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debut albums arrive with the kind of self-contained logic and radical spirit found on the self titled ‘Faust’. Released in 1971, it marked the beginning of a project that would sidestep genre and expectation, offering a fractured, exploratory take on rock music, blending tape experiments, improvised structures, and surreal collage. This Bureau B reissue offers a fresh opportunity to engage with one of the most curious and uncompromising records of its time.

The story of Faust begins in 1969, when cultural journalist Uwe Nettelbeck met with Horst Schmolzi, an A&R man at Polydor in Hamburg. Schmolzi was looking for a German answer to The Beatles, but Nettelbeck had other ideas. With a generous advance in hand, he set out to assemble something far more radical. Nettlebeck headed into the Hamburg underground and fused members of the bands Nukleus and Campylognatus Citelli into a new six-piece lineup. From Nukleus came bassist Jean-Hervé Péron, guitarist Rudolf Sosna, and saxophonist Gunther Wüsthoff. From Campylognatus Citelli, he brought in keyboardist Hans-Joachim Irmler and drummers Werner “Zappi” Diermaier and Arnulf Meifert.


Installed in a converted schoolhouse in the rural village of Wümme, Lower Saxony, the band lived and worked communally, while Nettelbeck oversaw the project as producer, alongside engineer Kurt Graupner. Much of the Polydor money went not into marketing, but into building a custom studio on-site, allowing the band complete creative autonomy. Extensive cabling allowed instruments to be played without needing to leave the bedroom, clothing was optional and intoxicants were abundant. The actual recording process didn’t begin until three days before the deadline, and what followed was a spontaneous burst of experimental creativity, equal parts anarchic and inspired. Remarkably, the resulting album doesn’t sound rushed. On the contrary, ‘Faust’ feels deliberate in .......
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