(2021) Faust - 1971 - 1974          


Review:
Faust‘s initial run during the early ’70s produced a series of LPs that radically reimagined what a rock band could do in a recording studio, creating boundless, free-form epics that took psychedelia to the furthest edges by incorporating Dadaist humor and musique concrète-style edits and sonic manipulations. 1971-1974 gathers all of the band’s studio material issued during that time period (minus the Tony Conrad collaboration Outside the Dream Syndicate), and adds a bounty of rare and unreleased recordings that are just as fascinating as the group’s main body of work. The original four LPs still sound far ahead of their time. Faust (1971) consists of three extended pieces that move from marching band glee to fractured poetry to hypnotic fuzz-rock, completely dismantling and reconfiguring the structure of a rock album. So Far is a bit more accessible, with more concentrated grooves on tracks like the jubilant “It’s a Rainy Day Sunshine Girl,” though the band’s penchant for absurdism is still in full effect on tracks like the ten-minute “No Harm,” and the proto-industrial “Mamie Is Blue” is as dissonant and jarring as their debut. The Faust Tapes, a bewildering cut-and-paste collage of home recordings, defies easy description, and simply must be experienced as a full, unbroken work. Faust IV remains the band’s definitive, most influential album, featuring some of their most straightforward songwriting as well as their most focused, driven rhythmic explorations, including the 12-minute “Krautrock,” a press-created term that the band would inextricably be linked with forever. The box set unearths Punkt, a previously unheard album recorded in Giorgio Moroder’s Munich-based Musicland Studios in 1974. The world wasn’t ready for it then, but it’s just as essential as the previous Faust albums, with flange-heavy effects that bring a new level of wildness to their sound. These textures, as well as the continually shifting rhythms of the jaw-dropping “Knochentanz,” point to directions Moroder would soon take with his underacknowledged 1975 experimental project Einzelgänger as well as his groundbreaking disco work. Two volumes of Momentaufnahme consist of studio outtakes and scraps, essentially functioning as additional variations on the premise of The Faust Tapes, and they’re certainly of interest to fans of the group’s anarchic side. The box is rounded out by two singles: the scattered early demo “Lieber Herr Deutschland” and more acid rock-styled “Baby,” both of which surfaced on the 71 Minutes of Faust compilation, and the single versions of “So Far” and “It’s a Bit of Pain.”





Track Listing:

Faust
1 Why Don’t You Eat Carrots 9:33
2 Meadow Meal 8:04
3 Miss Fortune 16:35

So Far
1 It’s A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl 7:27
2 On The Way To Abamäe 2:40
3 No Harm 10:17
4 So Far 6:20
5 Mamie Is Blue 5:59
6 I’ve Got My Car And My TV 3:45
7 Picnic On A Frozen River 0:37
8 Me Lack Space… 0:47
9 …In The Spirit 2:11

The Faust Tapes
1 Several Hands On Our Piano 0:53
2 Don’t! 0:22
3 Flashback Caruso 4:01
4 Voices And Trumpets And All 1:48
5 J’ai Mal Aux Dents 7:15
6 Beim Nächsten Ton Ist Es… 1:04
7 Two Drums, Bass, Organ 1:43
8 Dr Schwitters Intro 0:25
9 Several Hands On Our Piano (Continued) 1:11
10 Beam Me Up, Scotty 1:18
11 Elerimomuvid 0:50
12 Dr Schwitters (Continued) 0:50
13 Have A Good Time, Everybody 1:04
14 Above And Under Our Piano 0:48
15 Hermanns Lament 1:33
16 Donnerwetter 2:19
17 Was Ist Hier Los? 0:35
18 Rudolf Der Pianist 0:52
19 Ricochets 1:18
20 I’ve Heard That One Before 2:29
21 Watch Your Step 0:20
22 Under Our Piano Again 1:13
23 Fluid Chorus 0:59
24 Stretch Out Time 1:37
25 Der Baum 3:52
26 Chère Chambre 3:09

Faust IV
1 Krautrock 11:50
2 The Sad Skinhead 2:44
3 Jennifer 7:13
4 Just A Second / Picnic On A Frozen River, Deuxième Tableau 3:37
5 Giggy Smile 7:47
6 Lauft… Heisst Das, Es Läuft Oder Es Kommt Bald? … Läuft! 8:11
7 It’s A Bit Of A Pain 3:10

Punkt.
1 Morning Land 9:18
2 Crapolino 2:48
3 Knochentanz 11:45
4 Fernlicht 1:59
5 Juggernaut 4:55
6 Schön Rund 9:59
7 Prends Ton Temps 5:21

Momentaufnahme I
1 Naja 0:21
2 Flaflas 3:12
3 Es Ist Wieder Da 2:43
4 Mechanika 0:43
5 Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre 4:32
6 Karotten 0:28
7 Rémaj7 1:43
8 Fin De Face 2:16
9 Vorsatz 2:39
10 Acouphènes 1:50
11 Interlude 18. Juni 0:48
12 Dadalibal 1:04
13 Bonne Soupe Au Fromage 4:35
14 Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür 7:32

Momentaufnahme II
1 Danach 0:43
2 Gegensprechanlage 2:47
3 Lampe Am, Tür Zu, Leute Rein! 6:06
4 Purzelbaum Mit Anschubsen 0:42
5 Tête-À-Tête Im Schredder 2:46
6 Dampf 1:02
7 Testbildhauer 1:09
8 I Am… An Artist 1:59
9 Wir Wollen Mehr Volumen Kriegen 0:08
10 Arrampicarsi Sul Vesuvio 3:14
11 …Und Alles Durcheinander 4:35
12 The Fear Of Missing Out 4:26
13 Ma Trompette 0:39
14 As-Tu Vu Mon Ombre? 6:38

Lieber Herr Deutschland / Baby
1 Lieber Herr Deutschland 4:49
2 Baby 4:23

So Far / It’s a Bit of a Pain
3 So Far 3:59
4 It’s A Bit Of A Pain 3:10


Media Report:
Genre: art rock, prog-rock
Country: Germany
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits