Faust V - the unreleased Virgin 1975 Cassette

Will check it out later (i.e. play it..)

The only thing that's kinda left me underwhelmed is side 2 of Faust 1. Everything else promotes warm feelings. Oh, and I can only imagine Faust IV got lousy reviews was 1) the cheapness of the cover/art, and 2) coming after the cheapest album ever, and being full price, too many people probably said "No, I'd rather pay 49p again". Moral: "Don't do nothing that is cut price" as Ian Dury advised.

I would understand if people were disappointed with Faust IV being it is not as great as one two and Tapes. Have the remaster edition been properly discussed here by the way?

I've been a Faust fan for nearly 15 years, and I still get floored by their playfulness and creativity. Why does everyone harp about Brian Eno as the "studio as instrument" master when there's Faust? And for that matter, Can and Neu! too.

Anyhow, totally concur with Milton's statement "even the slightest 70's faust track provides more food than 99% of the bands raking it in today that (dare to) claim this band as an influence."

Uh, because he is?

only a little bit towards the end here - Faust: C or D?

I'd be surprised if they had -- it's almost kind of reassuring. Few bands receive that kind of attention without compromising.

What are you talking about, they have!

not in my neighborhood. the only people I know who like Faust as much as I do are either old prog and experimental music geeks, record critics, or have posted in this thread

well, Kraftwerk are a case apart, but any sentence that refers to Can and Neu seems to be incomplete without Faust.

They don't sound that different to me. I only have the vinyl of "Munic and Elsewhere" so maybe they were different on later CD issues? Great to listen to this stuff anew. I've bought a lot of Krautrock over the years and it's great to hear the real deal once again 'cos I've just heard so much dull prog, dull jazz rock, dull jamming - this blows all that rubbish out of the water... and, if you haven't got into "You Know Fa(Us)t" or "Ravvivando" yet then go and do so because they sound like they could have been recorded the week after this "Faust V" thing or, put another way, this "Faust V" thing sounds like it could have been recorded a week before "You Know Fa(Us)t" or "Ravvivando"...

I hear ya Dominique, but you forget that over here in the UK "Faust Tapes" was originally released for 49p, sold by the barrel load and thus was in every bargain bin/ 2nd hand shop/ charity shop in the country for the next 20 years. Neu! seem like the latecomers to the Krautrock party to me - Kraftwerk, Can and Faust were always far more well known (over here I mean)

but when the box finally came out, it did seem quieter than the Can and Neu! relaunches -- most of the ways in which Can & Neu! pushed the envelope have been successfully integrated by newer records, prepping people for the originals, but there are few records that really build on what Faust did on Tapes

Chaki mentions the idea of a compilation that only takes the pop songs, but you can't just splice them out, it wouldn't work

They don't sound that different to me. I only have the vinyl of "Munic and Elsewhere" so maybe they were different on later CD issues?

they're the same on the CD & vinyl, but you're right, on second listening, 'munic b' might even be the same, just lower fidelity. though if you listen carefully to 'munic a' you'll hear a different balance in the sounds. The two later records you mention are fine, and you're right, they're similar to this tape -- long sound jams with one song stuck in the middle -- the mode they've confined themselves to since losing three major members who did tape editing, sound design & songwriting.

I think that the complete story of the Munich sessions will forever remain mysterious.

this version cuts off the rhythmic coda of 'munic a' and puts it at the beginning of 'party 9'. and they made two seperate tracks out of '360', which should be one track. I also trust the names listed at the Faust Pages over the names of these files.

that being said the blogger mentions other versions of this out there, I'm certainly interested in anyone who's heard them weighing in

I was worried before the box came out, thinking that an explicit history would make the band seem less mysterious, but the stories in the two books just made things seem that much more out of control

--

Once upon a time there was a group of musicians who spent most of their time not doing music. And when they had had enough of not doing music, they would get together again and play all the music they had not played before. Joachim had the crazy idea to get together again, drive down to Munich, rent a studio, record like crazy and... then, what? That was not clear but nobody cared because it was not important. And, who would pay for the studio? and where would we live? and what would we eat? The solution was easy, and grand: we would live in the Arabella Hotel, eat at the Arabella Hotel and record at the Arabella Studio!! Fantastic. Yes, let's do it!

But who pays Arabella? Aaah, come on, that's a detail. First let's go and then we'll see. Günther and I and my puppy dog jump into my British Railway Services truck - which I had bought in England when I didn't have a driving license. This is apparently not a problem there because you can buy an 'L' driving license at the first Tobacconist shop you find -- which I did, and drove for years with this splendid 'L' in the rear of the BRS, confusing lots of police and customs on the continent who thought I was a citizen of Luxembourg with a French passport. Somehow it is the privilege of youth, to get away with such crimes. As we passed by a girlfriend outside of town, we realised that we could not get very far with the diesel that remained in the tank. So we stopped for the night, sucked some heating oil from her heating system, filled a few extra jerrycans just to be sure, and drove off to Bavaria.

