Faust

Faust

"Faust is a scholar who is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures."

"Faust", one of the b-sides to "Rock The House", is a track that is lead by Miho Hatori as Noodle. The track is a reflection on double meaning, how words can mean different things to different people. Milo Hatori and Damon Albarn as their characters Noodle and 2D, respectively, repeat the same phrase over and over again and despite the words being the same, their tones and emotions couldn't be any more different.

Due to Dan The Automator fading the track out early, the song is mainly instrumental. The vocals don't come in until about two and a half minutes in. Dan The Automator sets off a simple drum machine loop to start off the track, in the background you can hear Damon fiddling around on an acoustic guitar as if he's figuring out what to play. Quickly the guitar leaves, and in it's place we get calming synthesizers. Everything about this track is synthetic, even the pulsing bass riff. Damon glides from different melodic ideas on his synths, giving one the idea that he's coming up with this all on the spot. It's sweetness in tone as well as it's call and reflective atmosphere is reminiscent to the long intro of the Talking Heads' touching song, "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)". "Now this is all well and good...", you're thinking as you read this, "But what about your idea about how words meaning different things to different people? How does that come into affect?" Yes, your right, sorry for getting off track...

Noodle comes in, singing this phrase in Japanese, "After a hard day, it's time to wake up. I need a make up." Translations into another language, particularly into English, always come out a little weird. Basically what Noodle is saying is after a bad day she loves getting home and unwinding. Her home is the brightest room in Kong Studios and has all her favorite things. Soon 2D sings the phrase with her in English, but while Noodle sings the phrase joyously, 2D sounds sad and regretful. His home isn't any better than Noodle's, they both live with the same people they spend all day with in a zombie ridden hell hole. However Noodle possesses something 2D doesn't have, innocence. 2D sees Kong for what it really is, and even if he has all of his favorite materials in his room, he still is with the same people that he spent the "hard day" with. When 2D gets home, he retreats into his "make up"; painkillers, heroin and marijuana. He uses these to "wake up" in his own world of calming numbness, hence the synths used throughout this song. 2D represents the "Faust" character of this song, a successful musician who is unhappy with his life. His drug addictions represent the devil whom he sells his soul to, in order to have "pleasure" in his life. Soon the instrumental gets more glitchy and sinister as a chilling organ and synth wails take over the soundscape. Noodle then gets drowned out and we only hear Damon's army of voices as 2D. Soon enough, Dan The Automator fades the track out leaving 2D to suffer alone.

"Faust" almost made it on to the album along with the other Noodle led track, "Left Hand Suzuki Method", but eventually was cut from the final version. This may be because the song was mainly instrumental, and it's a real shame that a lot of these b-sides couldn't make it on to the final album. Imagine the band's first record was a double album that gave you even more of an in-depth look at the characters and their environment, these tracks paired with the album we got would have made a more complete story. Luckily they all were eventually compiled on "G-Sides", an album released in Japan (and later worldwide) due to the fact that the band's first record had not been released in their region yet. "Faust" is one of the more depressing tracks the band has made, but the shaky ride of 2D's horrors is made more pleasant by the presence of Noodle's contrasting emotions.