Faust
Faust formed in 1971 in the rural setting of Wümme, near Hamburg, where the producer Uwe Nettelbeck had installed them in a converted schoolhouse with a studio and a generous Polydor advance. The debut, Faust, sold poorly but its cut-up of tape collage, rock and noise won critical acclaim and a devoted following; The Faust Tapes (1973), sold by Virgin for the price of a single, and Faust IV made them one of the premier bands of what came to be called krautrock. The group broke up in 1975 after Virgin rejected their fifth album, and reappeared in the 1990s in two branches, around Jean-Hervé Péron and Zappi Diermaier on one side and Hans-Joachim Irmler on the other, both still touring with cement mixers, power tools and long improvisations.
Faust formed in 1971 in the rural setting of Wümme, near Hamburg, where the producer Uwe Nettelbeck had installed them in a converted schoolhouse with a studio and a generous Polydor advance. The debut, Faust, sold poorly but its cut-up of tape collage, rock and noise won critical acclaim and a devoted following; The Faust Tapes (1973), sold by Virgin for the price of a single, and Faust IV made them one of the premier bands of what came to be called krautrock. The group broke up in 1975 after Virgin rejected their fifth album, and reappeared in the 1990s in two branches, around Jean-Hervé Péron and Zappi Diermaier on one side and Hans-Joachim Irmler on the other, both still touring with cement mixers, power tools and long improvisations.
Ungebunden
Faust unbound, curated by keyboardist Hans-Joachim Irmler. Drones, grooves and collage roam free, another founder's window onto the collective's fearless, uncategorisable body of work.
Fliegen Lernen
Faust's vaults, opened by the band itself. Co-founder Gunther Wusthoff curates unheard tapes and fragments, motorik grooves, collage and pure invention from krautrock's great disruptors.
Something Dirty
Faust reactivated. 'Something Dirty' pairs founding members with new collaborators for grinding, groove-driven experiments: raw guitars, motorik pulse and studio mischief, the old subversive spirit alive and unbowed.
Momentaufnahme IV
The fourth trove of Faust rarities. Studio sketches, false starts and sudden brilliance from rock's great disruptors, proof that even the offcuts of this collective crackle with fearless, unrepeatable invention.
Momentaufnahme III
Volume three of Faust's archival 'snapshots'. More unheard fragments from the krautrock legends' vaults: collage, groove and glorious chaos, the sound of a band that treated the studio as both demolition site and playground.
Momentaufnahme I
Snapshots from the Faust vaults, unheard studio moments from krautrock's most anarchic band. Tape collage, motorik grooves and pure sonic sabotage sit side by side, a document of the collective's fearless early-'70s experimentation.
The Faust Tapes
There’s something perversely fabulous about the thought of this warped masterwork wandering into 60,000 unsuspecting British homes in 1973. Faust’s second-and-a-half album hit the shops to celebrate their signing to the nascent Virgin Records, who were looking to take advantage of the zeitgeist for German music at that time. Undeterred by the fact the band’s unwillingness to engage with the commercial landscape had seen them dropped from Polydor, Branson and co cooked up a suitably spectacular m…
Momentaufnahme II
Momentaufnahme II extends Faust’s recent excavation of their 1971–1974 archive, presenting a second volume of unheard and under‑heard material from the Wümme years. Compiled from recordings that didn’t make it onto the mammoth 1971–1974 (50 Years of Faust) eight‑LP box, this collection functions not as an outtakes bin but as a parallel narrative: how Faust sounded when the tape kept rolling between “official” takes, and how their anarchic, avant‑rock mission permeated even the most fragmentary e…
Faust
Few debut albums arrive with the kind of self-contained logic and radical spirit found on Faust's self-titled 1971 statement. Released at the height of rock music's imperial phase, it marked the beginning of a project that would sidestep genre and expectation entirely, offering instead a fractured, exploratory take on what popular music could become. This Bureau B reissue offers a fresh opportunity to engage with one of the most curious and uncompromising records of its time. Faust emerged from …
Deutsche Elektronische Musik 2 (Record B) (2LP)
Second volume of the Soul Jazz's superb introduction to experimental German rock and electronic Musik from 1971 to 1983, a 2013 2LP set featuring A.R. & Machines, Gila, Neu!, Pyrolator, Sergius Golowin, You, Niagara, Popol Vuh, Rolf Trostel, Electric Sandwich, Asmus Tietchens, Faust.
By the Lake Festival
On By the Lake Festival, Faust bottle a singular Berlin afternoon: iconic early pieces - including a choral‑bolstered “Why Don’t You Eat Carrots?” - rendered raw, sun‑bleached and unrepeatable, preserved in a lovingly remastered document that leaves every glorious flaw intact.
Silberland Vol 3: The Ambient Side Of Kosmische Musik (1972–1986)
Double LP version. On their last trip to Silberland, hurtled along the chrome highways and glass skyways of the kosmische landscape, powered ever onwards in perpetual motorik motion. This time, however, the Hamburg imprint opt for an unhurried itinerary, coasting far beyond the familiar rhythmic terrain to immerse listeners in the ambient side of this alternative Allemagne. Building on the tape loops, tone poems, and minimalist compositions of the '60s avant-garde, these musicians utilized the s…
Faust IV
Faust left Wümme's anarchic freedom for The Manor's professional constraints. Virgin wanted a hit. Faust IV was the answer: their most paradoxical album, accessible yet destabilizing, part studio work, part salvage. The sessions stretched, the budget vanished, the result endures—uneven, restless, compelling. Fifty years later: still mid-sentence, still profound, gloriously incomplete.
So Far
CD Digipack. Wümme, Lower Saxony. 1972. A converted schoolhouse. Inside: a tangle of cables, reel-to-reel machines, custom electronics soldered together by hands that refused manuals. This was not a professional recording studio. This was Faust's laboratory—and So Far was the experiment that proved you could rewire rock music's circuitry without killing the patient. Six months earlier, Faust had released their self-titled debut—a savage dismantling of what a rock album could be. Tape edits slice…
Faust
Few debut albums arrive with the kind of self-contained logic and radical spirit found on Faust's self-titled 1971 statement. Released at the height of rock music's imperial phase, it marked the beginning of a project that would sidestep genre and expectation entirely, offering instead a fractured, exploratory take on what popular music could become. This Bureau B reissue offers a fresh opportunity to engage with one of the most curious and uncompromising records of its time. Faust emerged from …
Silver Monk Time - A Tribute To The Monks
2006 release ** "Unlike many tribute projects that fall flat due to those involved being either overawed or ignorant of the original material, Silver Monk Time succeeds because the participants have taken the group´s primitive rock surge as a template to experiment with. As a result the sound of The Monks is treated to a 21st century workout with synthesizers and beat tracks threaded through the original quartet´s already way out psychotic minimalism". Featuring: fsk, the fall, faust, fehlfarben…
This Is the Right Path
Tip! Dec. 2015: I received an invitation from Old Heaven to participate with FaUSt to the 3rd edition of “Tomorrow Festival” at B10 Live, Shenzhen, China! A few months later, May 2016, we were on our way to the most exciting concert experience. A loooong flight-haul and then, such a warm welcome, such a perfect organization… the most charming, dedicated, competent crew around us… the largest cement mixer I ever used on stage, and an audience so vibrant, so focused. I was and still am in memory, …