Faust are a German band that started playing a sort of "electronic art rock" in the early Seventies. Their music was probably twenty years ahead of their contemporaries, thanks to an infinity of genial and experimental inventions. The bands influenced by Faust experience are uncountable: from Stereolab to Tortoise, from a big part of new wave to industrial music. Though, the works of those bold Germans remained just a cult of a few experimental rock fans for a long time. Only in the last years, the discover of German kraut-rock brought to light their music and make it know to a wider audience. 

Producer/advisor Uwe Nettelbeck formed this group in Wumme, Germany, in 1971, in order to challenge the "pioneer rock" of Can, Amon Duul and Kraftwerk, the bands that were ruling the avant-garde scene in Germany. The initial line-up was Werner Diermaier (drums), Joachim Irmler (organ and electronics), Arnulf Meifert (drums), Jean-Hervé Peron (bass guitar, guitar, vocals), Rudolf Sosna (guitar and keyboars) and Gunter Wüsthoff (sax and special effects). Faust have taken the search for new sounds farther than any other group. Their music is technological rock taken to extremes: "In every country musicians are beginning to synthesize new sounds", they told. "The trouble is that this hasn't been done consistently enough. As a musician one now needs enough understanding of electronics to systematically build the instrument which will produce exactly the sound one wants to hear. The ideal is for each musician to make his own instruments". 

Since spring 1971 Faust have been putting this theory into practice, living in almost monastic isolation in the north German countryside between Hamburg and Bremen. The former schoolhouse in which they live also serves as their studio and sound laboratory - the old classroom is filled with a jungle of electronic equipment, with 8-track recording facilities. So their debut album Faust was born. It was a rock artwork, with a radiographic cover on a transparent vinyl. But the art of the band was put into music as well: a mix of electronic effects, unusual rhythms and anarchic suites. Every track was a surprise invention upon invention. The ironical and surrealistic lyrics reflected the "freak-out" poetic of that time. More a hippie than a political group, Faust expressed also the free spirit of the post-1968 generation: "I think you can't make music without being political", Joachim Irmler told. "So for sure we lived in a special, shall we say 'gang'. You couldn't stay away from what happened on the street, and so for sure it's influenced by what happened all over the world. We were shaped by things, but we were not a really political group. The politics influenced much more the lyrics and the poems, not the music, and I was much more into music".

Their second album So Far (again a novelty package, this time virtually all-black, with a set of 10 picture inserts depicting each track) acted more on parody, with shorter tracks and a wider range of styles, metronomic rock anthems (with nonsensical lyrics), guitars fuzzed with intense electronic effects, pseudo psychedelia onto trippy folk, dadaism and free-jazz.

In that period the German band collaborated with avant-garde artists such as Slapp Happy and Anthony Moore, but also with Tony Conrad, a member of the entourage of LaMonte Young and the early Velvet Underground (together they released the album Outside The Dream Syndicate in 1973).

The Faust music could seem to be hermetic, but despite apathy in Germany, soon gained public attention in Britain, so that the Virgin Records engaged them and published The Faust Tapes, a compilation of studio out-takes from the previous albums. In 1974 Faust cut their masterpiece: Faust IV, an experimental work destined to influence a multitude of rock bands in the following two decades. There are tracks on this album that sound like what other people were only beginning to do 10 or 15 years later. "Yes, that was the problem for us, being first", Irmler explained ironically. "At the beginning it was like 'ok, maybe it will last for about half a year, then they will understand'. Then I thought 'let's wait two years'... and then it was about 5 years, something like that. I began to think 'what's the matter with you?'".

Faust IV is an invention upon invention bounty of delight. The overture "Kraut-rock" is a long electronic suite nodding in the direction of the post-John Cage generation of "systems" composers (especially Philip Glass). "The sad skinhead" is a genial reggae-rock joke. "Jennifer" is a loud bass-guitar oriented song with magnificent keyboards and a free-jazz improvisation at the end. "Just a second" is a guitar a solo accompanied by electronic effects and obsessive vibrations. "Giggy Smile" is a light musical digression, with strange noises and percussions on the background. "It's a bit of a pan" is the anarchic-electronic album's final. After that record Rudolf Sosna left the band and Jean-Hervé Peron worked with Henry Cow for a while. They were replaced by Peter Blegvad and Uli Trepte. Despite existing for almost two further years a planned fifth album, although announced by Virgin, was never realised. Faust's story seemed to be finished.

After innumerable rumours, it was confirmed that the nucleus of Faust were again playing live in the late-80's. The return of Faust started with a concert in Hamburg (9 October 1990), and then in October 1992 Faust stepped back onto the international scene, with a concert at the Marquee Club in London. The original members: Werner Diermaier, Joachim Irmler and Jean-Hervé Peron, were augmented by one Achim, on extra percussion. In 1994 they published Rien, mixed by Jim O'Rourke. Before the end of the decade, they cut three other records: You Know Faust (1997), Ravvivando (1999) and Faust Wakes Nosferatu, that called to mind the old kraut-rock spirit even if far away from their golden years. 

"A radical mix of Musique Conrete, Stockhausen, the Velvet Underground, and moments of almost pastoral beauty. That's the NME definition of Faust music. The musician Julian Cope called them "the greatest thing ever" and "a source of intense inspiration". Melody Maker added: "Anyone who's loved the last half-decade's re-invention of the guitar, (Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine et al.), will instantly recognise Faust as a prime ancestor of 'our' music". Merging musical search and irony, Faust created a German alternative to the American avant-garde rock of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and the Velvet Underground. Their surrealistic suites helped European rock to make a step forward in using electronics and experimenting new sounds.