WITH the recent news that Hamburg’s excellent imprint Bureau B is marking the half-century of Faust with a box set entitled Faust 1971-1974 in October (and already available to order – for details see below, as this isn’t the sort of thing you’d want to delay on), the label has this very morning released a video for “Fernlicht”, a track takenfrom the unreleased (until now) final Munich album from ’74.
The song is trippy, shimmering, has caverns of guitar space, a slow lazy wah-wah drone weaving through and a blur of a lead line and nuanced drums – and comes alongside retro footage from the archive of a Faust member, as Bureau B’s Gunther Buskies explains.
“While working on the Faust box set I asked every person involved in the project to please send me any material; photos, sketches, tapes or videos,” he says.
“Gunther Wüsthoff’s archive has been the one to provide us with the most striking visual gems; several film reels full of unseen material from the early 1970s, some documentary – some non-related to Faust and some experimental visual sequences.
“This has been like finding a missing link to understanding the band members massive will to experiment with art in every manner.
“The sequences used for this video were filmed back in 1972 seem to fit perfectly to the track.”
“Fernlicht” is taken from the mythical, shelved Punkt!, which was recorded at Giorgio Moroder’s Musicland Studios in 1974.
“There is no group more mythical than Faust,” said Julian Cope in his sought-after guide to the genre, Krautrocksampler, which you’ll currently be pushed to find for less than three figures; and if influence and myth, and folklore and stories are a guide, then Faust are right up there with the Velvets, about whom there’s old axiom, “everyone who bought one went out and started a band,” as attributed to Brian Eno.
The box set will form a virtually complete collection of Faust material from 1971 to 1974. In addition to the debut album it will include 1972’s So Far, the legendary The Faust Tapes, Faust IV and, for the first time ever, the mythical, so-called “Munich album” Punkt.
Bonus albums Momentaufnahme I and Momentaufnahme II also feature unreleased material from the band’s Wümme studio era.
Two 7″s round off the vinyl set and include “Lieber Herr Deutschland”, the demo recording they sent to Polydor in 1971, gaining them a contract with a label with something of a conservative reputation; the second 7″ is a rerelease of “So Far”, the band’s 1972 single for the label.
Mastered from the original tapes, Faust 1971-1974 will be available as a limited edition vinyl run of 2,000, and 1,000 only on CD.
Faust’s Faust 1971-1974 boxset will be released on by Bureau B on October 8th; get your order in now at the label shop or contact your local record store pronto.
