(Vital Weekly) I’d saved the best until the last. You really can’t expect me to write an objective review about Scott Foust. I think the man is a genius with rare wit and wisdom. And great music. A man of many bands, like Idea Fire Company, The Pickle Factory, Dead Girl’s Party, The Tobacconists and many, many more and sometimes solo as Foust! His ‘Jungle Fever’ (see Vital Weekly 686) was an excellent work of field recordings and electronics. His ‘Space Sickness’ was already recorded in 2006, but edited in 2010-2011. It might loosely be dealing with space and/or cosmic music but I think Foust! is way too clever to put on some cosmic doodling. In the ten pieces, which are all relatively short (between three and seven minutes), he uses synthesizers, radio sounds and his echo machine – a simple yet effective set-up as proven over the years – to create minimalist textures. Once in motion a piece hardly seems to move around anymore, but has enough variation inside to be interesting. Only when the tracks are bit longer some boredom leaps in, such as in ‘Strange Deliriums’. All recorded through amps than lines, this is more or less automated music, that moves from and into space. Not exactly ‘Jungle Fever’, but still an excellent release. The one from seven that is really different. - Frans De Waard
(Dead Angel) This is a bit of deviation for Eh's devolved skronk aesthetic, less about formless anti-music and more about looped noises and hypnotic repetition. The ten enigmatic tracks on this album come courtesy of Scott Foust, with some secret link to the Anti Naturals (I'll leave it to you to hit the appropriate link below to find out what they're all about), and each track is essentially a composition of fuzzy, bleating, whacked-out sci-fi noises looped into oblivion for the purposes of maximum revelation through cranial irritation. This is anti-music from the hive mind of hallucinating robots; this is what your cell phone listens to while it's charging. The songs live up to the album's theme with titles like "Space / Time Barrier" and "The Future Is Now," but seeing as how they're totally devoid of vocals, you'll have to guess at their hidden meanings, doom childe. Interesting sounds abound, to be sure, but the stuck-in-static motif that forms the bedrock of these repetitive mantras will probably be too much for some (maybe many). That's okay, though; this is the soundtrack for secret societies of the future, so I doubt Foust is going to be too worried about those who fail to properly decode his interstellar transmissions. One thing's for sure: the weirdness level is definitely in sync with the label's cryptic history. - RKF
(Driving Guitars) Space Sickness is the second Foust! album. It doesn’t reach the hypnotic depths/heights of Jungle Fever, but it doesn’t try to either. As you can guess from the titles, Space Sickness is clinical and lifeless where Jungle Fever was lush and organic. All ten tracks on Space Sickness are repetitive looping parts that drift in and out of sync with each other, made with a spartan synth and radio setup. Little or no change occurs throughout, continuing Scott’s love affair with stasis. The pieces are impeccably crafted as always. Like scientists lost in deep space and slowly going insane. The most crucial difference between Jungle Fever and Space Sickness is that the latter tests my patience at times and the former doesn’t. This is strange because Jungle Fever is intolerably boring on paper; three unchanging movements of field recordings and scarcely more, spread out over an hour and seventeen minutes. Instead of becoming monotonous, however, it pulls me into an atmosphere and drops me there, where I stay comfortably for the duration of the piece. Some of the longer pieces on Space Sickness, which are less than half of the shortest part of Jungle Fever, can wear me out. I could say this has to do with the finite amount of detail in the mechanical and the infinite amount in the natural, but that’s asinine. Really, Space Sickness is just more stressful than Jungle Fever and a little less perfect. You can (and should!) get them both (and more!) in Scott’s special “Foust! PartyPacks” over at http://www.anti-naturals.org/swill/. I might upload this in a few months, but I’ll hold off and hopefully help Scott earn some money. - Hank Wimbleton
(Chain D.L.K.) Space Sickness, the second transmission from Scott Foust's Foust! solo project, sounds like outer space, but its more like space station music than the void itself; there's lots of buzzing and whirring, crackles and static. Its like listening to machines do their thing. Mostly comprised of static drones drifting in and out of phase, creating a dense and invigorating atmosphere, lots to listen to, but each element is given enough space to be appreciated. Space Sickness was recorded during the same session that produced the first half of 2006's Jungle Fever, but while that record was dense and organic, Space Sickness is all clinical minimalism - 10 sound sculptures of claustrophobia and encroaching madness. Most music that attempts to emulate the vast emptiness of space falls upon hackneyed dark ambient cliches of chorused synth pads, and the ubiquitous reverbed vocal sample, probably swiped from In The Mouth of Madness, but Foust knows better; he hates New Age music. Instead, he harkens back to the period of late '70s industrial noise, like Boyd Rice's NON project, tone poems and metal machine music. The chirping telegraph sounds, hissing airlock steam and binaural beats, make for interesting mental movies, and the relatively unchanging nature of each piece make for a meditative listening experience. Foust's years as a dedicated listener, as well as playing in a whole slew of different bands, means that he has learned how to avoid the perilous pitfalls many novices succumb to, such as recording straight to hard disk. He appreciates tone quality, room sound, and recording fidelity. Space Sickness is easy on the ears, which makest it ieasy to get lost in its lulling languorous spell. Some people may find Space Sickness to be dull and lifeless, monotonous and irritating. Either you are going to love this record, or hate it. But if you like to close yr eyes and go for a drift, if you find yrself listening to the radiator hiss and hum when no one is looking, if you legitimately like the works of Pierre Schaefer or Bernard Parmegiani, if you dig Tarkovsky's Solaris or play sounds from a radio telescope during dinner parties, then you are in for a real treat. - J. Simpson
