Faust: Proudly Outside (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from Part One…

Werner “Zappi” Diermaier readily admits to his Zappa fandom. “Around 1968, I came to the Grünspan club with a Frank Zappa album under my arm,” he recalls. “The DJ, Peter Voss, didn’t know the album, but he was interested, and he played a track from it. After that, I was called ‘Zappa,’ but later I was renamed ‘Zappi’ because I didn’t want to be a double.”

A listener hearing Faust So Far for the first time might not even realize that tracks like “On the Way to Abamäe” and “No Harm” are by the same artist. Péron says that the stylistic variety of the group’s output wasn’t the product of intention. “We had no plan, no direction, no intention,” he says, “and we still don’t. Every piece we composed is the product of a spontaneous decision or a chance ‘concours de circonstances.’” In his view, one member would “push the boat in a more or less clear direction, and the others then paddled more or less in the same direction… or not.” Each of the Faust musicians came from his own musical background, and by nature that was reflected in the music they made together. “We wanted to show the musical richness we came with,” Irmler says. “Six musicians, six worlds.”

If there was a unifying aesthetic that bound Faust’s music together, it was adventurousness. “We attempted to bundle the purely experimental ‘neo–free jazz’ [into our music],” Irmler says. “We could also offer [songs in] 4/4 time, but generally we found that too stupid.”

The idea that their records might sell and earn them some D-Marks seems never to have occurred to the members of Faust in the 1970s. Irmler was financially independent at the time, and thus free from commercial concerns. Diermaier says that the prospect of selling records “played no role” at all in what the band did. Péron laughs at the question. “Faust and money!? We deliberately destroyed two consecutive opportunities for fame and fortune. We left the road to commercial success with our heads held high.”

Laughing again, Péron recalls Faust’s sole attempt at crafting a mainstream-type song in a bid for a hit. “It was called ‘Baby,’” he says. “It sounded great. Our producer flew in a ‘hit expert’ from the UK. He came, listened – to a few bars – and left! That was the end of our search for money.” The early ‘70s slab of whacked-out garage-psychedelia (with drum solo) eventually surfaced on a 1986 compilation Munic & Elsewhere and again in 1988 on Seventy One Minutes Of…
The cover of the Faust So Far LP was all black, with the title in light blue, 36-point type text. (“The group agreed [only] on the concept of ‘black,’ Péron says.) The inner sleeve, however, was in full color and featured a collection of original paintings by artist Edda Köchl; one corresponding to each track on the record. Péron says that producer Nettlebeck was responsible for the idea. “He entrusted Edda with the illustrations; they all fit the music perfectly.”

Faust’s third album, 1973’s The Faust Tapes was the object of a novel marketing gambit: UK label Virgin released it for the price of a single (a Faustian bargain, one might say). It sold as many as 100,000 copies in the UK, but the label lost money on the release. (Bureau B reissued the critically-acclaimed The Faust Tapes in 2022.)

In 1973, Faust also released their fourth album, Faust IV. That record would be the final release from the original lineup of the group. While it sounds little like Faust So Far, the record nonetheless features the ineffable Faustian qualities that made the group unique and special. Recorded in England, the record once again balanced the group’s interest in juxtaposing free-form experimentation with tracks built upon (comparatively) conventional song structure.

In places, Faust IV’s 11-minute-plus opening track, “Krautrock” feels like a parody – or at least a pastiche – of the motorik style favored by fellow German band Neu! But when that observation is posed to Diermaier, Péron and Irmler, it is met with stony silence.

Yet when the discussion turns to Faust IV’s “The Sad Skinhead,” Péron opens up and admits to the group having a sense of humor. “We laughed a lot in our music,” he admits. “Many pieces were played tongue-in-cheek.” The remaining songs on Faust IV are a heady mix of dissonance, lilting melodies juxtaposed with seemingly random bursts of noise, acoustic hippie folk leavened with throbbing electronics, one-chord electric jams overlaid with field recordings. The record is a collection of elements that shouldn’t work together, yet somehow do.

Understanding that each member of Faust brought his distinct – and strongly held – sensibilities to the work, it’s something of a surprise that the albums got made at all. Faust seems to have deliberately lacked the cohesive, unified vision (or at least a leader who called the tunes) that defines many successful groups. “We all had different ideas about work rhythms, and work in general,” says Péron. “Completely different ideas about music and making music, and completely different ideas about camaraderie, friendship and group spirit.”

The group members went their own ways in 1975. Several members reconvened in 1990, and today Diermaier and Wüsthoff carry on as Faust. But Jean-Hervé Péron believes he knows what held the original group together for the first half of the 1970s. “We complemented each other,” he says. “One had exactly what the other would have liked to have: probably, the common desire to create something completely different.”

Diermaier, Péron and Irmler agree that Faust made an important contribution to music in their original run. But more than a half-century on, the collective individuality that was a hallmark of the group continues as they each share a unique perspective. Faust’s legacy is “free improvisation,” Diermaier says. “Improvisation that is about the bigger picture, not about egoistic self-display. It’s about the expression of feelings, not about mastering a technique.”

“We are actually a flyspeck in the cosmos,” says Péron. “But there is a feeling that what we did was perhaps not so bad.” He pauses and amends his observation. “Okay, I admit: it flatters the ego.” Irmler says that Faust’s long-lasting impact “was planned and intended from the very beginning. Faust forever!” Asked to define Faust’s musical legacy, he responds with a single word: “Individuality.”