(Experimental, Dark Ambient, Illbient, Industrial) Fausten - Fausten (Ad Noiseam [ADN167CD]) CD - 2013, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Heavy, dense, suffocating and massive: here comes Fausten, the new collaborative project by Monster-X and Stormfield. The whole is here more than the sum of its parts: far from replicating their breakcore, techno and dubstep solo tracks, these two musicians give birth here to a deep album which moves very slowly but does so with an unstoppable drive. Fausten's début is a misanthropic, oppressive work which reunites noise with modern production techniques as only these two renowned musicians could; a colossal, smart and twisted monster of coldness and inhumanity, of distortion, beats and subtle details.
Leave the dancefloor behind and rediscover your old taste for heavy sounds and oppressive atmospheres, but update that noise with the experience gained from years of incisive audio production. Such could be the motto behind Fausten's inception. The collaborative project project by Monster-X and Stormfield (both based in London), the dark, obscure and unsettling Fausten is as much a step-away from their regular output as the result of their skills. Both are primarily known for their hard dancefloor-oriented output: Monster X has released several breakcore records on such labels as Tigerbeat6 and Peace Off, while Stormfield is the driving force behind Combat Recordings and has released (besides his own tracks) material by King Cannibal, Scorn and Neil Landstrumm. Both have been praised over the years for their innovative, sharp and talented beat production, which they translate in a new way with Fausten.
So much is given from the beginning till the end of this album: Fausten is dark, heavy, evil and noisy. And yet, it is a clear and modern take on the whole industrial sound. The goal here is not to emulate any old school scene, but to translate a taste for obscure, distorted sound into a fresh new whole. May it be the downtempo huge percussion of "Punishment" or the precise beat-work of "Evisceration", Fausten uses a wide sonic palette and bridges genres. There might be remains of a dubstep tempo here or a trace of breakbeats there, but all molten into a new whole. This diversity is underlined towards the end of this album by three distinct remixes: Oyaarss adds his sense of doom-ridden misanthropy, Dadub keep the noise level high while speeding the beat, introducing the final techno-stomper remix by Ontal.
Diving into Fausten's music is a guarantee for a deep, encompassing journey, all the more in combination with the twisted artwork and the very "adult" live videos used during this act's live shows. It is not devoid of humour (we're dealing with experienced musicians who know how to crack a joke in their darkest moments), but it is most importantly the highly rewarding combination of heaviness, darkness and details. After all, it does start with a portal and ends with a scalpel.

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011
EAC extraction logfile from 18. May 2013, 11:53
Fausten / Fausten
Used drive  : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GH24NS70   Adapter: 6  ID: 0
Read mode               : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache      : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction                      : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
Used interface                              : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling                                : Appended to previous track
Used output format              : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate                : 1024 kBit/s
Quality                         : High
Add ID3 tag                     : No
Command line compressor         : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%--tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
     Track |   Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector
    ---------------------------------------------------------
        1  |  0:00.00 |  3:34.00 |         0    |    16049
        2  |  3:34.00 |  4:49.00 |     16050    |    37724
        3  |  8:23.00 |  6:02.00 |     37725    |    64874
        4  | 14:25.00 |  6:35.00 |     64875    |    94499
        5  | 21:00.00 |  5:17.00 |     94500    |   118274
        6  | 26:17.00 |  6:11.00 |    118275    |   146099
        7  | 32:28.00 |  3:45.00 |    146100    |   162974
        8  | 36:13.00 |  5:18.00 |    162975    |   186824
        9  | 41:31.00 |  8:38.00 |    186825    |   225674
       10  | 50:09.00 |  6:23.00 |    225675    |   254399
       11  | 56:32.00 |  4:58.00 |    254400    |   276749
       12  | 64:02.00 |  5:18.59 |    288150    |   312058
Track  1
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\01 - Portal.wav
     Pre-gap length  0:00:02.00
     Peak level 95.9 %
     Extraction speed 4.2 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 6DA2F511
     Copy CRC 6DA2F511
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  2
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\02 - Kranial.wav
     Peak level 98.3 %
     Extraction speed 5.0 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC BDDCC521
     Copy CRC BDDCC521
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  3
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\03 - Punishment.wav
     Peak level 98.6 %
     Extraction speed 5.6 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 757B96A4
     Copy CRC 757B96A4
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  4
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\04 - Abort.wav
     Peak level 97.2 %
     Extraction speed 6.0 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 9DCE7B79
     Copy CRC 9DCE7B79
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  5
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\05 - Stahlblumen.wav
     Peak level 96.2 %
     Extraction speed 6.3 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 44FC5885
     Copy CRC 44FC5885
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  6
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\06 - Evisceration.wav
     Peak level 98.6 %
     Extraction speed 6.8 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC BE9FF3CE
     Copy CRC BE9FF3CE
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  7
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\07 - Internal Dialogue.wav
     Peak level 96.2 %
     Extraction speed 6.8 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 5C539173
     Copy CRC 5C539173
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  8
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\08 - Punishment (Oyaarss Execution).wav
     Peak level 98.3 %
     Extraction speed 7.3 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 0DCAB492
     Copy CRC 0DCAB492
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  9
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\09 - Punishment & Evisceration.wav
     Peak level 98.4 %
     Extraction speed 8.3 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 5CD75C03
     Copy CRC 5CD75C03
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track 10
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\10 - Evisceration.wav
     Peak level 97.4 %
     Extraction speed 8.4 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 725C34E7
     Copy CRC 725C34E7
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track 11
     Filename C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\New Ripped Music\Fausten - Fausten (2013) [FLAC]\11 - Scalpel Song.wav
     Peak level 96.1 %
     Extraction speed 8.7 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 0F63AAAC
     Copy CRC 0F63AAAC
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
No errors occurred
End of status report
---- CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.3
[CTDB TOCID: fH5iNej57W4NTzKkhhdgiwvVb9k-] found, Submit result: fH5iNej57W4NTzKkhhdgiwvVb9k- has been confirmed
[e362e2a0] (1/1) Accurately ripped
==== Log checksum 90C91FF0AB4C3DCF0D53E379F24A3F7CDF9F7E9EA990494B6EBE0D2431CF2026 ====

REM GENRE "Dark Ambient"
REM DATE 2013
REM DISCID A610400C
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v1.0b3"
CATALOG 7085277167314
PERFORMER "Fausten"
TITLE "Fausten"
FILE "01 - Portal.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Portal "
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "02 - Kranial.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Kranial "
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "03 - Punishment.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Punishment "
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "04 - Abort.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
    TITLE "Abort "
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "05 - Stahlblumen.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 05 AUDIO
    TITLE "Stahlblumen "
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "06 - Evisceration.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 06 AUDIO
    TITLE "Evisceration "
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "07 - Internal Dialogue.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 07 AUDIO
    TITLE "Internal Dialogue"
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "08 - Punishment (Oyaarss Execution).wav" WAVE
  TRACK 08 AUDIO
    TITLE "Punishment (Oyaarss Execution)"
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "09 - Punishment & Evisceration.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 09 AUDIO
    TITLE "Punishment & Evisceration "
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "10 - Evisceration.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 10 AUDIO
    TITLE "Evisceration "
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "11 - Scalpel Song.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 11 AUDIO
    TITLE "Scalpel Song"
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 12 MODEx/2xxx
    TITLE "Data"
    PERFORMER "Fausten"
    INDEX 00 04:58:00