What are the prime, original (and often the best) examples of krautrock? You can take a pick, probably a dozen different names will come up in such a discussion, where one cannot be missed – that of Faust, a band (or more precisely a collective), that has been operating for decades now, since 1969. And while some of the group’s more recent releases may go somewhat unnoticed, their early releases are not only essential krautrock, but essential rock (or more precisely, modern music) as such.
When Richard Branson was still just a record shop owner turning his Virgin Records into a fledgling record label, he had on his hands a set of incredible, crazy tapes that within them included almost every possible sound you could imagine – from vacuum cleaners at full speed to gentle folk ballads sung in French and everything in between. He had a genius idea – put this out as one of his first album releases and sell it at the price of a single.
And, incredibly enough, that record called Faust Tapes, went to the top of the charts when it was released back in 1973. That created a flurry of interest, not only among the critics but also among the fans of prog rock and all unusual music fans, who were probably at their largest at the time for this for them unknown German group that originated in Hamburg, but it turned out to be worked out of a farm studio deep in the German countryside.
It turned out that Faust actually had a prior, self-titled album issued on clear vinyl with an X-rayed hand all over it on Polydor, which originally went practically unnoticed except for a few fervent British rock critics. And lo and behold, many realised that this masterpiece would have gone unnoticed if not for Branson’s marketing stunt.
Relatively brief by today’s standards at 34 minutes and so, the three elongated tracks that comprise the album are some of the most diverse and intense music, the latter in every sense of that word, created to this day, defying any musical (and/or sound) rule, yet still something that practically any listener can sit through without flinching. Fifty and some years after its original release back in 1971, it still sounds as timeless as it did then, with the new remaster extracting some additional nuances that might have been missed the first time around.
