The Faust Tapes

Among the first bands to use the studio as an instrument, Germany's Faust stitched engrossing albums from bits of improvised ensemble play, primitive electronics, lovely folk motifs, lo-fi musique concrete, and fragments of punk, psychedelic, jazz, and progressive music. THE FAUST TAPES is even more of a splendid mishmash than the earlier FAUST and SO FAR, as the album is sequenced as a single track. As haphazard as TAPES' construction might seem, with an excess of ideas that almost seems to have tumbled out of the Faust 5 at random, one must realize that "construction" is the operative word here. TAPES is a rare relic of cut-and-paste creativity from the days before sampling, and Faust's revolutionary jigsaw post-production techniques provided the model for future musical collages from other bands. TAPES' coarse cut-ups and abrupt splices continue to influence music, clearly informing the work of the so-called "Plunderphonic" artists (John Oswald, Negativland, Severed Heads), the lo-fi home tapers, and such post-industrial experimental outfits as Cabaret Voltaire, Death in June, and Nurse With Wound.