with: Werner Diermaier, Joachim Irmler, Jean Herve Peron, Rudolf Sosna, Gunther Wusthoff, Arnulf Meifurt. Engineered by Kurt Graupner

Inventors of Kraut Rock, iconoclasts extraodinaire, Faust are key figures in the history of rock music. In the early 70’s, along with Can and Kraftwerk, they re-invented pop as an art-form with a specifically European attitude. Virtually imprisoned by svengali producer Uwe Nettlebeck in their studio at Wumme, near Hamburg, they overturned our whole notion of what makes a pop record. They improvised with industrial noise, generated bizarre hypnotic grooves, created shockingly wilful studio collages, and dabbled with every conceivable musical genre sometimes simultaneously. Kurt Grapner, a Deutsche Gramaphon engineer who was seconded to the project, furnished Faust with innovative effects units and built a spontaneous recording environment which perfectly complemented Faust's conceptual ideas, satirical humour, and insane passions.

After twenty years in the wilderness Faust re-formed in 1993, and have been touring and releasing new albums ever since. Their re-appearance has only served to bolster the legend, and the box set of all Faust’s early work, from 1971 73, was released by ReR last year to tremendous acclaim. Of the five CD’s in the box, only the BBC Sessions, derived from a John Peel radio session, has never been available before on CD . (A limited edition vinyl release made a brief appearance at a Faust Action Party at London’s Garage in 1998, where the record covers were splattered by Jean Herve Peron’s action painting.)

The radio session was first broadcast 1/3/73, and is 20 minutes of pure Faustian hell. The Lurcher is a kind of electric period Miles Davis slouching drum rhythm, augmented by stabs of horn and electric guitar. Krautrock is a 12-minute post Velvet Underground riff, drone and noise-driven meditation, far superior to the version on the Virgin release Faust IV. The session ends with Do So, an outrageously corny slice of sixties pop. The remaining 30 minutes of the CD is prime Faust, culled from the ReR LPs The Last LP and Munic and Elsewhere (which could not appear on the ReR CD release Faust- 71 Minutes for reasons of space). They feature splattered repeating percussion, half heard voice-overs, stray dogs, renaissance music played by kazoos, the surreal song "We Are the Hallo Men", and alternative and wonderful versions of the classics So Far and Meer. This is essential listening, both for Faust fans and the as yet uninitiated.

"A radical mix of Musique Concrete, Stockhausen and The Velvet Underground” NME

"Rock music’s original sonic terrorists" MOJO 2000

"Faust were first" TIME OUT