Last summer, Faust’s Hans Joachim Irmler and ex-Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit convened to rehearse for a live performance in Munich.
The rehearsals mutated into a recording session, the results of which are collated on this engaging six-tracker. On organ, Irmler conjures up dense clouds of sound which give way to engagingly naive melodies. His approach to the instrument often recalls Sun Ra and Miles Davis, both of whom were partial to the odd fat-fingered tone cluster back in the 1960s and (especially) 70s. Liebezeit meanwhile is in more relaxed form than we might perhaps like, given the pioneering work for which he is best known (there’s nothing as infectious as Can’s Halleluhwah, You Doo Right or Spoon here) but he’s still a master of time and space, as his tireless-but-tasteful pulse on _Sempiternity _illustrates. Washing Over Me is without doubt the album’s high point, a thrilling snarl of sound which shares a tremulous excitement and implacable momentum with Faust’s krautrock, Sonic Youth’s Expressway To Your Skull and Philip Glass’s Anthem Pt 2 from Powaqqatsi. It’s the most coherent moment on an album charged with rough magic. JS
