Faust - Faust IV (1973)

Artista: Faust

Álbum: Faust IV
Año: 1973
Género: Krautrock
Duración: 44:21
Nacionalidad: Alemania

Lista de Temas:
1. Krautrock
2. The Sad Skinhead
3. Jennifer
4. Just A Second (Starts Like That!)
5. Picnic on a Frozen River (Deuxieme Tableux)
6. Giggy Smile
7. Laüft... Heißt Das es Laüft Oder es Kommt Bald... Laüft
8. It's a Bit of a Pain

Alineación:
- Werner Diermeier / drums
- Hans-Joachim Irmler / organ
- Gunter Wusthoff / synthesizer, saxophone
- Rudolf Sosna / guitar, keyboards
- Jean-Herve Peron / bass

Otro gran aporte de Marcelo para todo el público cabezón. Continuamos con otro disco de uno de los referentes indiscutidos de eso que se llamó krautrock, que ha sido uno de los movimientos de rock mas amplios y experimentales de la historia, y como ya hemos dicho, ha nacido en Alemania durante los años 70's, con bandas que incluso trascendían el rock, haciendo música ambiental o electrónica experimental (como Popol Vuh o Tangerine Dream, ponele).
Una de las bandas más radicales del krautrock fue Faust, quienes ya en la primera mitad de los 70's tenían pasajes de noise rock, y momentos casi industriales. A continuación, el cuarto disco de los Faust, un disco con temas que te harán bailar en un baile deforme y extraño ("Sad skinhead") y delicados temas, un su disco más "normalito".
Sobre el grupo, ya hemos comentado lo suficiente en el post anterior...
Vamos con algunos comentarios y al disco, que no tengo mucho tiempo.

