My God, my god, look not so fierce on me!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!
Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer!
I’ll burn my books!—Ah, Mephistophilis!
[Exeunt DEVILS with FAUSTUS.]”
—Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
I begin my musings on Krautrock legends Faust with the above quote not because devils dragged them to Hell for dabbling in the dark arts on their landmark 1973 album Faust IV, but because they disappeared after releasing said LP, so who’s to say Satan didn’t drag them off to the pit? For the album does partake of sorcery, albeit of the musical variety. Faust IV is so good you almost have to wonder whether they made a pact with the Devil to achieve its sublime heights.
From the compulsively listenable opening track, the drone-rocker “Krautrock” to the lovely but weird “It’s a Bit of a Pain” that closes the album, Faust IV is a must listen. Why, my only disappointment—and it’s a big one—is that Faust chose to include only a very much abridged version of the very kinetic “Just a Second (Starts Like That!),” a much, much longer version of which they included on the 2006 reissue of Faust IV. The song’s every bit as cool as “Krautrock,” and its omission strikes me as inexplicable. I suppose every deal with the Devil has its price.
The moody and very pretty “Jennifer,” the effervescent “Giggly Smile,” and the almost countrified “It’s a Bit of a Pain” all devolve into mind-boggling jams, and all three are the better for it. The last song in particular stretches out to include some truly phenomenal guitar spazz, to say nothing of a woman speaking in Swedish. Inter-European cooperation at its best!
Taking traditional song structures as the starting point for improvisational forays is just one of Faust’s fortes; as the monumental “Krautrock”—its almost 12 minutes of synthesizer-powered propulsion make it both a masterpiece of fine German engineering and a proud standard-bearer of the Krautrock movement—demonstrates, they’re just as good at ignoring standard song structures altogether. I was never a member of the Baader-Meinhof Komplex, but had I been, this is the song I’d have cranked up during one of those late night drives along the Autobahn in a liberated BMW. This is some Teutonic Miles Davis On the Corner shit, my friends—static in one regard, but ever changing, unlike say the music on 1973’s Outside the Dream Syndicate, the LP Faust recorded with NYC avant-garde composer Tony Conrad.
The brief snippet of “Just a Second (Starts Like That!)” that appears on Faust IV segues into “Picnic on a Frozen River,” which is interesting if farting electronic crickets and random noise are your thing. Me, I say feh. Nor am I completely won over by “The Sad Skinhead,” which has a reggaefied feel and is in its way quite catchy—almost a prelude to bizarro New Wave, as a matter of fact. Why, come to think of it I take it back. “The Sad Skinhead” is just swell. “Going places/Smashing faces/What else could we do?” is as good a lyric as you’ll run across anywhere, and Rudolf Sosna plays some nice guitar.
As for the two songs that make up “Läuft…Heißt Das Es Läuft Oder Es Kommt Bald…Läuft” the first is a bit too drowsy-making for my tastes, and the second is, well, a bit too drowsy-making for my tastes. But if it’s mood music you’re looking for, of the sort you’ll want to hear whilst staring out a window at snow falling in the streets of February Berlin, you could do much, much worse. This is just the sort of stuff the cadaverous David Bowie would be trucking in several years later during his Krautrock-influenced days in West Berlin with good old skinny Brian Eno.
Faust IV is a great album in the best sense of the words—innovative, unique, challenging, and altogether charming. There’s something here for everyone—madmen of the Steppenwolf variety, lovers of good old-fashioned songs, and fans of enthralling instrumental forays. Faust never really disappeared; they just broke up after Richard Branson’s Virgin Records declined to release their fifth album. But would it really be so far-fetched to think they were consigned to Hell after releasing this masterpiece? Albums this fantastic almost make you believe in blood-inked pacts with Old Scratch himself.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
