Faust/Faust So Far

Performer: Faust
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: 2 LPs on 1 CD: FAUST (1971)/SO FAR (1972). Though a commercial blip in its day, Krautrock has become one of the most enduring movements in music history, with countless indie acts namedropping the genre's most famous as influences. Now, as then, Hamburg's Faust gets the least love. Revisited Records hopes to change that with this long overdue reissue of the band's classic second long-player, SO FAR. One of the worst commercial failures in the history of Virgin Records, SO FAR was a slight capitulation to the marketplace after their mellow-harshing debut: there are some hints of accessible grooves (the mesmerizing opener, "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl") and melodicism (the Jimmy Page-ish guitar and flute of "On the Way to Adamae") to pull in the faint of heart. Otherwise, SO FAR builds on the drastic pastiches of the first album: proto-industrial soundscapes evaporate into dreamier, layered ones and back again throughout the album's nine tracks. Faust didn't have the groove of Can, the thrust of Neu!, or the riffs of Amon Duul, but they had guts and an unsinkable sense of "anything goes." Given the success of industrial music and the uncompromising throb of the millennial American underground in places like Providence and Brooklyn, they also had a vision of the future. Essential for fans with adventurous ear drums. Faust/Faust So Far is an excellent, timely reissue of the first two LPs from the monolithic Krautrock band. Included are the complete contents of two full albums of wildly experimental head music, a portrait of a group rarely happy with what's going on unless its moving to something else. Though the material ranges far and wide -- from the distorted rock freakout of "Why Don't You Eat Carrots" to the experimental, heavily processed "Miss Fortune" to the tribal, trance-inducing pop on much of Faust So Far -- the results are radical and astonishing, some of the most breathtaking experimental music recorded during the '70s. ~ John Bush Faust's second album moves closer to actual song structure than their debut, but it still remains experimental. Songs progress and evolve instead of abruptly stopping or cutting into other tracks. The opening song "It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" begins as a repetitive 4/4 beat played on toms and piano with the title sung over the top. But for seven minutes the song adds instruments, including a lush analog synth line, and ends in a memorable sax riff. Faust's lyrical side appears on the acoustic "Picnic on a Frozen River" and "On the Way to Adam�e," whereas its abrasive side pops up on "Me Lack Space." "So Far," a jam shared by guitar, horns, and tweedy keyboard, rolls along with a funky hypnotic beat and wailing processed synths. And on "No Harm," the crazed delivery of such lines as "Daddy, take the banana, tomorrow Sunday" makes one want to believe something profound is going down. In terms of scope and the wealth of ideas, this is probably the most balanced of their first four albums. ~ Ted Mills

Q (Magazine) (p.141) - "[F]orward-looking tracks such as 'Mamie Is Blue' show that these people were truly ahead of their time."

Click Here for Shipping Options and Policies

Shipping or Dimension weight in pounds: 0.25