So now it comes to this. Cope claims that the Faust Tapes was the social phenomena of 1973 and I can sort of believe it. It's a bonkers record that's fairly accessible and was sold for a super knock down price. I don't have an original with the lovely Bridget Riley sleeve - Mine was purchased in the great Krautrock goldrush from Revolver records after the guy behind the counter said he had one "round the back" So I end up with the RR reissue which (so Mr. Revolver claims) is a better pressing as the 25p virgin one was done on the cheap. Similar, though, is that it's 2 sides of unlabelled music - the CD reissue finally revealing the track titles (though most of them are "Untitled") and a page of lyrics.
And to some extent this was a sound of my late teenage years - one of those records that I know back to front and still find something to excite when I listen. It's the cut-up Faust, presumably this was just stuff that was on the cutting room floor way back when that's been collated into one record.
26 tracks in total, mainly vocal-less and a mix of sounds - loads of electronics, always playful. The first side is dominated by their most memorable moment, now revealed as J'ai Mal Aux Dents (I have toothache according to Google but renamed Shempal Buddah) - the title repeating over some nonsense words and some thumping guitar noises. There's a great Ectogram cover which is worth seeking out (and goes into the 20 minute zone). It's impossible describe as it lurches from one style of music to another - but like the previous records all the excerpts are perfect, short and to the point.
It's a fantastic record, but for me - the trailing three songs (Stretch Out Time, Der Baum and Chere Chambre) are almost what the whole record has been leading up to. All three have lyrics - Stretch Out Time is sung in heavily accented English. Der Baum continues the classic Faust trick of them all singing a different bit of the song - not really in a circular fashion but seemingly picking a line at random - Feeling like a tree today and it's a nice feeling yeah. It's absolutely stunning and the stop start nature of the song is really arresting.
The last track is just beautiful - Jean-Herve mumbling in French over some finger picked guitar. Half way through it switches to German as someone reads out a shopping list. The translations can be found on the web (e.g. http://faust-pages.com/records/concerts2.html) and it's not dissapointing. Unlike, for example Melody Nelson where the actual lyrics are all about Sunderland and how Melody's hair is red and it's her natural colour, this seems to be actually quite nice.
And it's all over. There can't be many records like this, mainly because there's not many bands who could pull it of - a perfect collection of crap from the floor of Wumme. As alluded to in previous posts GZM alluded to it and did a pretty good job (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE65obru82Q) but, much as I love them, even they couldn't keep this up (and keep it interesting) over a full length record. It seems unlikely but Faust are a true one-off - a marriage of musical talent and managerial nous.
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