Faust @ Cargo, 2 September 2008

Faust @ Cargo, 2 September 2008

08 September, 2008
by: Robin

If you're not familiar with Faust, the basic things to know are that they're German and they're almost universally revered for their contribution to '70s rock music. For most people, the fact that they're experimental makes them a 'krautrock' band, along with Can, Neu! and others – although as Julian Cope's Krautrocksampler points out, the term is little more than a way for British ears to lump together anything German, weird and from a certain period. Faust like to make it clear they don't approve: singer Jean-Hervé Péron even dedicates the penultimate song of the night to 'all you Eengleesh motherfuckers who called us krautrock'.

Before that, though, Goodiepal – a professional eccentric in the nicest way – is the first support act. Known for producing exquisite, whistling mechanical birds among other things, tonight he gives a quiet talk oriented around tiny hand-bells and miniature books. What makes this stuff really oblique, however, is that he has accompanists – who he never seems to acknowledge – in a sharp drummer and an extremely straight-laced-looking man who wails relentlessly through a microphone and a reverb effect. Presumably on purpose, it completely obscures whatever the lecture is about, but the struggle to understand makes the performance watchable its own weird way.

Shit and Shine are next on the venue's floor, playing a deceptively complex freak-out that reveals its details by oscillating between slack, grungy noise and tight rhythm 'n' drone. They're really impressive, and not just because they have three drummers.

Something about the two together is that they point to what Faust still have to offer. While other bands like Neu! nailed their mantric, motor-age compositions more exactly, Faust force themselves off the road with absurd interruptions. No completely youthful line-up would be unselfconscious enough to try any of this. The original man-beast drummer takes a break to hit a huge, resonant metal pole and solemnly call the others' names like their time is up. A rig stands above his kit hung with sheets of beaten metal, used as percussion, and a huge circular saw blade. He takes an angle-grinder to both, sending up hellish noises and bursts of orange sparks. At one point Péron weaves through the crowd with a running chainsaw to attack some kind of polystyrene target, filling people's lungs with atomised petrol. (Hooray for old guys who don't know about health and safety.)

Faust are obviously something that 30 years ago would have brightened up a dark evening in a commune. In the sanitised settings of Cargo, 2008, they manage to transport us, just about.

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Robin