Faust IV es la segunda y ultima obra maestra de Faust. Después del primer disco el grupo nunca pudo volver a sacar una obra de tamaña magnitud, lo cual es razonable pues una obra como esa es un trabajo de toda una vida; lo mismo sucedió con Wyatt y Beefheart despues de sus obras maestras. al menos a Faust todavia le quedaba combustible para lanzar dos muy buenos discos y esta, su ultima obra maestra.
Valgan verdades, la calidad del disco esta centrada en su pieza central Krautrock, asi Faust queda como los unicos artistas que pudieron meter dos de sus canciones en el top ten de las mejores de todos los tiempos.
las demas canciones tambien son bastante interesantes, aunque algo lejos de su monumental primer tema. cada una muestra al grupo en sus mejores facetas, The Sad Skinhead un rock potente y divertido, Jennifer como una balada atmosferica llena de un simplismo exotico y psicodelico, mientras las demas son jams de ruido y musica ambient.
Krautrock: Krautrock es el ultimo testamento artistico del rock aleman junto a Bel Air (Can). probablemente una de las piezas instrumentales mas perfectas (de todos los generos de musica), con un nivel similar al de las mejores composiciones de la musica clasica y el jazz. Es tambien el viaje psicodelico mas extremo de la historia de la musica rock.
Krautrock esta lejos de ser una composicion comun, es mas bien una masa amorfa, una ameba gigante intergalactica, una estrella masiva en plena expansion, una de las comparaciones mas bellas que he leido de esta pieza es la del critico Piero Scaruffi: "Krautrock es una sombria, amenazante y agonizante magma galactica que consume energia termonuclear".
Krautrock tiene vida, respira, se desplaza, se consume, hierve, agoniza y aterroriza. es probablemente, junto con Alifib (Robert Wyatt) una de las pocas composiciones de musica rock que han logrado simular un organismo viviente, todas las caracteristicas antes mencionadas pueden claramente sentirse en la musica: primero, la explosion de ese "big bang" en el inicio radioactivo, y luego un constante pulso electronico que no cesa en ningun momento representa la respiracion y los latidos del organismo, un "pulsar" expulsando energia luminica y radioactividad, este pulso es el que a su vez crea el efecto de trance que nunca se detiene. aumentado a eso esta el ruido electronico que se le impuso a la pieza y que se mantiene los 11 minutos que dura la musica, el cual discurre como un rio de lava y le da a la composicion una densidad sonora sin precedentes, es alli donde se puede escuchar la ebullicion de la estrella y confirmando lo que dijo Scaruffi, la forma en que esta consume su energia termonuclear, poco a poco. el batido de la bateria es tipico: mutado del motorik, repitetivo y que apoya en mantener el trance. la pieza cambia un poco a los 7 minutos y el ritmo percutivo tambien, aqui se siente que la estrella ya va acabando con su combustible pues el ruido electronico va disminuyendo progresivamente, pero se mantiene en cierta forma la sensacion de vida, pero una que ya esta en plena agonia, de igual forma puede percibirse como la estrella trata de enviar señales, quiza señales de ahogo, se percibe como el edificio estelar se desmorona poco a poco; si esta estrella tuviera realmente una vida humana, entonces representaria su completo colapso psicologico. mas o menos un poco mas alla del minuto 11 la estrella ha terminado de consumir toda su energia y da sus ultimos signos de vida hasta que la musica desparece y con ella la estrella.
Krautrock entonces es la musicalizacion del nacimiento, vida y muerte de una estrella (o algun ente intergalactico similar) convirtiendose junto con Ebene (Klaus Scuhlze)en los maximos testamentos de la musica cosmica de todos los tiempos.
The Sad Skinhead: Un rock and roll potente con la cuota de humor grotesco caracteristica del grupo. el trabajo percutivo es infantil y casi tribal.
Jennifer: una lenta sabana psicodelica y soporifica que introduce un mantra taciturno que envuelve el espacio poco a poco hasta convertirse en una seccion dixieland algo tetrica. Las letras son ridiculas, pero la musica que las acompaña es suficiente.
Just A Second: Mas que todo una intuicion de ruido elecronico. empieza como una pieza hard rock pero poco a poco se va añadiendo ruido electronico hasta convertirse en otro homenaje al espacio "radioactivo".
Giggly Smile: Inspirado directamente por Frank Zappa es quiza uno de sus delirios psicodelicos mas infantiles y grotescos. el tema empieza como una cancion infantil circense profundamente riducula para luego meterse en una seccion jazz bastante ritmica y terminar en una riff que se repite incesante hasta el final de la cancion inundado en un bacanal psicodelico.
Lauft: empezando como una chanson francesa con algo de folk, termina de una manera monumental y profundamente emotiva, un solo de sintetizador que dibuja un espacio etereo que poco a poco cobra fuerza y que en cierto sentido es bastante "ambient"
It's A Bit Of A Pain: Continuando con los experimentos de collage, esta mezcla algo de cancion de cuna con folk, spoken word sin sentido (a lo Robert Wyatt) y distorsion electronica.

