DOCTEUR FAUST

After getting his feet wet in the world of recording with his 1970 debut "Logos," IGOR WAKHÉVITCH returned a year later with his second offering DOCTEUR FAUST which took all the eccentricities even further with a wild display of unorthodoxies around every corner. This too would be the soundtrack for yet another Norbert Schucki ballet titled "Ergonia" which premiered at the Festival D'Avignon in 1971. The mysterious album offers no clues to credits regarding the large number of performers obviously on board but rumors that Magma's Jannick Top were among some of the primo talent to offer their services on this eerily surreal crossroads of modern classical, progressive electronic, psychedelic rock and sound collage effects seem to be the word.

A short running album of only 30 minutes and hosting seven distinct tracks, DOCTEUR FAUST still packs quite the punch with an incessant flow of varying styles that come and go with nary a reason why the music engages in a fully orchestrated classical symphony one minute and a hypnotic wild array of electronica and spoken word poetic prose the next. Obviously experiencing the music in context to the ballet itself would make most of this more apparent but given the relative obscurity of IGOR WAKHÉVITCH in the modern world it's not so easy to track down a physical copy of the album much less witness performances of the ballet that was in the upper echelons of the avant-garde even during the freewheeling 1970s. Perhaps some footage exists at ballet colleges in France or on tapes tucked away in some archives.

This is a much more varied album than its predecessor with moments of dramatic classical music ceding into the kaleidoscope effect of stoned out psychedelic rock and mystical trance inducing progressive electronic with strange tape manipulations, bizarre chanting and thumping bass grooves. The instrumentation varies significantly with a multitude of drumming techniques ranging from military marches to frenzied rock modernities while Hendrix-Inspired guitar riffs in conjunct with bizarre wordless vocal utterances. The album doesn't let up for its short duration right up to the last delirious avant-rock freakouts of the closing "Sang Poupree." The album defies any true categorization and despite the word "ballet" being associated with it, DOCTEUR FAUST evokes no sense of the word as it is the strangest musical piece of work that the experimental world of the early 1970s could've conjured up thus making more than a qualified candidate to appear on the outsider weirdos Bible of freakery - The Nurse With Wound List.

This is definitely one of those tripper's paradise sort of experiences but not just for those who like to get blitzed out of their gourd and listen to repetitive patterns. This is a highly intellectual style of psychedelic which is as complex as it is unorthodox. WAKHÉVITCH was a master of marrying the eccentricities of the world of classical with the most far out expressions that were emerging in the worlds of both the rock world and the newly gestating fertile grounds of electronic music. This is a wild ride unlike any other and the perfect score to evoke the real life antics of Johann Georg Faust, the German itinerant alchemist, astrologer and magician who haunted the German Renaissance and apparently continues to find his spirit evoked for strange works centuries later. The story will probably make more sense to French speakers but personally i feel the music speaks for itself. For a short 30 minute display of musical freakery, you really couldn't ask for a more diverse of array of excellent genre bending under one roof. Utterly brilliant but not quite as perfect as the debut for my ears.