Faust, Nurse With Wound

Japan edition. Faust was among the most adventurous and creative German bands of the '70s, and after disappearing for a decade and a half, they reunited in the '90s and made several startlingly good albums. Today, drummer Werner 'Zappi' Diermaier and bassist Jean-Hervé Peron are the only original members, joined by Amaury Cambuzat from the band Ulan Bator. Nurse With Wound, formed three decades ago, is the brainchild of Steven Stapleton, now augmented with Colin Potter. NWW recordings are notoriously varied, often sprawling, haunting, and strange, with a love of musique concrète and disquieting sounds. Disconnected features four songs, each over ten minutes long. The opener 'Lass Mich' uses an audio collage technique, often employed by both bands, and it's closest in spirit to Faust's first self-titled album and The Faust Tapes, as ideas emerge and fade and sound snippets are juxtaposed with vocal samples. A drum beat starts with a heavy one-note bass line, and the track gradually gets more chaotic with squeaks, a looped drone of strings, and a mysterious voice asking, 'Hallo?' The tracks 'It Will Take Time' and 'Disconnected' are reminiscent of NWW's lengthy Soliloquy For Lilith, which featured modulating tones created by the hum of effects processors in a feedback loop; they're hypnotizing, zone-out songs. 'Tu m'entends?' is also trance inducing, but more elements are present, such as hand drums, faint echoing electronic squeals, and continually ramping tones. Overall, this is one of the least rock-oriented, and most bizarre Faust albums.