progreadicto

Fuera de esas minucias, nadie sabe más nada. Nadie sabe qué instrumento tocaba cada uno; nadie sabe cómo eran sus semblantes humanos; nadie sabe qué hacían para ganarse el pan (música, está claro, no). Para ser precisos, no es que nadie sepa sino que a nadie le importa demasiado; la envergadura mítica que Faust ostenta con orgullo ciertamente no necesita que se discurra sobre las vidas privadas (seguramente, harto mundanas) de quienes llevaron adelante una de las empresas más audaces de la breve cronología del rock. Lo que verdaderamente nos importa es el objetivo común que dio origen a la banda: empujar las fronteras del género hacia latitudes desconocidas. En el caso de Faust, más que en ningún otro, es la obra la que "habla" por el obrero. Éste, como corresponde a su título, cunde en el anonimato y se desvanece del mapa.
Y sin embargo incurrimos en una modestia algo pretenciosa (¡hurra! ¡un oxímoron!) llamando "obreros" a los músicos de Faust. En su esencia, su arte es demasiado academicista e intelectual - demasiado "de autor" - como para considerarlos simples empleados al servicio de una idea (alentada por el mentor y productor de la banda Uwe Nettelbeck). La música de Faust desconcierta y, a su manera heterodoxa, llena al oyente de emociones. Aunque concientemente calculada - como toda la música experimental - para "ir más allá", al mismo tiempo consigue transmitir una espontaneidad liberadora de la que pocas bandas avant-garde pueden jactarse. El cuarto álbum del grupo, austeramente titulado Faust IV, es tal vez el mejor ejemplo de esta feliz contradicción.
De los cuatro álbumes del Faust original (sí, más tarde volverían, pero esa es otra historia), Faust IV es seguramente el menos intrépido. Comparado sobre todo con sistemas cacofónicos como Faust (1971) y The Faust Tapes (1973), puede afirmarse que la obra que aquí nos convoca brinda el material más accesible que grabaron los alemanes en su tiempo de gloria. En IV hay verdaderos riffs, hay melodías, hay hasta ¡géneros reconocibles! Tal es así que en su momento los seguidores más radicalizados de la banda (tres gatos locos, por supuesto) catalogaron al álbum como una decepción. Solo el transcurso del tiempo le dio el reconocimiento que, en realidad, merece.
¿Por qué lo merece? Porque Faust IV logra balancear la osadía del avant-garde propio de la banda con la excitabilidad del rock más familiar y campechano. Patear el tablero con un artistic statement de delirios informes, notas aleatorias y ruido sordo - eso es, simplificando, el disco debut del grupo - requiere más audacia y sed de sangre que verdadera imaginación. En cambio, lograr que una pieza musical desafíe las convenciones y, al mismo tiempo, ofrezca una escucha genuinamente placentera, suele ser más difícil. Mucho más de lo que quienes prefieren manifiestos extremos suelen reconocer. Faust IV no es un manifiesto extremo; lo puede escuchar cualquier vecino sin sobresaltarse ni alarmarse demasiado (a diferencia de Faust, que ninguna persona razonable toleraría). Y aún así, si ese vecino decide prestar atención, descubrirá que esta música no se parece mucho a nada que conozca. En ello reside, en suma, la conquista (la fuente del deleite y el placer) de este gran disco.
La lista de canciones es, apropiadamente para Faust, un misterio. No está muy claro cuáles son sus verdaderos nombres ni duraciones. La mayoría de las copias en mp3 disponibles en el "fondo común" de Internet vienen con ocho "tracks". En ellas está claro, solo escuchando la voz cantante, que la canción titulada Picnic On A Frozen River, Deuxieme Tableaux es en realidad Giggy Smile, que figura como si fuera la siguiente. Y así las cosas hasta que el oyente también repara en que Lauft figura dividida erróneamente en dos partes con diferentes títulos. La secuencia descripta en allmusic.com replica - y es comprensible - el mismo miserable error. La edición remasterizada editada en CD hace poco enmienda esta confusión y reduce la lista a siete canciones, aunque la verdadera identidad de la mencionada Picnic On A Frozen River, Deuxieme Tableaux (listada esta vez como una continuación de Just A Second) sigue sin ser del todo evidente. La copia que aquí se ofrece es una reinterpretación libre; se asume que en realidad Picnic es la coda de Giggy Smile, reconociéndola como el "reprise" de una melodía ya utilizada en Faust So Far, segundo álbum de la banda.
En última instancia, es fútil lamentarse por este tipo de confusiones ¿Qué es Faust sin una copiosa dosis de confusión? Para compobrarlo, basta adentrarse en el terremoto psíquico de Krautrock, un monumental paredón de sonido que inicia el álbum siempre dispuesto a horrorizar neófitos. Son diez minutos hipnóticos e inmisericordes que suponen una prueba de fuego; si el oyente consigue franquearla, el álbum se le abrirá de par en par como la cueva de Alí Babá, revelando sus más preciosos secretos. El título de la pieza se refiere al movimiento - peyorativamente nombrado por los británicos - de música progresiva alemana que floreció a comienzos de los 70's (y en el que Faust es frecuentemente encasillado). Es difícil determinar si se trata de una parodia o un auténtico tributo; después de todo, Krautrock no es más que un mamotreto gigante, un zumbido digno de algún monasterio intergaláctico. Sea lo que sea, cuando a los siete minutos la batería entra en escena haciendo saltar todo en pedazos, las puertas del paraíso "Kraut" se vislumbran a simple vista.
El resto del álbum, ahora sí, es mucho más digerible. The Sad Skinhead es un recreativo ensayo reggae y la extensa "balada" Jennifer no se aparta del concepto de música ambient que más adelante promulgaría Brian Eno (demostrando por qué Faust, al igual que otras bandas alemanas contemporáneas, son considerados pioneros absolutos en más de una corriente). Just A Second y Giggy Smile, por su parte, rellenan la mitad de Faust IV con un excitante jam psicodélico de dimensiones mastodónticas. El oyente, ese pobre indefenso, se ve de pronto sumido en un brutal huracán de watios que culmina con aquella tira cómica en clave musical - ¡esa melodía saltarina y gloriosa! - que es Picnic On A Frozen River. Acto seguido, Lauft comienza a despedirnos con sus agradables remedos folky-ambientales, para culminar con con la engañosamente pastoral It's A Bit Of A Pain y su legendario vómito de sintetizador (o lo que diablos sean esos nefastos ruidos). La sensación que provocan es una de las más aparatosas que pueden vivirse en un disco de rock. Con sinceridad, no había sorpresa más perfecta para cerrar este apasionante y extraño capítulo musical llamado Faust IV.

