Originally part of 2021’s Faust Box Set release commemorating the bands 50th anniversary Momentaufnahme I and II are now set for their own stand alone release by popular demand. This is for all those that missed out on the limited edition box set release. They collect together music recorded at the band's studio - a converted schoolhouse in rural Wümme between 1971 and 1974 in a similar vein to the way in which 'The Faust Tapes’ (released in 1973) was assembled. These two albums range from minimal electronic pulses, ambient dreamscapes, vocal collages to heavy drone, ritualistic percussion and psychedelic grooves. Highlights include the hypnotic space jams of ‘Vorsatz’ and ‘Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür’, the delicate acoustics of ‘I Am… An Artist' and the radiophonic workship-esq 'Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre‘.

Let’s let founding member Jean-Hervé Peron explain more…. Faust were originally a group of musicians, each following our own inspirations, desires, illusions: many facets, many directions, different styles, different languages. We often had to struggle with the clash of our egos but there was also a natural tacit understanding of each other's role. We had the privilege to work with a great producer and an extraordinary recording engineer. From spring 1971 to spring 1974 we existed as a group. Then Faust became a Gestalt with various incarnations. Momentaufnahme? Don't panic here, it is only German for 'Snapshot’. Momentaufnahme I and II present a collection of unreleased snapshots which offer a wonderful insight into the world of Faust. Some tracks are extremely raw and experimental, others are fully rounded productions. So far we have MA I and MA II but we plan to do more of these when we come up with more material or new ideas.

TRACK LISTING

01. Naja
02. Flaflas
03. Es Ist Wieder Da
04. Mechanika
05. Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre
06. Karotten
07. RéMaj7
08. Fin De Face
09. Vorsatz
10. Acouphènes
11. Interlude 18. Juni
12. Dadalibal
13. Bonne Soupe Au Fromage
14. Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür

Originally part of 2021’s Faust Box Set release commemorating the bands 50th anniversary Momentaufnahme I and II are now set for their own stand alone release by popular demand. This is for all those that missed out on the limited edition box set release. They collect together music recorded at the band's studio - a converted schoolhouse in rural Wümme between 1971 and 1974 in a similar vein to the way in which 'The Faust Tapes’ (released in 1973) was assembled. These two albums range from minimal electronic pulses, ambient dreamscapes, vocal collages to heavy drone, ritualistic percussion and psychedelic grooves. Highlights include the hypnotic space jams of ‘Vorsatz’ and ‘Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür’, the delicate acoustics of ‘I Am… An Artist' and the radiophonic workship-esq 'Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre‘.

Let’s let founding member Jean-Hervé Peron explain more…. Faust were originally a group of musicians, each following our own inspirations, desires, illusions: many facets, many directions, different styles, different languages. We often had to struggle with the clash of our egos but there was also a natural tacit understanding of each other's role. We had the privilege to work with a great producer and an extraordinary recording engineer. From spring 1971 to spring 1974 we existed as a group. Then Faust became a Gestalt with various incarnations. Momentaufnahme? Don't panic here, it is only German for 'Snapshot’. Momentaufnahme I and II present a collection of unreleased snapshots which offer a wonderful insight into the world of Faust. Some tracks are extremely raw and experimental, others are fully rounded productions. So far we have MA I and MA II but we plan to do more of these when we come up with more material or new ideas.

TRACK LISTING

01. Danach
02. Gegensprechanlage
03. Lampe An, Tür Zu, Leute Rein!
04. Purzelbaum Mit Anschubsen
05. Tête-à-Tête Im Schredder
06. Dampf
07. Testbildhauer
08. I Am... An Artist
09. Wir Wollen Mehr Volumen Kriegen
10. Arrampicarsi Sul Vesuvio
11. …und Alles Durcheinander
12. The Fear Of Missing Out
13. Ma Trompette
14. As-tu Vu Mon Ombre?

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 marketing strategy, selling the LP for 49p, the bargain price of a single. Shoppers flocked in their thousands to grab a copy, raced home and then spent the next forty five minutes checking their tracking, banging the speakers and blowing the needle, all to no avail. Do not adjust your set - This is Faust.

What was lurking within the grooves was a condensed collage of outtakes, oddities, sketches and samples previously known to the band's nearest and dearest as 'The Faust Party Tapes' - and how you wish you'd been to those parties. Cacophonous keys and roaring drones splinter into a deranged hybrid of tumbling toms and yelping vocals; committed experimentalism which in no way prepares you for the beautiful ballad which follows. Armed with acoustic guitar, playful piano and panning vocals, Faust fashion a pastoral idyll imbued with the most profound yearning.

