Faust

by Jason Ankeny
There is no group more mythical than Faust, wrote Julian Cope in his book Krautrocksampler, which detailed the pivotal influence the German band exerted over the development of ambient and industrial textures. Producer/overseer Uwe Nettelbeck, a onetime music journalist, formed Faust in Wumme, Germany, in 1971 with founding members Hans Joachim Irmler, Jean Hervé Peron, Werner Zappi Diermaier, Rudolf Sosna, Gunther Wusthoff, and Armulf Meifert. Upon receiving advance money from their label, Nettelbeck converted an old schoolhouse into a recording studio, where the group spent the first several months of its existence in almost total isolation, honing its unique cacophonous sound with the aid of occasional guests like minimalist composer Tony Conrad and members of Slapp Happy.
 
Issued on clear vinyl in a transparent sleeve, Fausts eponymously titled debut LP surfaced in 1971. Although sales were notoriously bad, the album — a noisy sound collage of cut-and-paste musical fragments — did earn the group a solid cult following. Another lavishly packaged work, Faust So Far, followed in 1972, and earned the group a contract with Virgin, which issued 1973s The Faust Tapes — a fan-assembled collection of home recordings — for about the price of a single, a marketing ploy that earned considerable media interest. After Outside the Dream Syndicate, a collaboration with Tony Conrad, Faust released 1973s Faust IV, a commercial failure that resulted in the loss of their contract with Virgin, which refused to release their planned fifth long-player.
 
When Nettelbeck turned his focus away from the group, Faust disbanded in 1975, and the members scattered throughout Germany. However, after more than a decade of playing together in various incarnations, Faust officially reunited around the nucleus of Irmler, Peron, and Diermaier for a handful of European performances at the outset of the 1990s. In 1993, they made their first-ever U.S. live appearance backing Conrad, followed by a series of other stateside performances. After several live releases, a pair of new studio albums, Rien and You Know FaUSt, followed in 1996. Ravvivando appeared three years later.