Electronic Sound Magazine Issue 81 Zurück Ausgabe

Thanks to a Virgin Records marketing ruse, ownership of Faust’s 1973 album ‘The Faust Tapes’ was all but obligatory for any self-respecting head in the early 70s. ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’? Check. ’Tubular Bells’? Check. ‘The Faust Tapes’? Check.

The reason for the album’s popularity was simple. It cost just 49p, which was the same price as a single at that time. As a result, Virgin shifted 60,000 copies of the record, propelling this mighty fine but mighty strange slice of prime German freaktronica to a lofty position in the UK album charts. Well, it would have done, had the powers-that-be not decided the cheap price rendered it ineligible for inclusion.

Buried in that tale somewhere is a metaphor for Faust’s career. The most idiosyncratic of the krautrock outfits, everything they did was filtered through their art smarts, with one-time film journalist manager Uwe Nettelbeck anticipating the Paul Morley school of journo/band blur, where creative statement, myth and controversy trumps any of the normal routes to commercial success.

As Bureau B prepare to release a chunky boxset of Faust’s early 70s output, this month’s cover feature details the group’s chaotic reign of sonic terror, created partly in their house/commune in rural Germany and partly in swanky studios alongside the likes of Mike Oldfield and Donna Summer. It’s a story of counterculture abandon, disregard for music industry standards, inter-band personality clashes on an epic scale, and the pursuit of bold and brazen new sounds. It’s one heck of a read.