Federer

In my previous reviews of "Faust Tapes" and "So Far" I was little reserved in giving stars purely because I considered that FAUST was really a hard listen and an acquired taste so as to recommend it just like that to anyone seemed to me a bit careless. "Faust IV" on the other hand is the closest they got to "conventional" progressive or experimental rock and IMO it thus can be measured by these standards.
FAUST is probably the typical krautrock band and among their albums I would pick "Faust IV" (and surely the first "clear vinyl"). Not only because of the symbolical level (the opening track is titled "Krautrock"), but because it is a perfect example of a "polished krautrock avant garde", somewhat near to standard rock canons. Other three albums are way too radical to be easily appreciated, without knowing some basic theory of avant garde art. The sleeve design with empty musical notes sheet suggests another tapes- type "music concrete" odds and ends, but...
"Krautrock" is a masterpiece of electronic noise. "The Sad Skinhead" is a silly "pop" tune which recklessly stole the typical ska/new wave rhythm from the whole 1980-81 era. Shame on you guys! "Jennifer" is a mind-blowing psyche "ballad" with pulsating bass drone and impressionist minimalist lyrics. "Just a Second" offers a short trip to heavy acid rock, while "Picnic on a Frozen River" is an extension of the same synth theme from "So Far". "It's a Bit of Pain" seems to calm down at the end with a acoustic folky melody, alas not farther than few seconds when a guitar-drill-saw jumps in to cut and slice everything into pieces. Just to remind you this was still FAUST!
Thumbs up!

