(Avant-Garde Jazz, Modern Creative) Maria Faust - Machina - 2018, FLAC (tracks), lossless

https://mariafaust.com/bio/
Maria Faust (b. 1979, Kuressaare) is an Estonian saxophone player and composer living in Copenhagen, Denmark. Faust is best known in the fields of third stream jazz, modern big band music, improvised music, and other alternative genres. She has made remarkable musical waves that have sent her and her bands on trips to concert halls and music festivals around the world.
Maria Faust grew up under the Communist regime in Estonia, where she was classically educated, and yet gladly compares her music school to a “barracks for child soldiers.” At the conservatory there, she didn’t feel that there was room for her, musically. Mozart was supposed to sound like Mozart, and Bach like Bach, which left her yearning for something different. In Tallinn, jazz and improvisational music took hold of her, but in order to develop further, she had to leave the country. With the help of the Danish Cultural Institute, Maria Faust came to the Southern Danish Music Conservatory. Even in her new surroundings, she felt did not t into the world of jazz. “I am a child of communism! I did not swing. I marched! So, I basically just tried to be faithful to myself. It was a choice I made.” A conviction which she holds onto stubbornly, even to this day.
Maria Faust neither plays nor composes in traditional ways, and has no interest in doing so. Her big breakthrough, the very personal album SACRUM FACERE (Latin: human sacrifice), documents this well. It is an album that gets its inspiration from the culture in and around the Russian-Estonian border region, where descendants of deported orthodox Russians still live. Here, she collected work songs, hymns, and lullabies, and merged the material with classical music and free improvisation. The album received universally positive reviews, culminating in two Danish Music Awards in 2014 (“Jazz Composer of the Year” and “Jazz Crossover Release of the Year”).
In early 2016, Maria and the Danish singer and composer Kira Skov travelled to Estonia, where they discovered a region where time seemed to stand still. Breaking new creative ground together in an abandoned Russian Orthodox Church without electricity or water, they recorded their collaborative spiritually oriented masterpiece, IN THE BEGINNING, with a large band and Estonian Choir. The Danish news- paper Berlingske awarded the recording 6/6 stars and called it “a unique work of great sacred beauty … The recordings that Skov and Faust have come home with are simply formidable.” As of November 2017, the release won for 2 Danish Music Awards: Vocal Jazz Release of the Year, and Jazz Composer(s) of the Year. The project also won Danish Critic Association prize and was nominated both to Estonian Music Awards and Carl Prisen 2018.

https://www.challengerecords.com/products/15137714989086
Boldness is the hallmark of Maria Faust, her music, and her projects with ensembles that explore unusual instrumentations and techniques. She is constantly expanding her sound spectrum, and her new project, MACHINA, consists of an unprecedented mix of traditional musical forms paired with improvisation, jazz, and soundscapes. In a musical language of her own invention, she delivers her original compositional ideas, a chamber music universe without drums, but with horns, two basses, cello, and piano, all in a fascinating interaction with the engi- nes of shing boats sputtering their way through the fog, the creaks of old rusty hulls, the hum of the breeze and the call of the birds out at sea.
MACHINA, like Maria Faust’s earlier releases, starts with what she herself describes as “memory analysis.” As a tool, she gets inspiration from both personal and collective memories and the subconscious. Maria Faust says that she sees “the water as a symbol of a natural and unpre- dictable force of oppressed feelings like anger and sorrow” and she asks “why should we suppress these emotions, while we emphasize, for example, happiness?”
http://www.freejazzblog.org/2018/04/maria-faust-machina-stunt-2018.html
****½
By Eyal Haruveni
Estonian, Copenhagen-based composer-alto sax player-bandleader Maria Faust explains her unorthodox manner of making music in the strict, communist musical education she had back in Tallinn. Not there and not later, in her new, adopted Danish surroundings, Faust felt at home in the world of jazz. “I am a child of communism! I did not swing. I marched!”, she explains. And with this clear realization Faust began to form her very own personal and uncompromising language.
Faust’s latest releases - Sacrum Facere, with her septet (Barefoot, 2014) and In The Beginning, with Danish vocalist Kira skov (Stunt, 2017), create unique sonic universes, “memory analysis” as she calls it. In these albums Faust transformed the old, almost gone, cultural world that existed in the region near the Russian-Estonian border into expressive compositions. Faust weaved intricate suites that quoted and reflected centuries-old hymns and folk songs, merged them with elements from contemporary music and free-improvisation.
Machina, in a similar manner, expands her vision. The new album is also based on a “memory analysis”, focuses now on the engines of boats, water and at all. Faust sees water as a “symbol of a natural and unpredictable force of oppressed feelings like anger and sorrow. Why should we suppress these emotions, while we emphasize, for example, happiness?”
This album draws you immediately into its imaginative, colorful universe with its unique instrumentation and and masterfully-structured suite of compositions. The bass players Nils Bo Davidsen and Adam Pultz Melbye offer a deep-toned layer of resonating sounds that blends organically with the sounds of the boats’ engines; pianist Jacob Anderskov and cellist Ida Nørholm charge the complex compositions with a cerebral chamber aroma, while Faust and her partner, tenor sax player Ned Ferm, charge this delicate interplay with compelling emotional power.
Faust stands out not only as as a bold, original composer but also as a commanding, charismatic soloist. She leads “Sirene” with a strong melodic theme that tells a nuanced story, full of passion but one that also radiates a fragile, melancholic tone. Her playing blurs all superficial distinctions between the composed and the spontaneously improvised, between modern jazz and contemporary music, or between Western and Eastern musical legacies. Her solo on the last piece, “Aurora”, cements even further the profound emotional impact of Machina. But there is more to Machina than a melancholic, chamber tone. The two parts of “O, My Dearest Knife” and “Medusa” suggest Faust’s playful, humorist side. These colorful compositions letting you imagine the eventful journey of rusty, creaking fishing boats through foggy days, and how Faust orchestrates the commotion of the buzzing engines with the hum of the breeze and the calls of the sea birds.
An exciting, touching journey.

Alto Saxophone – Maria Faust
Tenor Saxophone – Ned Ferm
Cello – Ida Nørholm
Piano – Jacob Anderskov
Double Bass – Adam Pultz Melbye, Nils Bo Davidsen