That Eric Alper

Bureau B announces two forthcoming reissues from Faust, the classic West German outfit that helped define the krautrock movement of the 1970s. The two albums, Faust So Far and Faust IV, are to be released on December 5th on CD / LP and Limited Edition LP.

Faust So Far: challenging form through fragmentation

By the early 70s, Faust had already dismantled the very concept of a rock album. Their self-titled debut tore through convention with tape edits, abstract structures, and a scathing collage of cultural detritus. Faust So Far, recorded just six months later, was not a retreat from that radicalism but its evolution. Instead of challenging form through outright fragmentation, the band now disguised their subversion in structures that almost, almost, resemble songs. But don’t be fooled. This is still Faust: unpredictable, subversive, and unbound by convention.

The circumstances surrounding Faust So Far‘s creation were no less unconventional than those of Faust’s debut. The band was still ensconced in the converted schoolhouse in Wümme, Lower Saxony, and its improvised studio — a riddle of cabling, tape and custom electronics. By this point, the band had grown more cohesive as a unit but remained steadfastly anti-commercial, despite the pleas of their label.

Taken as a whole, So Far is less a linear progression from Faust’s debut than a sideways leap into a parallel sonic dimension. Where the first album exploded rock from the inside out, So Far rearranges the wreckage into strange new shapes. There’s sly humour here too, buried under the fuzz and tape edits — a knowing wink that these sonic detours aren’t acts of nihilism, but of creation. Faust were building something. What, exactly, remains elusive — and still utterly intoxicating.

Faust IV: rewiring the circuits of German rock

By 1973, with Faust IV, Faust had already rewired the circuits of German rock. Their first two albums had exploded traditional song form with a joyous disregard for continuity, coherence, or commercial appeal. The Faust Tapes, released earlier that year as a surreal sampler of their cut-and-paste genius, had earned them a curious British audience and the indulgence of Virgin Records. For a brief moment, it seemed as though Faust might finally play the game — just a little. Faust IV became their most paradoxical work: accessible enough to lure listeners in, complex enough to keep them guessing.

For the first time, the band left the rustic headquarters in Wümme — a former schoolhouse in rural Lower Saxony stuffed with cabling, hand-built electronics, and limitless weed — and entered the professional confines of The Manor, Virgin’s newly christened studio in Oxfordshire. Gone was the radical freedom of the commune. In its place: deadlines, engineers, and a rapidly dwindling budget. The sessions stretched on and grew increasingly fraught, yielding a mixture of fresh material and fragments drawn in from earlier experiments in Wümme. Faust IV is the result: part studio artefact, part salvage operation, part séance.

Faust IV is uneven, restless, and full of contradictions — and that’s exactly what makes it compelling. Its rough edges and loose threads sit right alongside moments of real focus, giving the sense of a band following ideas wherever they lead. Rather than polish things smooth, Faust left the seams visible, and the result feels all the more vital for it. Nearly half a century on, its spirit remains intact: mischievous, mysterious, and gloriously unfinished. If Faust had set out to build a new language, Faust IV shows them mid-sentence — trailing off, cracking jokes, then suddenly profound. Don’t expect to follow the conversation; just keep listening.

Faust So Far and Faust IV will both be reissued on December 5th.
For more information on this and other Bureau B releases, visit https://www.bureau-b.com/releases.