SO FAR

So Far is the second full-length studio album by German Krautrock/ psychadelic/ avant garde rock act Faust. The debut album Faust (1971) is a wildly experimental avant garde rock album with lots of electronic experiments and sound collages mixed with psychadelic rock sections. A very innovative and unique album IMO. This second album is very different from Faust and it could almost have been a completely different band who made it.

So Far is a much more structured album and the trademark repetitive krautrock beats are much more a part of the sound on this album than they were on the crazy debut. Compared to the difficult listening experience of the debut, So Far is much more accessible. This time around it´s audible that the band employ ordinary rock instrumentation like guitar, bass, drums, keyboards/ synth/ organ and saxophone. The vocals are mostly chanting the same lines over and over again as if they are more an instrument than actual vocals but there are more ordinary vocal parts on the album too. The album is very varied and we get repetitive krautrock tracks like It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl, So Far and No Harm ( which actually has an almost mellow symphonic prog intro), a classical inspired acoustic guitar piece in On The Way To Abamäe, the cold almost industrial sounding Mamie Is Blue as well as the last four songs on the album I've Got My Car And My TV, Picnic On A Frozen River, Me Lack Space... and ...In The Spirit which are heavily influenced by Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention IMO.

The musicianship is excellent and innovative. A really unique unit this band.

The production is excellent.

So Far is probably a much better way to enter the world of Faust than the group´s much more inaccessible debut album and newcommers to the band are adviced to begin with this one. I´m fond of both albums though and wouldn´t be happy without any of them. So Far is an excellent album fully deserving a 4 star rating.