THE FAUST TAPES

"The Faust Tapes" is a sincerely Avant-Garde that ought to be more respected.

Cult German band Faust's third album was something completely unexpected: although the first LP explored new realms no other dared to, the second album was much more accessible, even if it still was pretty strange, and had tons more personality. 'The Faust Tapes' cost 49 pence, and it managed to sell very well thanks to this clever technique. Otherwise, due to the extremely experimental and alien nature of the music, it wouldn't have been no way nearly as successful.

After 'So Far', it seemed like the band found a style to stick to, which was very different from the minimalistic debut. But then 'The Faust Tapes' comes along. Twenty six tracks, only a few of them longer than two minutes. Avant-garde as it had never been done before, where manifested, there are a huge array of styles, like Folk Rock, Proto-Ambient, Tape music, Folktronica, Noise Rock a-la-Velvet Underground (or pure Noise), Drone, Electronic little experiments, or almost undescribable Avant-Garde. They experiment with new sounds, using either traditional Rock instruments, like the guitar, or using more unusual ones like the wide range of percussion, which includes also different types of bells. They also love to play with studio effects, an activity that at the time had been trendy among experimental bands for a while.

These songs, because of their length, feel and are truly short, but it is an album to be considered as a whole: these twenty six tracks simply create a musical collage of a strange, yet curious picture. Twenty six tracks that each have something different to say, a collection of musical parenthesis all smashed into more than forty minutes. It is also an album that, because of it's controversial nature, has influenced many bands and albums that came out later on.

Among the tracks, there are a few that have a relatively normal length and can be considered normal songs, that find themselves hidden in between the shorter episodes: 'Flashback Caruso' is a sincere psychedelic tribute mixed with the melancholic musical wanderings of Krautrock. J'ai Mal Aux Dents' is much more noisy and dissonant, a proto- Noise Rock piece for sure. 'Der Baum' is somewhat catchy, in it's pure innocence, even though highly repetitive, and has a very unique rhythms section. As far as the rest of the songs are concerned, their story has been told.

'The Faust Tapes' is a sincerely Avant-Garde piece of music that ought to be respected more, not only for it's bravery but also for being an authentic pioneer for genres like Drone music, Ambient, and many others, without losing the genuine Krautrock feel.

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