Faust is of the most important and innovative of the Krautrock bands, along with Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and Amon Duul. Their landmark self-titled debut album, released in 1971, was a relentlessly avant-garde work that not only predated industrial, electronic, new age, and post-punk music, but effectively laid the groundwork for them. Starting with the traditional Krautrock perspective of loose-jam space rock and then chopping everything into fragmented, disorienting parts, the German band played with an astonishing array of styles, and was so far ahead of everyone else that the music still sounds futuristic, 30 years after the fact. Their records were notoriously bad sellers for years, until the last decade when seemingly every underground rock band in America and Japan began building on ideas set forth by the wave of Teutonic rock that occurred in the late '60s/early '70s. Today Faust's hardcore dedication to weirdness is considered to have had an almost incalculable influence on experimental music of all kinds. The band recorded four albums, (one for major label Virgin!) before disbanding for 22 years. Two original members (of seven) reformed the band in 1995, and have been both touring, recording and releasing music since.
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