MOMENTAUFNAHME I

Much like their album from last year, Punkt, Faust's 2 Momentaufnahmes were once exclusive to the 1971-1974 box set. Where Punkt was the band's lost album in the same vein as Faust IV, Momentaufnahme I and II are more akin to The Faust Tapes, being albums with very short songs and experiments that are less rocking and more sound collage and avant garde.

As opposed to the second part of these two whole albums, Momentaufnahme I is honestly just not really that good in my opinion.

The best things on this album are the more overtly krautrock songs that are still weird experiments, but with a bit more refining the band puts on. I really like Flaflas and Vorsatz, and the closing track of Rückwärts durch die Drehtür is also pretty good. I also sometimes enjoy the more weirder stuff like Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre and Bonne Soupe Au Fromage. I think the best parts of the album are the moments that are at an appropriate, minute or more run time that isn't just a short snippet of some weird thing the band decides to do.

Unfortunately, these short snippets, such as Interlude 18. Juni, and Karotten are pretty much all over the album, and most of the time they are not even that good. This definitely feels like a Faust Tapes sequel to me, but not in a particularly good way. With all these weird and unneeded sounds throughout the album, I find it hard to really like it at all.

Some of the more minute or longer songs also can be pretty bad, like Acouphènes being just static, and Fin de Face being nothing but bleeps and bloops that take me out of the experience. I really just do not like this brand of Faust's music.

As a pretty big Faust fan, this album is pretty disappointing. It is certainly not the worst thing the band has made, or even recorded, but still it definitely feels like a lot of nothing to me. I suggest skipping this, it's second part is much better anyways.