1997: Faust: you know faUSt

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Sixty Sixty

allez vas-y, droit devant
ouvres tes yeux ouvre ton coeur
regarde partout, mais jamais derriere
n'aie pas peur, ne t'arretes plus maintenant
vas-y, droit devant!

les odeurs,le vent, fou,
l'herbe cingle tes yeux jusqu au sang
mais te t'arretes pas,
vas-y continue, droit devant!

tes reves, tes espoirs te porteront
ton histoire ne fait que commencer tu sais,
le chemin n'est pas bien long
mais  pour toi il s'etire sans fin dans l'inconnu,
dans l'inconnu, nu, nu, nu

tu es parti maintenant
ne pense plus a rien, laisse tout derriere,
fouine, chasse, retourne la terre,
le coeur haletant, les yeux grand ouvert,

cherche, cherche le bonheur
et s'il ne te vient pas.
eh bien, arrache-le, prends-le, vole-le

il n'y a plus de raison, il n'y a plus de droit,
il n'y a plus de valeur, il n'y a plus rien maintenant,
plus rien
que toi

Jeremy Rotsztain: Review

you know faUSt is like no other Faust record I've heard before. Their music has defiantly changed from fuzzy, noisier rock to a well produced, more cliched, mocking of rock music - with the exception of a few tracks . Ed Pinsett described it best in issue #1 of The Sound Projector - "Faust reformed in 1990 and effectively reinvented themselves around two principle players.. No concessions have been made to fans, no attempt to revive the 'classic' Faust years; instead, they have deliberately taken themselves apart, stripped their music down to a scaffolding framework, and opened up the interior space".

Each track seems to make the listener more and more confused. None of the 17 track times coincide with the times listed in the inserts, the songs does not flow, nor bear no similarities to each other in terms of style in any way. The opening track, one of the strongest, begins with the band screaming and enters a deep repetitive one-bar bass groove with heavy drums, much like Munic A (71 minutes of...). The second track is hard to call a song - but you can picture it in your head. Imagine someone running up a creaky set of stairs with pots on every four or so steps, banging on each pot as he or she passes it - simple. The third is a soft, pleasant piece using droning horns and organs backed by feedback and simple drums, getting louder as time passes until the end. Next, after a quiet pause of drilling noises, is an 21-second extract from the Untitled CD now called Irons. Track 6 is one of my favourites - an almost spaghetti like-western cliche with French lyrics, and predictable twangy guitar and heavy bass lines. It is almost the perfect mocking of a song. Track 8 is a mess of fuzzy, atmospheric keyboard synths, noisy drums and bass. 9, titled winds, sounds like an analog version of cricket noises and continuously flows into track 10 - until a deep bass sound knocks it over. 11 is almost like a fairly tale with cymbals and a Twinkle-Twinkle-like xylophone "we are the men from the moon, we are the people up in the sky, it is so good to be here, it is so good to be here, but now its time to say goodby..". The bass horns join in and are soon followed by a operatic singing of the vocals. 12 sounds like it if from a soundtrack, perhaps the summoning of a king during the middle ages with horns. 13 is a 20 second clip of ambient sounds and distorted guitars while track 14 is so low end and distorted that it is too hard to make anything out except for the drums and quiet screaming. Perhaps one shouldn't be trying to solve any of the mysteries behind Faust's music, and just appreciate it for how great it is.

Tony Aston: You Know faUSt

It's hard to get the full effect of threshing machines, chainsaws and paint displays on disc. So, the first studio album in two decades from the re-activated Krautrock collective (currently Zappi Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmier and Jean-Hervé Péron) has thankfully surrendered the excessive industrial mannerisms of their current stage "spectacles" and restored the formula that engineered their sizeable reputation. You Know faUSt takes it cue less from their debut album's lengthy collages or follow-up's song-based skewings and more the haphazard careering of The Faust Tapes. Na Sowas's 14-minute industrial-ambient jam aside, the 11, largely instrumental tracks (bolstered by a further six links of less than a minute each) are surprisingly gentle. Lacking the progressive blueprint that each Faust record has undertaken, when it wends its way with bucolic melody (the trumpet/organ duet C Pluus, the acoustic Cendre) and classic, undiluted Krautrock pulsebeats (Liebeswehen, Teutonentango), fans can be grateful Faust have chosen to consolidate instead.