Electronic Sound Magazine

FAUST famously put an X-ray of a clenched fist on the front of their 1971 debut album and we're celebrating the group unleashing a barrage of exciting new music by refreshing this iconic image for the cover of this month's issue of Electronic Sound.

The krautrock giants have recently released no less than four albums on the same day, all of them credited to Faust but each recorded by one of the four surviving original members of the band working separately from the other three. Take a bow Jean-Hervé Péron, Hans Joachim Irmler, Gunther Wüsthoff and Werner “Zappi” Diermaier. It's a madcap idea, that's for sure, but then these guys are undoubtedly the weirdest and wildest of the early German experimentalists, as we point out to them in our cover story. Combining fractured melodies, bold rhythms, intense electronics and waves of noise to startling effect, the Faustian spirit is every bit as primeval and radical in 2026 as it was in 1971.

Our supporting cast to Faust includes mercurial polymath SAUL WILLIAMS, whose terrific 'Leap Life' album will shortly be appearing in all the best end-of-year lists, and big beat big cheeses LO FIDELITY ALLSTARS, who will be touring the UK in November after breaking a decade-long hiatus with a couple of shows a few months back. MARIA UZOR, GLOBO, FAT DOG, SUPER FURRY ANIMALS and NICK NICELY are among our other interviews, while Mira Aroyo from LADYTRON shares her influences. We also talk to HARD CORPS, the cult 1980s band who gigged with Depeche Mode and recorded with Martin Rushent but split up before their debut album came out. Luckily for us all, it has just been reissued.