Sead S. Fetahagic

Easily, my favorite Krautrock album. "Faust IV" manages to be both experimental and engaging, but accessible enough to draw you in, even at its outer limits. This was Faust's last album of the early period, and their label had insisted they go more commercial. This work is definitely easier on the ear than some of their other work (notable "Faust Tapes" ('73)), but is still exciting. Faust has written this off as not essentially 'them' and it is not included in their boxset. Despite their complaints, its still a great album.
The droning "Krautrock" which begins the album, is one of the best pieces of the type of music I have heard, reminiscent of NEU!'s motorik sound. It can drag on the first few listens, but is an excellently crafted piece of drowning, electronic music. It basically sums up Krautrock, as it titles suggests, for me. (When the drums come in at 7:09, yes that late, it is a monumental moment in such a sparse piece, but Faust pulls it off). "The Sad Skinhead" shows Faust's irrepressible humor, with their attempt at Reggae, with a German spin. (There is no lost irony in the fact that skinheads did in fact like Reggae music and ska despite their racists leanings). The song is very prescient for 1974 of music to come. Without a doubt, "Jennifer", with its simple, repetitive lyric, throbbing amped up bass-line, cacophonous electronics mid way through and acoustic 'saloon' piano closing is the album's masterpiece. "Just a Second" begins like a standard hard rocker, and knowing Faust, soon turns into more synthesizer play, imitating the sounds of a burbling river before returning to the rock. "Picnic on a Frozen River" starts off with an annoying, though catchy rock melody, before descending into improvisation with excellent Sax work. The band really synergizes on this piece, but it feels incomplete or under worked. "Giggy Smile" shows off Faust's large folk inflections, and very accessibly for this band. "Lauft...Heisst..." isn't much of anything, just some synths gathering volume and dying down, it serves as an interlude, or filler, or both, but is definitely overlong at three minutes. "It's a Bit of Pain" is an unexpected finish to the album, bordering on country music. The french language female vocals bother me in the middle, but that's just me. It's a good, tune, with its dreamy, ambling tempo and heavily distorted guitar solo at the end. A quirky finish to an equally quirky album.
Most kraut fans will already have this, so no need recommending it to them. Though not as groundbreaking as their earlier work, its a hell of a lot more listenable. Recommended as a good way to ease into Krautrock, before tackling more challenging works like Can or early Tangerine Dream.
4/5 Stars = Excellent album, though not essential to prog music, and a lot of prog fans won't like this.

R. Katzwer

Of all the Krautrock bands, Faust is perhaps the most diverse and likely to surprise. You never quite know what you're going to get. Well, on Faust IV, you get just about everything! The opening 11 minute track, appropriately titled "Krautrock" seems to be a parody of Neu! and their long droning motorik style, but even if it is meant as a jest, it works very well on its own. Then you've got reggae (The Sad Skinhead) and the gorgeous dream-pop of "Jennifer," a song so influential that you'll hear an homage to it on the Eurythmics breakthrough album "Sweet Dreams are Made of This." The wonderful thing about Faust is that they never took themselves too seriously, and there's always a bit of humor present in even their most experimental works. Given its diversity, Faust IV wouldn't be a bad place to start if you're a Krautrock beginner, and it's definitely an album you should have if you're already a fan of the style.

thellama73

FAUST were one of the most radical and experimental bands you'll ever hear. I'm shocked that Virgin Records actually signed them to a contract (haha). Compared to their first two albums though I suppose this is less experimental but far from being accessible.
The first song called "Krautrock" is a great way to start with the electronics droning along with that hypnotic beat with guitar being repeated over and over. Drums to the fore 7 minutes in. "The Sad Skinhead" has a reggae beat after the yelling that opens the song. There are funny lyrics about being a skinhead like "Going places, smashing faces, what else could we do." Ok, maybe they're not that funny (haha). "Jennifer" is a reserved song with laid back vocals 2 minutes in. It gets an almost rag-time feel with the piano later, along with some experimental sounds before that. Cool track that brings some of the more recent ("In Rainbows" & "The King Of Limbs") RADIOHEAD albums to mind. So this is where they got their latest sound. The earlier stuff sounds like CAN. Just sayin'. "Just A Second (Starts Like That !)" has a nice heavy sound with some good guitar. Then some experimental sounds take over before 2 minutes. "Picnic On A Frozen River, Deauxieme Tableaux" is catchy with sax 2 1/2 minutes in that goes on and on. Guitar after 4 minutes as the pace picks up. Great tune. "Giggy Smile" has the sounds of people talking to open as acoustic guitar comes in. This is really good. Almost spoken vocals come in. Experimental sounds follow. The next song (7) has no melody just different spacey sounds. "It's A Bit Of A Pain" features acoustic guitar, keys and vocals before we get some experimental noises (surprise) that come and go. Some female spoken words and aggressive guitar.
As much as this album is more polished than their first two albums, it's the experimental sounds that have never changed with this band. I guess this is their signature sort of speak. For the adventerous.

