Littorina Saxophone Quartet is a new, pan-Baltic
supergroup featuring Faust on alto sax, Finnish
Mikko Innanen on alto, sopranino, and baritone
saxes, Swedish Fredrik Ljungkvist on soprano and
tenor saxes, and Lithuanian Liudas Mockūnas on
sopranino, soprano, and bass saxes. The quartet is
titled after the Littorina Sea, the ancient name
of the Baltic Sea. Leaking Pipes is the debut
album of this quartet, and it was recorded by
Innanen at Hietsun Paviljonki in Helsinki in March
2024, after a few performances in Finland.
Leaking Pipes proves that these distinct sax
players-improvisers-composers share more than just
an ancient and new, sweet and salty, wild and calm
sea. Innanen’s opening piece, “Kop Kop”, enjoys
the orchestral sound of the Littorina Saxophone
Quartet, making full use of the whole spectrum of
the sax family and the quartet’s strong-minded
voices, but also highlights the immediate affinity
of these gifted sax players who enjoy exploring
its theme with restless, passionate interplay.
Faust’s dramatic and mysterious, choral “Hells
Bells” sounds as if it corresponds with the sea
movements of the Baltic Sea. Ljungkvist’s “Nils
Olof” suggests a lyrical, emotional story,
beautifully narrated by the quartet that explores
its carefully-layered nuances with commanding
solos. Mockūnas’ “Shadows” follows with another
dramatic, darker story that cleverly employs the
sonic spectrum of the quartet. It ends too fast
with the free improvised, title piece, and calls
for more from this fine collective quartet.
Maria Faust Sacrum Facere – Marches Rewound &
Rewritten (Stunt, 2025)
Faust grew up in the Soviet Union, where marches
were a daily propaganda tool. Early on, she has
learnt to read the world between the lines, and to
use music as a hiding place, and about art as the
only place to find freedom and truth. Marches
Rewound & Rewritten is the third album of the
Sacrum Facere (in Latin, human scarification)
octet and continues Faust’s compositional
strategies that dissect the nature of violence and
tyranny in our society.
Sacrum Facere uses the march format for
criticising the glorification of wars and their
heroes, while repressing the voices of their
victims, the horror, and suffering, and from a
sober, compassionate feminine point of view.
Former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, an
avid music lover, mentions in the liner notes that
Faust makes us understand the horrific outcomes of
wars and the oppressive role of the marches.
Faust leads an ensemble of Danish musicians, or
ones who have studied in Denmark, to strip this
most militarized form of music from its symbolic
values. Italian pianist-drummer Emanuele
Maniscalco plays the snare drum and keeps the
repetitive, ritualistic rhythmic essence of the
march, but Faust’s nine, untitled marches turn
this format upside down. Marches Rewound &
Rewritten is structured as a nine-movement, choral
jazz suite that leads to an emotional, peaceful
catharsis. Faust’s reimagines this old musical
format and strips the marches from their pompous,
propagandistic lies, slowing them down, rewinding
them, and allowing them to fail. The soulful,
compassionate playing of the Sacrum Facere
ensemble reclaims and liberates the march from
being a tool of war-mongering tyranny, in our
homes and between countries and beliefs.
Maria Faust & The Economics – Rahamaa/Business
as Usual (Self-Released, 2025)
Faust is most likely the only composer who can
make a playful, musical drama out of a huge
monetary fiasco, with some enlightening lessons.
Rahamaa (Moneyland in Estonian) or Business as Usual relates to the largest money laundering
scandals in European history when Danske Bank, the
largest Danish bank, merged with Finnish Sampo
Bank, which had an Estonian branch. Between 2007
and 2015, over 800 billion Euros of suspicious
transactions originating from Russia, Latvia, and
Estonia flowed through the Estonian branch’s
non-resident portfolio. It was unveiled as a
result of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions
imposed on Russia. None of the heads of Danske
Bank were punished, and all the charges against
them were dropped, but this scandal had a
devastating effect on the Estonian economy.
Faust composed the music for Rahamaa, a
multilingual production of the Estonian National
Drama Theatre that premiered at the European
Capital of Culture, Tartu in Estonia, in June
2024. The production reflects on the newly
independent Estonia’s naive and innocent rush to
leave poverty behind and catch up with the West,
and asks what happens to a person when their only
measure of morality and worth is their bank
account balance?
The album was recorded at the Eesti Draamateater
in Tallinn in January 2025. Faust plays alto sax
and leads a new chamber jazz quintet, aptly titled
The Ecomosists, with Norwegian trumpeter Oscar
Andreas Haug (of Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie), Danish
frequent collaborator of Faust, trombonist Mads
Hyhne, Estonian tubist Toomas-Oskar Kahur, and
drummer-percussionist Ahto Abner. Faust’s clever
pieces for this unconventional quintet, as well as
the imaginative arrangements, suggest an ironic
and absurdist perspective on the scandal,
articulated in a thriller-like, follow-the-money
drama that mocks the pompous, corrupt bankers who
enabled such a massive fiasco.