I have no idea how the others managed to get to Munich -- we were all very broke -- but we got to the Arabella and everything seemed fine: Ruud (Bosma) and Joachim had convinced the Arabella management that we were legitimate, and soon we were sitting in the Arabella dining room, happy to meet again after all this time. Rudolf was there, Kurt was there, our dogs were there (they ate the whole time, only the best... and put it on the room bill please, dankeschon); everybody was there.

But, you can imagine, this could not go on forever. After a while (over a week) Arabella got nervous, and then more nervous by the day - until even the sweetest smile from Ruud and the smoothest talk from Joachim could not help us. Who is to pay this huge bill? Panic. Faxes to Virgin -- because we were, in a way, still under contract. They should be pleased that we offer them a master tape of our genial music. But no, Richard didn't even want to listen to our genial music. More panic. Kurt had already discretely left. So, let's rescue the equipment and the tapes at least. We sneaked the equipment and tapes out into the BRS and Ruud and Günther hopped in and... go... run for freedom... speeding gangster-wise through the Arabella grounds, knocking down the closing gates of the parking lot and -- yes, hurrah, they were through!

Like captains in a sinking ship, Joachim, Rudolf and I (where the hell is Zappi?) stayed back to do battle. We were arrested, humiliated (how could anyone not realize the importance of these recordings? Pah!) and no, we none of us had one single pfennig, neither in our pockets nor in the bank, so hang us, torture us, sell our bones to our fans, do what you want with us, but -- please, we're hungry and can't we just talk about this over a nice bottle?

The non-funny, non-heroic end of this story was that Joachim's and Rudolf's mamas bailed us our and paid the bills to save their cherished progeniture. Thank you Mrs. Irmler, thank you Mrs. Sosna.

just finished reading Andy Wilson's new book on Faust, Stretch Out Time 1970-1975, and it looks like I definitely made a lot of incorrect assumptions about this tape, mainly that it's composed mainly of things from the Munich sessions. I should have known, the tracks containing the sounds of their pinball machine and the tracks with children's voices definitely suggested that much of this music was recorded at Wumme, and edited together with the new Munich material. it's also not all of the Munich stuff -- there's a brief (somewhat insubstantial) track called 'Wonderwall' which was released on the mailing-list only release abzu, which I passed on at the time (4 discs of 90's live shows with 2 minutes of unreleased 70's material -- now really).

the book is great. the majority of it is simply Wilson going over the released music, track by track, but he's got interesting things to say about it, translates many of the lyrics, and includes several choice anecdotes from the band members about the context / meaning of the lyrics and the production. this approach usually ruins the music for most bands, but not here, their 'explanations' are equally mystifying. the opening essay which places Krautrock in context with the US & British rock invasion is extremely well written -- what was it about Germany that gave rise to so many revolutionary electronic rock bands is an inherently political issue, which Wilson understands well. The narrative-based approach also presents the different members' drastically conflicting accounts of the early band history in a linear fashion while still staying impartial to any one account. Also: full discography, concert reviews of their 73/74 tours, lots of pictures (a few not in the Faust Box), mostly all carried over from the Faust Pages but excellent to have them as a printed reference.

Ok I stop typing now

DJ's from the Kosmische Club and radio show will provide post-screening entertainment int he bar, including a preview of exclusive new Faust music. The film will be premiering at The ICA ten years to the day from the extraordinary concert it documents.

Any London folk going?

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), October 24th, 2006. (Ned)

Indeed they were, Tim. Ned Raggett tells you rightly:

Alexander Bain
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(they claim to be from FAUST PARTY 3)

(i have done zero looking up btw so this may be a stupid question)

the 1989 71 Minutes CD compiles The Last LP & Munic and Elsewhere, minus one track from each album (including 'Party 1' from the first single). those two tracks eventually made it to disc as extra tracks on the BBC Sessions + CD.