John Davie

Highly-experimental and irreverent, Faust were one of the prime movers of the Krautrock scene, producing a string of engaging, eclectic and genuinely innovative albums during the early seventies that still stand up as some of the most important German recordings of the era. Originally dubbed the 'German Beatles' by unscrupulous producers hoping to make a quick buck on the hip new Krautrock genre that was impressing the British underground, Faust were anything but, with the fiercely avant-garde approach of their self-titled debut a million miles away from The Beatles pop sound, exposing (once again) the utter ignorance of those in control of the record company purse strings back in 1970. However, despite the mis-judged attempt to bracket Faust as a pop act, it did garner the group a large recording budget, impressive facilities and enough promotion to give their burgeoning career a healthy kick-start which they grabbed enthusiastically with both hands. The producers who funded 'Faust' may have been horrified by the thoroughly uncommercial (and expensive) concoction the five-piece had created, but they was no denying the powerful sonic statement that had been created. After the dense, hypnotic, swirling electro-rhythms of their eponymous debut and it's impressive follow-ups 'Faust So Far' and the low-budget 'The Faust Tapes', the band would tone down the rampant sound collages in favour of a slightly more commercial approach for 'Faust IV'. For anyone unfamiliar with band, 'Faust IV' was and is definitely the place to start, featuring as it does a nice balance between the discordant electronic experiments of their debut and the more tuneful, playful melodies that characterized their later works, illustrating just what a creative group Faust were when on top form. A carefully-constructed and quietly-enthralling record, 'Faust IV' opens with the layered, droning, 11-minute-long haze of the simply-titled 'Krautrock', a track that ebbs and flows as naturally as breathing, slipping delicately from one mesmerising section to the next. As the last embers of 'Krautrock' slip away, the jocular cod-reggae fusion of 'The Sad Skinhead' ripples into life, showcasing the band's lighter side and penchant for simple, overlapping rhythms. These two tracks, alongside the catchy, softly-sung 'Jennifer' and the imperious 'Giggy Smile' are the undoubted highlights. However, unlike their previous efforts, 'Faust IV' becomes, after repeated listens, one of those indispensable albums that can always be listened to all the way through, with the seriousness of the the music's experimental nature undercut by the group's light touch and inventive playing. Alongside the likes of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Amon Duul II, Harmonia, Neu!, Can and Embryo, Faust are one of the major Krautrock acts whose influence has grown over the prevailing decades, with 'Faust IV' a cornerstone of the electronic side of the genre. Both Avant-garde yet playful and sassy, 'Faust IV' is a remarkable album.