(Deaf Sparrow) Space Sickness is all the proof one needs to show how static consistency likes to pretend it's an "art form", wearing the mask of the phrase over it's pock-marked, scruffy, MRSA-ridden face sometimes. Now, that's harsh, yeah, but it's directed at other acts out there that take this approach without first researching, simply churning out junk unaware of cryptomnesia. Look it up, and it will all make sense, never forget. On the other side of the spectrum, you have guys like Scott Foust, who has an ear for making this kind of music and probably a collection of musical rarities that would make a few people green enough with envy that it becomes a permanent condition. The concept behind this album couldn't have been better, because this shit does in fact sound like a group of astronauts going insane in the endless void of the universe. Think of it as a soundtrack to the extensive trip to Mars we may eventually witness, and it does well. But that's only if you place the idea on top of the sound. The sound itself, well, let's explain as best we can. First, as usual, the goodies. Space Sickness was originally put together around 2006, then edited from 2010-2011 for this CD-R release by Eh?, which is a sister label of sorts attached to Public Eyesore, known for its pretty eclectic line of releases over the years. Foust!, according to a quick glance of his site, created this piece while working on another, Jungle Fever, utilizing synth and some sort of special 'echo' you'll find mentioned should you read around. It's never clear what this 'echo' is, but apparently it seems to be something he made himself, so that's always a plus; good to see an artist experimenting and creating their own instruments and effects. And the idea? Just awesome. And even better, it totally sounds like it the whole way through, with each track providing a back-drop to the central theme. Songs like "Music of the Spheres" or "Lift Off!" couldn't have said it better. Plus, Space Sickness is an album that requires time, it requires an engaged listener who's interested in listening deeper. But first listen, honestly, you're probably not going to enjoy it unless you're familiar with late 70s noise experiments or the work of guys like Harry Smith. Very specific audience for this kind of release. And that's kind of the main downside. Space Sickness creates some interesting patterns that require the mind to go further into the essence of Foust!'s work to slowly see the variety of simple changes. But at face value most listeners probably aren't going to see it, and without the context provided through the album and song titles it would be a meaningless collection of goofy, looped tracks. So the concept is critical, because the repetitive quality comes off as downright lazy and annoying at first, and even the artist himself jokes that he was "actually in the room during some of these recordings and the microphone is not pointing out of the window". This suggests that even Foust himself couldn't put up with the repetition, found some sort of radio/synth pattern, set it up with this mysterious 'echo' and came back a few hours later, taking the middle of the cut for the eventual track. But the beauty in Space Sickness lies in this mentality, it requires you to listen several times before any of it makes sense and before you actually begin to hear sounds within sounds that otherwise sound like endless, lazy loops the first time around. The score we've provided here should indicate approach with caution. If you like this kind of thing, it's one to check out, but if you haven't even scraped the surface of this kind of music and have an ear that devours variety and change like water to a dehydrated whale in the desert, stay the hell away! No samples we can find online unfortunately, but check out Eyesore's page here and you can read some more about it - Arkus
(Kathodik) Da Amherst, Massachusetts, Scott Foust. Un cazzo di simpatico maniaco, reale outsider, ma non autistico. Piuttosto, uno colpito da una particolare forma di follia, colorata e senza tempo. “Space Sickness”, è il suo secondo lavoro lungo (“Jungle Fever”, il precedente). Dieci intrippamenti casalinghi, registrati nel 2006, per synth, radio ed eco. Deve far parecchio freddo ad Amherst. Le macchine si accendono, dopo di che... Vanno, viaggiano, si parlano. Linguaggi semplici, primitivi, traforanti a tratti (ma non troppo). Emanano purezza, fascino rurale. Quasi reperti d'archivio polveroso. Sean Connery, in “Atmosfera Zero”. Che credi sentisse? Droni statici, ripetitivi, ronzanti. Cigolamenti armonici. Che per accumulo, ti fotton il cervello. I Cabaret Voltaire, imparanoiati da della buona erba (ai tempi belli). Potrebbe. The Last Thing I Remembered, rassomiglia ad Hal 9000 che singhiozza un blues. Scott Foust, ha una lunga storia. Un consiglio amorevole: The Anti-Naturals. A tratti irresistibile (per genialità e santa cialtroneria). - Marco Carcasi
