THE FAUST TAPES

This is without a doubt one of the strangest releases ever and also one of the most unconventional. Given to the band by a studio engineer -who collected and glued several song fragments together- as a friendly, personal gift, the band liked it so much they wanted it to be released. The new record company Virgin, inspired by the success of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, wanted something new and original, and contracted the band. To feed the hype they released this album for the price of a 7" and as a result 50.000 copies got sold, infuriating poor customers who just bought it because they thought it was cheap and commercial. Not a smart move, as the production values of the album eclipsed the profits and ofcourse the band wasn't too happy with that. Through the years it was released in no less than 5 known covers, one of which was a vinyl in a green bag with a weird face on it, the current cd-release probably being the grey affair with the title in white. What's in the grooves, however, is an otherworldly collection of wonderful ideas, 26 selections that will make your jaw drop if you've got a taste for the bizarre. The original album didn't list any titles AT ALL, these became known through John Peel's show (he was a huge fan of theirs) so fans had to write it down. Most of the selections actually don't have any titles, but hidden amidst the chaos are some wonderful songs that do, ranging from the Dylan-like Flashback Caruso, the Kevin Ayers-like Der Baum to a long jam that could've passed as prime early-Mothers-era Zappa, J'ai Mal Aux Dents. The soundbits consist of manipulated voices, various kinds of drills, percussive works, some jazz-like passages, some really cool groovy stuff and some experiments that immediately make you draw lines towards Radiohead's re-invention as an electronic band. This is a masterpiece of known and unknown sounds for every fanatic of music that's different than your usual radio fluff.