"Flashback Caruso" brims with Byrds-ian jangle and Syd's psychedelia, its non-sensical English lending the piece a Confucian lyricism perfect for expanded minds. And just as the soaring, searing solo suggests we're on route to eternity, the group snap, crackle and pop into another rabid découpage. Sliced and spliced between TV snippets, dissonant trumpet and the sound of someone pissing, the utterly freaky fuzz-rock of "J'ai Mal Aux Dents" sounds positively radio-friendly, far less far out than if it were encountered alone. Compared to the non-musical madness beside it, this thrash-jazz trance dance makes perfect sense, as does the corrosive breakbeat of "Two Drums, Bass, Organ", a mutant funk workout which rivals Can in an all- German dance off. The progressive and symphonic "Dr. Schwitters", dissected by fragments of dissonant process music, haunted vocal takes and the proto-industrial grind of "Elerimomuvid", charts a course for the dark side of the moon more suited to the serious cosmonauts of the world. Then the record freefalls into disorienting drum workouts, mixing desk experiments and a wicked premonition of no-wave jazz ("Hermann's Lament") before taking slight respite in the beauty of "Rudolf Der Pianist" and "I've Heard That One Before".

The particles of prepared piano, power tools and tape echo continue to cascade through the soundspace, gradually building into the final trilogy of "Stretch Out Time", "Der Baum" and "Chère Chambre", which return to conventional song structure, albeit in the group's typically twisted style. Once again though, in comparison to the wonderfully weird pieces which precede them, these three tracks are entirely accessible, and in this lies the brilliance of the LP. It doesn't just succeed as a conceptual prank, or musical prediction, but by an expert balancing act between the profane and profound, presents its most accomplished moments in their most intelligible form.

For the open minds and eager ears, Faust's cryptic charm had been laid bare, and the heads had a new favourite band.

TRACK LISTING

1. Several Hands On Our Piano
2. Don't
3. Flashback Caruso
4. Voices And Trumpet And All
5. J'ai Mal Aux Dents
6. Beim Nächsten Ton Ist Es…
7. Two Drums, Bass, Organ
8. Dr. Schwitters Intro
9. Several Hands On Our Piano (Continued)
10. Beam Me Up, Scotty
11. Elerimomuvid
12. Dr. Schwitters (Continued)
13. Have A Good Time, Everybody
14. Above And Under Our Piano
15. Hermanns Lament
16. Donnerwetter
17. Was Ist Hier Los?
18. Rudolf Der Pianist
19. Ricochets
20. I've Heard That One Before
21. Watch Your Step
22. Under Our Piano Again
23. Fluid Chorus
24. Stretch Out Time
25. Der Baum
26. Chère Chambre

After the overwhelming success of last years 1971-74 box set release, containing the first four studio albums and for the first time ever this lost 'last' album recording, 'Punkt' gets a deserved and necessary stand alone release to the relief of fans and collectors and the undoubted future gratification of those yet to experience the magic in these recordings.

'While working on the "lost" album which the band recorded in Munich, it became clear that I was listening to the last ever made recordings of this band lineup. It had been their attempt to release another album, which did not happen for several reasons. After this Munich session every band member focused on other things.So this was the end of Faust. No further recordings, no shows. Punkt. Which means "full stop" in German and has "punk" in it as well. An attitude which the band or at least some of the members certainly approved'. Gunther Buskies - bureau b

The band called it 5½, fans referred to it as the "Munich album" and for almost fifty years it's been the missing chapter in Faustian mythology. Now for the first time, the German iconoclasts' previously unreleased fifth album sees the light of day as Punkt. Not only does this title place a bold full stop after the final recording by the group's seminal line up of Péron, Irmler, Sosna, Wüsthoff and Diermaier, but it also references the unflinching anarchism of German rock's ultimate outsiders. Punktis Faust at their most unhindered, untethered and unstoppable.

Returning to Germany after a loss-making U.K. tour and after their manager Uwe Nettelbeck had split with them,the group dusted themselves down and planned their next project, what would have been their second for Richard Branson's Virgin. Joined as always by their engineering genius Kurt Graupner, the band took residence in the Arabella High Rise Building, the luxury hotel which housed Giorgio Moroder's Musicland Studio in its basement. At the time, the Italian's space disco odyssey was yet to blast off, and he gave the group the studio downtime around his sessions with Donna Summer.

