknown to me), with bowed instruments and singing bowl. Which slowly but surely built up a backbeat, like a grand monument growing a pair of legs and then running with them.

So fAUst were more unmissable Faust. But if faust do feel like coming to town…

(More of me raving about the importance of Faust here.)