THE LAST LP

After FAUST had broken up in 1975, 2 years after the "Faust IV" album, their record label would release two albums in the eighties that were both compilations of live and previously unreleased tracks from the early seventies. The first from 1986 was called "Munic & Elsewhere" and the other "The Last LP" was from 1988. They would combine these two albums minus some tracks and call it "71 minutes Of Faust" and they released that in 1989. I do like the album cover for this record "The Last LP" and also the way they used the same one for "71 Minutes Of Faust" except they made the white lights yellow. Nice.

FAUST were a lot like CAN in their early days, in that they spent a lot of time recording music. So these unreleased tracks are the best of what was available, and this is an impressive album. I think I'm finally understanding why my Brother in Law constantly raves about CAN and FAUST. The guy is a drummer in a band right now, and he's a multi-intrumentalist, and has recorded lots of his music, along with him and his buddies jamming, like CAN and FAUST.

My first go round with "The Last LP" was in 2019, but I had already back in 2012 spent a week with "71 Minutes Of Faust", so I was familiar with a lot of the music on this record already. The opener "Party 2" might be my favourite as it is melodic and clocks in as the second longest song at over 7 minutes. Lots of experimental and crazy music on this release. Some humour like on "Party 6" bringing Zappa to mind. "Party 7" and "Party 8" are the most avant sounding, although "Party 5" is a tough listen. "Psalter" is melodic with guitar, clapping, vocals, drums and more. "Party 1" is the longest piece at close to 10 minutes, and it opens side two of the album. We get light sounds over this growly atmosphere, then electronics lead late.

If your at all into FAUST you really need to get "71 Minutes Of Faust" which actually might be my overall favourite recording by them, and it includes almost all of "The Last LP". Four experimental stars for this one.