I wonder who has all those Wümme session tapes. Uwe Nettelbeck? Polydor? I'd love to hear the LPs worth of Elvis covers sung by the local pub drunk and backed by Faust (confirmed to exist by Peter Blegvad) and the sessions Dieter Meier recorded there.

that is it, I have to get a copy of documentary, I didn't even think there'd be live footage in it

full fidelity, full length versions of the clips of organization and kraftwerk they played in the same episode showed up on youtube a few months ago, you know the footage is there somewhere

looks like brian turner's posted the individual 'v' tracks as well: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/11/fausts_lost_alb.html

mostly Faust (after reading the Andy Wilson book, which imo isn't really the greatest thing ever written)
-- Dominique (d_leon...), November 21st, 2006.

no, it's not 'good' writing & 80% of it is just him talking about the released music

but I like the politics and there's a lot of key info in the first two chapters

we still need an extended interview with Graupner about his gear, Frith was telling me things about their networked black monolith control panels that just blew my mind

-- milton parker (milton.parke...), November 21st, 2006.

no, it's not 'good' writing & 80% of it is just him talking about the released music

yeah, and going off on god knows what philosophical rants with the thinnest relation to the songs - it reminded me of Beatle fans who attribute the creation to something john lennon said once in an interview. I did also like the intro stuff, for setting up German rock music in relation to everything else at the time.

Still, I couldn't help but think it's books like this that contribute to Faust's "mythical" reputation. Apparently, no one can get close enough to them to get enough factual material to fill a book -- and really, I'm not so sure a travelogue of Faust's daily lives 1970-75 would shed much revelatory light on their music. However, I'd also like to know more about what they did in the studio, Graupner's thoughts on what he thinks he accomplished (or Faust got away with). And I would like to know why this member dropped out of society, and how Faust deals with having two versions of the band now, and why do they call both of them Faust???

Also, I don't agree with a lot of Wilson's opinions of the records. The first record is my least fave, and don't think the Munic A & B tracks are as lacking as he does.

-- Dominique (d_leon...), November 21st, 2006.

I don't think it's because they're unavailable, I think it's more a matter of having to sort out and choose sides -- Peron and Irmler have conflicting accounts of the band's history. (though I get the impression that Wilson slightly favors Peron's chronology over Irmler's -- as I do myself, Peron just seems straightforward while a lot of Irmler's comments seem a bit too mythological).

as to more information about recent Faust activity, there's information but no editorializing, I imagine because Wilson knows both parties well enough not to want to exacerbate the conflict.

I also very much disagree with Wilson's opinions of the records -- very dangerous in a book that fills 75% of its pages just going over the music, but I enjoyed his explanations as to why he feels that way about each of them. And I kind of liked the philosophical rants -- Faust is heavy.

I don't think there's too much more to be written about the band that isn't in this book, or Cutler's interview booklet in Wumme Years. The one last thing we need: an indepth Tape Op or Sound On Sound interview with Graupner describing every last component of the gear he built for them, especially the networked monoliths.

As for heavy, yeah Faust is heavy, but it would take a lot for me to really want to dive into that kind of thing (and I know I don't like writing about it myself in reviews). I think I can appreciate Faust's political viewpoints, and one thing I liked in the book was hearing about how little things Faust did in their songs were motivated by political things -- but that's about as much as I need to hear about it, even agreeing with their politics. (I guess I'm arguing myself into the corner that says I'd like their stuff even if their politics were different, which I guess is true)

one of the main pieces of new information in this book that wasn't in Cutler's booklet was that the two trios that existed seperately before merging each had different priorities: Nucleus (Peron / Sosna / Wüsthoff) played song-based material while Campylognatus Citelli (Irmler / Zappi / Meifert) played freak-out sound exploration. If 70's Faust was a lucky collision of both threads that somehow took, it still makes sense that the modern split Fausts pursue different strengths.

Brian Wilson = Rudolf Sosna, Mike Love = Irmler (being harsh here)

I'd like the music regardless of the politics as well, but also think the music contains an innate argument for wider radicalism that you'd have to work to tune out, so the concrete details of what was in the air at the time are crucial, wouldn't trust a book that left that out, the purpose of this series is not entertainment etc.

and Sosna drinking himself to death, wtf

http://www.faust-pages.com/

Uwe Nettelbeck, founder and mentor of Faust, died on January 17th. Jean-Hervé Peron made this statement about the passing of the man who first formed and inspired Faust and was a key creative force behind the group in their early years;

"Besides being a sharp-witted but yet charming and loving husband, father and grandfather, he was an outstanding cook, a writer who always generated deep emotions and interest, and a genius, selfless music producer. Thank you Uwe for all you have done for our music. Faust is your work, no doubt ! Your work will outlast all of us. May your soul rest in peace. My sincere sympathy to his family Petra, Anouchka, Sandra, Elisha and Elsa."

There's no reason why I should even like the 'arsing around' that most of the Faust output is based on. Apart from the fact that their spirit and lack of pretention actually shines through.

RIP and revive (this thread)

I was one of the many kids who took a chance on that original 49p Faust Tapes album and I've never regretted it. And as their more recent work demonstrated, they were one of the very few key seventies bands who managed to sound creative and challenging right up to the end (Van Der Graaf Generator being the only other one which comes immediately to my mind).

A glass of port and a spin of "The Sad Skinhead" to the man's memory. RIP.