Off the leash and on the lash (running up a record breaking room service bill), Faust spent their nights below ground, creating the sublime cacophony which courses through these seven tracks. Driven by Diermaier's primitive repetition and Péron's rabid low end growl, "Morning Land" stomps its way through almost ten minutes of heavy psychedelia. Vocals disintegrate into the sonic landslide of guitar feedback and synth scree, momentum building until the track rends open the hellmouth with its unthinkable heft. A Luciferian spirit courses through the beatless "Crapolino", a tumult of scorched guitar chords, strident FXs and disembodied vocals which bares all the hallmarks of a black mass. And just like that, the group summon some demonic hunting party for "Knochentanz" (bone dance), arguably their most immersive creation. Opening with Péron's plangent horn, the track soon establishes a hypnotic c ounterpoint between Irmler's electronic sequences and Diermaier's sparse rhythm, a pulse which continues to build for six minutes as kick drum, snare, shaker and toms pile on beneath the ever-present drone. The storm clears for a second to allow a celestial chord progression to emerge from the darkness before the heavens open and Sosna's snarling, sawing guitar rains down from above, carrying "Knochentanz" through its final iteration, a collision of muscular fretwork, percussion freakout and bleeping organ which completes the most psychedelic recording you've never heard.

The frazzled optimism of "Fernlicht" buzzes away like an acid Beethoven bathed in neons, before the breathless "Juggernaut" stretches the definition of blues rock to its limit as squirming sine waves, clattering cymbals and corrosive guitars pan, reverse and overlap, each following its own unhinged rhythm. Then for a time the sound and the fury abate, making space for the frankly sublime "Schön Rund", a piano-led diversion into the soul-swelling realms of ECM jazz and fin de siècleimpressionism, which rivals anything else in their catalogue for pure beauty. And in case you thought they'd gone soft, Faust sign off with the guttural groans and course drones of "Prends Ton Temps".

After ten days of recording, it became clear that Branson wasn't footing the bill and Péron, Irmler and Sosna were arrested until the mothers of Sosna and Irmler paid the bill - though not before smuggling the master tapes into an undisclosed location, where they've waited ever since...

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This final 'Lost' article from the Faust pentalogy sees the German experimental powerhouse in fine form, wildly swaying between avant jazz, lounge funk and krautrock in a musically surprising triumph. Bonkers and brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Morning Land

2. Crapolino

3. Knochentanz

4. Fernlicht

5. Juggernaut

6. Schön Rund

7. Prends Ton Temps

Born in Russia, raised in Israel and now living in Berlin, constantly touring around the globe. Mary Ocher’s upbringing is reflected in her free music and wide artistry.
This new 10” was recorded in Kraut-legends Faust's studio and produced by Faust member Irmler. Among the 8 tracks here is a beautiful cover version of Robbie Basho's “Blue Crystal Fire" and the percussive track "Ulifant Fadera”, straight from the wilderness.

TRACK LISTING

01. Across Red Lines
02. A Beginning
03. Blue Crystal Fire
04. The Deep End
05. This World
06. Ulifant Federa
07. Calories In My Body
08. Piano Edit Revisited

Faust for all - The Krautrock legends lay down the musical foundations for everyone else to make something of their own.More than 40 years after their debut, Faust have come up with another archetypical album: inspiring, innovative, unpredictable, crossing boundaries, anarchic – Faustian!

“j US t”—pronounced “Just Us”—is the new album from legendary Hamburg band Faust. Founder members Jean-Hervé Peron and Zappi Diermaier have laid down twelve musical foundations, inviting the whole world to use them as a base on which to build their own music. The tracks presented by Peron and Diermaier are clearly, intrinsically typical of Faust in their own right, yet offer enough space for completely different works to develop. Which is exactly what they hope will happen. Whilst Diermaier largely remains true to his habitual handiwork—drums and percussion—Peron, as we might expect, incorporates all manner of unusual sonic sources alongside his bass, various string instruments and piano, even using a sewing machine as a metronome.

Tracks like “nur nous” and “ich bin ein pavian” show that Faust have lost none of their predilection for avant-garde Dadaism and improvisation. Peron and Diermaier actually surprise us with folkloristic excursions (“cavaquiñho”, “gammes”). In short, there is something for everyone to work with here. Peron and Diermaier await the results with bated breath. Faust will follow the same principle on the accompanying tour by inviting local artists to collaborate with them on stage.