Two things worth immediately mentioning about Cold Pumas. One, I will never make friends with the band’s name. I picture a crate of refrigerated shoes, which is apropos imagery for my recent post-quitting smoking Lynchian nightmares. Two, that’s completely irrelevant, as the music is awesome. Cold Pumas is a stalwart power trio from Brighton, and are fairly accurate in describing themselves as “HEALTH but in Neu time.”

On “Tropical Guilt,” Cold Pumas summon precise 4/4 kraut apache rhythm and augment it with tape echo-laden punk vocals, light rapid-fire surf guitar, and unadulterated hypnosis. The amalgamation of chilly motorik and bouncy beach punk is a welcome juxtaposition, and I’d love to see their tag line be “motorik for partying.” Because that’s exactly what it is. Highly recommended. Cold Pumas find themselves on the MySpaces and the Tumblrs.

For fans of:  Neu, Black Dice, Melt Banana

MP3 :::
Cold Pumas – Topical Guilt

The recent BBC Four documentary Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany, the most thorough examination of the genre since Julian Cope’s definitive Krautrocksampler, has finally made its way onto the Interwebs. And it’s as solid as you’d expect.

From the BBC: “Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard. They shared one common goal – a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany’s gruesome past – but that didn’t stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain from calling them Krautrock.”

I really dig John Weinzierl’s (of Amon Duul II) logic early in the film, when he says “we wanted to be international,we tried very hard to not be Anglophonic and not to be German. So… space is one solution.” And it’s totally worth mentioning that Werner Hertzog shows up for a bit. Action packed.

Oh gee whiz you guys, I made a computer programming joke in this entry’s subject. I’ll now get all sorts of geeks coming here looking for hawt tips on Ruby on Rails, and all they’ll get is some fucked-up kraut/electro/experimental/intergalactic instrumental pop. Bad vibes, greases!

No, but seriously, this On Rails stuff is on point. Dig on “Broken on the Wheel”’s tinty, crisp, motorik-driven, freaky-deeky electro battle cry, closer to Neu ‘75 than, say, the Faust Tapes. This is a power jam. Use it to get your morning started. And dude, czech the On Rails bro’s cover of the Velvets’ “White Light, White Heat” with enough vocoder to make Wendy Carlos and Black Moth Super Rainbow shit at the same time. Ever wonder what a classic rock cover performed by Kraftwerk would sound like? Wonder no more. This cover is crazy.

All of their current material is available for free on their website, with the thought that you’ll come out to see them at a later point because you like the songs. I think that tactic works.

For fans of:  Can, Kraftwerk, Cluster

MP3 :::
On Rails – Broken on the Wheel
On Rails – White Light White Heat

[Editor's Note:  Best Album Cover of 2009... no contest!]

Approaching the 40th anniversary of their inception, Faust return to show the newcomers how it’s done with their new studio album C’est Com…Com…Compliqué. Original members Jean-Hervé Person and Werner “Zappi” Diermaier team up with Amaury Cambuzat from Ulan Bator to revisit material previously mixed by Nurse With Wound in 2006. Armed with a new outlook and a fresh label, they’re poised to re-stake their sizable territory in the avant-rock world. 

Following their 2007 performance at the Rock in Opposition festival in France, the trio present their first release through Bureau B, “Where easy listening, krautrock, jazz, grooves and electronica share the same bed.” The last time we saw a proper album from Faust was the awkward but ultimately rewarding collaboration with spook glitch-hop producer Dalek in 2004 on Derbe Respect, Adler, prompting concerns of a major change in the band’s style, leaving die-hard fans polarized and scratching their heads. It became unclear whether there was enough of that original spark left to carry the group into the 2000s. But, lest we forget, back in the 1970s, Faust made several albums that to this day remain in the highest echelon of rock, the kind of music other bands hear and think, “I’ll have what she’s having!” So, if they decide there’s still enough left in the well to take a victory lap 40 years later, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Compliqué’s opener, “Kundalini Tremolos,” is an appeal to several decades of Faustians. A chopping samurai tremolo stutters and pitch-shifts as someone breathes fanatically in the background. The drums make a clear statement early on that they will not be categorized as “motorik.” I accept your conditions. In fact, the album spends most of its time downplaying the more bombastic elements of kraut-rock in favor of the collage takes first envisioned on The Faust Tapes. The directionless pace and patch-work will likely remind newcomers of The Books. Especially in, “Petits Sons Appétissants,” which borders on avant-pop. Cymbals blast out like depth charges over an electric keyboard and cordial acoustic guitar musings. Most of the song’s dynamics rest upon a Belmondo-like monologue that rambles in-between the noise as it gets more and more anguished.

“Accroché á Tes Lévres,” pushes a nervous organ droll into the spotlight. It tapers and granulates while Zappi Diermaier starts dusting off his drum kit, sculpting a pensive march on the toms. The french dialogue becomes free-form and begins to mirror the flustered yelps of Yamantaka Eye. It’s hard to really compare Faust to anybody given how idiosyncratic their sound is, but I keep hearing the Boredoms, them having elected to give rock it’s daily dose of Dadaism since Faust’s initial break-up. This is most exemplified on “Stimmen,” an interlude of sorts featuring constipated gargling and chants, and “En Veux-Tu Des Effets, En Violå,”sounding straight outta Super Ae with its whiteout phasers oscillating blindly.

For the most part, the album is strictly a catch-and-release game. It works to heighten anticipation, and then pulls the rug out from under you. There are rarely any explosions, but when they finally do go off, they do it big. “Bonjour Giacchino,” is a lust-filled squall of hot distortion, clumsy snare rolls, and chrome whales calls piercing through the fog. Then it diverges into a bizzare Flight of the Valkyrie -meets-Clark mash-up that stands in jarring contrast to the playfulness that characterizes most of the album. To further confuse you they follow it with, “Lass Mich, Version Orinale,”which plays like an updated version of Faust IV’s gentle time-capsule, “It’s a Bit of Pain.” .

The album closes with title track, “C’est Com Com Compliqué,” where tin off-beat narcoleptic drums fumble and snap-to-attention while drawers are emptied and subsequently thrown across the room. A shopping cart in need of some serious oiling squeaks and scrapes about, reminding me of how founding member Hans Irmler once decided, “Anything can be music and thus anything can be an instrument.” Rides, cowbells, and chattering trombones tease us for a few minutes, giving all the signals to floor it. Then scronk goes the everything into a hellish frenzy that is ultimately overcome once again by Faust’s diminishing attention span, and humbly recedes back.

Too musique concréte to join modern kraut offspring such as Cloudland Canyon or Stereolab, and too unsettling to fall in with quirky collage-artists like The Books or Lucky Dragons, Faust remain one of the few successful bands that are legitimately hard to classify. And thus, I can only evaluate this against their own back catalogue. While it lacks the radical mysticism that helped their early efforts contribute towards a new movement in German rock music, it does retain traces of their palpable ambition and originality, ensuring it to be one of 2009’s more exciting releases.

C’est Com…Com…Compliqué is available through Bureau B on Feb 27th, and hits stores the following Tuesday.

Fagen-Becker Rating for Quality:

MP3 :::
Faust – Bonjour Gioacchino
Faust – Ce’ Chemin Est Le Bon