Faust Wakes Nosferatu

Listening to Faust’s 1997 album Faust Wakes Nosferatu, a record of the group performing live to Murnau’s film. The group actually recorded two sets for the film, both recordings were issued separately, one on CD, the other on vinyl (my copy is the CD). This is not music to sync to your copy of Nosferatu, the CD contains 70-odd minutes worth of music, running well short of current 94min BR/DVDs, but fortunately, the album stands alone as a brilliant piece of experimental improvisation, the music ebbs and flows from ambient textures to Industrial clanging, expressionist guitar licks and dirty electronics. And not to completely disregard Murnau’s film, the group often settle into long eerie silences where the funereal sound of a metal object being struck signals grim tidings. Faust have since re-staged the Nosferatu set a number of times and I imagine it would have been something to see - the vinyl edition contains photographs from the original concert, the group bathed in otherworldly colors from the glow of Murnau’s tints, their arsenal of equipment (which includes everything from flutes to angle grinders) strewn with cobwebs and other Gothic trimmings…