Stefan Turner

Push play and take the short route to the dizzying heights of Krautrock perfection.
With a warped electronic whiplash you're suddenly drenched by a surging, pulsing drone of the most wondrous richness and majesty. A shining, rather warm mishmash of fuzzy, unpolished synth sounds dance and shimmer in layer upon layer, mixed with deeper, bassier murmurings lurking in the background together with shorter, more playful (and ocassionally more abrasive) phrasings that haphazardly pop in and out of the mix. After a while a hypnotic tambourine-like beat anchors the piece while mischievous distorted guitars wink, blink and glitch by like quick and sudden electrical impulses. The bass build on the beat with a mantra-like repetitive zeal with room for discreet but delicious changes. Guitars evolve into denser, more textural sounds and mingle with the keys in ever more intense, loose and multi-layered tapestries of fragile harmonies and noise before - suddenly - the drums build up as for a crescendo with a proper beat and some power around the seven minute mark. But nothing really changes, at least not drastically. Guitars break free from the instrumental hive-mind and start to form floaty and more melodic structures that dominate the now airier soundscape for a while. It gets a bit ominous and hesitant right about here, where nervous, chaotic electronic sounds swoosh past or hover threateningly before dissipating. A final flutter of cymbals and the fading last remnants of the guitars...and it's all over. Just like that. Not with a bang, but with a whisper. Et cetera.
The contrast to what follows is what breaks and makes this album. The Sad Skinhead is a groovy, off-beat-laden pop rock ditty with a scaled down and roomy arrangement of drums, bass and guitar. Basic, primal, naked. Some eager marimba fill out the spaces along with hints of the previous electronica and eventually makes this song more interesting than when taken at face value.
This intrinsic conflict on Faust IV is ever present on all the remaining tracks. A slightly lazy and curious love for easy-going pop and rock that makes me think of Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers and The Velvet Underground. Love, yes, but also a flippant, humorous detachment and a whimsical dismissal of it all. That same undeniable but mesmerizing friction with harsher structural and sonic experimentation you can encounter in their work. But Faust are even less focused. You get a feeling that the band felt bored with the compositions while they were still being composed. Add to this an almost punky spirit of DIY and a streak of simplicity and you end up with an intriguing and special end result.
Clear and roomy production and a pulsing, repetitive nature in both melody and rhythm is inherent to many of the tracks, but like on the epic Krautrock, things are left to evolve rather freely from this basic underlying pattern. Be it the dreamy pop-drone of Jennifer with hypnotic, throbbing bass sounds up front, the heavy, driving psych of Just A Second, a cheery, rollicking, Canterbury-esque pseudo-jazz theme in Giggy Smile, the Can-channelling, faux-chanson Lauft or the delicate and folky psych-pop of It's A Pain - all of them evolve into stranger, more convoluted territories as they run their course. Twisting sheets of chafing, hissing electronics and guitars. Watery and percussive oscillations over dark and aimless meanderings from guitar and piano. Loose, jam-like jazz section with extended saxophone solo. Near-mechanical noise. Freaky, clicking percussion and classical, string-infused guitar that dies off into minimalistic, proto-ambient. Sharp and atonal sound manipulation and distortion blurted all over places it doesn't belong.
All of these disparate parts are juxtaposed and jumbled as if it's the most natural thing in the world. There are no clear boundaries between what's a song and what's an experiment or between what's a composition and what's an improvisation. Everything merges. It makes Faust IV disjointed and fractured, but also very playful and inviting for anyone willing to explore this strange little world. It's a carefree, loosely held together mess with normal quality control and standards thrown out the window. But it still holds up as a thoroughly enjoyable collection of music.
Wonderful.
4/5 stars.

Linus W.

Faust IV is an album which veers giddily between two distinct styles. On the one hand, you have a quirky style of highly avant-garde krautrock that must surely have fed into the Henry Cow sound (in fact, Henry Cow's early sound can be summed up as a mashup of the more avant ends of Canterbury and Faust-styled Krautrock - a heady mixture which could have only come about at Virgin). On the other hand, you have whimsical, comedic songs which remind me an awful lot of the work of Kevin Ayers (see The Sad Skinhead, for instance). In other words, it's a mashup of a big heap of prog traditions which were overlooked by the mainstream even when prog itself was mainstream.

W. Arthur

Hay más comentarios, algunos a favor y otros en contra, pero no tengo más ganas ni tiempo de seguir copiando, mejor escuchalo vos y fijate si esto te gusta o lo querés revolear contra la pared, ya que con este tipo de obras no hay parámetros ni revisiones o reseñas que valgan. O te gusta o lo odiás.