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Faust IV
1973 studio album by Faust From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Faust IV is the fourth studio album by the German krautrock band Faust, released in 1973 by Virgin Records. The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, where it is described as a "krautrock classic".[1]
The album was the last to be released by the original line-up of Faust. Following its completion, the band recorded a fifth album, sometimes referred to as Faust V, at the Manor Studio in early 1975, but Virgin Records rejected the tapes and dropped the group from its roster.[2][3] The group disbanded shortly afterwards.
Faust did not return until 1994, when a new incarnation of the band, led by founding members Jean-Hervé Péron and Werner Diermaier, released Rien on Table of the Elements.[4]
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Background
By 1972, Faust had become one of the most radical acts associated with the emerging Krautrock scene. Their previous records, Faust (1971) and So Far (1972), combined musique concrète, tape editing, and surreal humor with rock instrumentation. Their collage-based approach had drawn comparisons to Frank Zappa and The Velvet Underground, but also alienated mainstream listeners.[5]
In 1973, Virgin Records head Richard Branson was seeking an avant-garde act to complement the label’s roster. Impressed by the band’s prior work, Virgin offered Faust a new recording contract and released The Faust Tapes at the budget price of 49 pence — a marketing gamble that sold over 50,000 copies in the UK and made Faust briefly famous.[6]
The commercial surprise of The Faust Tapes provided the budget for Faust IV, which would become both their final album for Virgin and the last recording by the original line-up.
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Recording and production
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Following the success of The Faust Tapes, which Virgin Records released as a low-priced experiment in 1973, Faust relocated from their self-built studio in Wümme, near Bremen, to The Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, England, to record their fourth album. The band had recently signed a full contract with Virgin Records, which was then a new label under the direction of Richard Branson.[7]
The sessions at The Manor were lengthy and unfocused, marked by creative disagreements and the group’s idiosyncratic recording methods. According to producer Uwe Nettelbeck, the band “spent weeks chasing sounds that could not be repeated twice,” leading to difficulties in finalising mixes.[8] To complete the album, Nettelbeck decided to include several recordings from earlier Wümme sessions, notably the opening drone piece “Krautrock” and the closing track “It’s a Bit of a Pain”, which had previously appeared as the B-side to the single “So Far” in Germany.[9]
This hybrid of English and German material reflected Faust’s transitional period: they were moving away from the isolated, commune-based Wümme environment toward a more conventional studio setting, yet retained their experimental ethos. The Cambridge Companion to Krautrock describes Faust IV as “a meeting point of avant-garde collage and emergent pop structure,” symbolising the tension between free improvisation and studio discipline.[10]
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Musical content
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Faust IV juxtaposes long-form, drone-based improvisation with some of the band’s most accessible songwriting to date.
The opener, "Krautrock", is a drone-based instrumental that unfolds over seventeen minutes, gradually building layers of organ, bass, and feedback before drums finally appear after seven minutes. The track has often been cited as one of the clearest examples of the krautrock aesthetic, merging trance-like repetition with electronic experimentation.[9][11]
Later tracks such as "The Sad Skinhead" and "Jennifer" employ more conventional songwriting techniques, with the former offering a rhythmically straightforward, tongue-in-cheek look at British youth culture, and the latter standing as one of Faust’s most melodic and haunting compositions, characterised by sustained guitars and whispered vocals.[12]
The closing track, "It’s a Bit of a Pain", combines both styles: a structured pop melody interrupted by bursts of tape manipulation, distortion and found sounds. During the chorus, layers of noise emerge, and near the end a woman’s voice speaking Swedish can be heard — a surreal, collage-like gesture that echoes the band’s earlier Wümme experiments.[9][13]
“Just a Second” was retitled “Just a Second (Starts Like That!)” on later CD editions to reflect its abrupt, tape-spliced opening. On some early CD issues the track numbering was incorrect and misleading, creating confusion about the sequence. Discogs and later reissues both note these errors, while the liner notes of the 2-CD remaster contain additional inaccuracies about recording dates and personnel.[14][15]
Critics have noted that the album strikes a different balance from Faust and So Far: where the earlier records foregrounded collage, radio noise and spontaneous tape edits, Faust IV alternates those avant-garde gestures with structured songs, giving it what Pitchfork called “a subtle dismantling of rock structure, where beauty and absurdity coexist without hierarchy.”[9]
Critical reception
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Upon its original 1973 release, Faust IV received a mixed response from the British music press: reviewers in Melody Maker and Sounds were intrigued by its textures but uncertain of its intentions, calling it “both absurd and hypnotic.” Retrospective criticism, however, has been overwhelmingly positive.
Pitchfork rated the album 9.4 out of 10 in its 2007 reissue review, describing it as “a subtle dismantling of rock structure, where beauty and absurdity coexist without hierarchy.” The review highlighted the contrast between the monumental opener “Krautrock” and the melodic ballad “Jennifer,” calling the latter “further proof that the band were capable of writing actual songs.”[9]
AllMusic awarded Faust IV 4½ stars, with Steve Huey praising its balance of experimentation and accessibility: “Faust’s humor and unpredictability were intact, yet the music had an unforced coherence that made it their most approachable work.”[16] Spin echoed this sentiment, noting that the record “anticipates both post-punk minimalism and the ambient drift of later electronic music.”[21]
Record Collector called it “a still-intriguing snapshot of a band about to implode under its own experimental momentum,” while Mojo included it among its “100 Cosmic Rock Albums” and described the record as “the bridge between avant-rock chaos and the minimalist beauty of ambient music.”[22]
Writing for The Quietus, Julian Marszalek summarised Faust IV as “the point where pop sensibility and radical sound collage finally shook hands,” praising its continued freshness and influence on modern experimental rock.[23] Similarly, The Wire described the album as “Faust’s most complete statement, one that proved noise and structure could coexist within rock’s vocabulary.”[24]
By the 2010s, Faust IV had become widely recognised as the group’s masterpiece, a record that encapsulated both the conceptual freedom and playful irreverence of the krautrock movement.
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In popular culture
Madlib sampled The Sad Skinhead in 2013 for his album Rock Konducta, Pt. 1 on the track "Far Faust".[25]
Track listing
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Original 1973 release
The published track listing contains a number of errors. Track 5, "Giggy Smile / Picnic on a Frozen River, Deuxieme Tableau" is incorrectly listed as "Picnic on a Frozen River, Deuxieme Tableau". Track 6, "Läuft...Heisst Das Es Läuft Oder Es Kommt Bald...Läuft", is incorrectly listed as "Giggy Smile".[14] "Run" is incorrectly listed as "Läuft...Heißt Das Es Läuft Oder Es Kommt Bald…Läuft".[26]
2006 Faust IV CD EMI reissue[27]
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Personnel
- Werner "Zappi" Diermaier – drums
- Hans Joachim Irmler – organ
- Jean-Hervé Péron – vocals, bass
- Rudolf Sosna – vocals, guitar, keyboards
- Gunther Wüsthoff – synthesizer, sax
Sound and art work
- Kurt Graupner – engineer
- Uwe Nettelbeck – producer, cover artwork
- Gunther Wüsthoff – cover artwork
References
External links
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