DOCTEUR FAUST

Blimey, this is a turn up for the books! Other than 'Faust' all I'd heard by Igor Wakhevitch was the overly long and unremarkable triple album 'Etre Dieu' - a collaboration with Salvador Dali, no less.

I took to 'Faust' immediately. Heavy on reverb with orchestral sounds mingled with Satanic mass vocals and a wide array of noises and sound effects, it ticks all the right boxes for my strange music head.

This is SO Hammer Horror film soundtrack you wouldn't believe it. His dad was an Art Director from Odessa who dabbled in film in the 20's. I guess that's where he got the money to put together such an immense work. Michael Gira of 'Swans' fame is purportedly a big fan and this album appears on the Nurse With Wound List. For 1971 there's an incredible amount of instruments used, for example: timpani drums, snares, harpsichord, trumpets and strings all mixed up with weird electronics and voices. No two tracks sound the same on this wonderful short album.

This was a major surprise to me and probably the best album I've heard during the last six months. There's a certain gravitas, confidence, focus and sense of direction present I find hard to believe coming from a 23 year old newcomer. A triumph, but an unfortunately extremely unheard of album. There's not many records where you'll hear Stuka's and machine guns in the mix! Brilliant.