[engl] Under the name AREU AREU, the two CAMOUFLAGE musicians Heiko Maile and Marcus Meyn released a 5-track EP in 1992, which is now being re-released in an extended version and for the first time on vinyl. In 1991, a friend and companion of Heiko Maile and Marcus Meyn, the photographer Reiner Pfisterer, celebrated his 24th birthday. Instead of records or books, the two CAMOUFLAGE founders planned to present the birthday child with a performance by a band formed especially for the occasion and launched AREU AREU. After CAMOUFLAGE had just released their rather acoustic sounding album "Meanwhile", Maile and Meyn were more in the mood for purely electronic music, so this side project was just what they needed to play around with the electronic gear they had accumulated in their studio in the centre of the small town of Bietigheim in southern Germany. The result were cover versions of songs that had always strongly influenced Maile and Meyn: We hear "Day Tripper" (BEATLES), "Cold" (THE CURE), FAD GADGET's "Ricky's Hand" and a two-song medley of "I'm Your Money" (HEAVEN 17) and the DEPECHE MODE classic "Tora! Tora! Tora!". In addition, several versions of their legendary German-language song "Mr. X" were worked out. A few weeks after the party, Maile and Meyn told their A&R manager about the project, and in 1992 a small number of tracks were released in a small edition on CD. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of this release, the complete work of AREU AREU now appears on an album for the first time and we can state: AREU AREU created the perfect soundtrack for a party in the hot summer of 91: AREU AREU are danceable, unpolished and wild.

[engl] Gegenwelt (Parallel World) is the second LP by CEL, a duo Kubin and Zemler formed. More melodically- evolved than their eponymous 2020 debut, it is an even more explicit example of the syncretic impulse that impelled these guys to form the band. Their basic notion was to explore the juncture between two streams of German underground sounds -- the Motorik 4/4 rhythms first posited by Can's Jaki Liebezeit and Kraftwerk's Klaus Dinger, and the sequencer-driven brain loops of early, experimental pioneers of the NDW, such as der Plan. The opening track, “Tokamak,” begins like the sequenced soundtrack to a brightly-colored animated nightmare before transmuting into a marimba fusillade that unspools like Steve Reich on steroids. The last track is “Transformator Matki Polki”, which sounds like a radical Viennese remix of random snippets from Wolfgang Dauner's Output. In between these poles are an array of wild and varied rides through cartoon landscapes, with side trips to the spy movie vibe of “Gegenwelt”, the thug/art rock hybrid of “Eiweißangriff” and beyond. Gegenwelt is also a showcase for Kubin's latest invented instrument, the Mechatronikon. Built for him by engineer Lars Vaupel, the Mechatronikon receives CV or MIDI signals and translates them into commands for electromagnetic mini motors. In Felix's words, this allows “sequencers to trigger kitchen gear or whatever we'd like to resonate. With this machine we can also create rhythms that a human drummer would hardly be able to reproduce in this precision.” The mechanical sound effect of this device can be heard, for example, in the piece "Trippeltanz". But the precision of the pure Motorik impulse is not something Zemler is afraid to ignore at times. His grounding in free jazz emerges regularly (if subtly), displaying lateral moves that add another layer of complexity to music that's often moving in several directions at once. Even when the surface of CEL's melodies sound simple, a closer listening often reveals a wealth of subterranean activity. Mixed and co- produced by Hamburg's post-punk luminary Mense Reents, the music on Gegenwelt is a fine example of CEL's ability to compose pieces with a multivalent architecture listeners can appreciate in a variety of ways. Their music is partially shaped by whatever preconceptions you bring to it. So think good thoughts about Gegenwelt and your rewards will be bountiful.

[engl] John McEntire, founder and current member of TORTOISE and THE SEA & CAKE, compiled his favourite tracks by the legendary German ambient music and krautrock pioneers CLUSTER.

[engl] There was a particular type of artist who could only have emerged in the legendary early 1970s. Few musicians fit the bill better than Konrad Schnitzler. Revolution, pop art and Fluxus created a climate which engendered unbridled artistic and social development. Radical utopias, excessive experimentation with drugs, ruthless (in a positive way) transgression of aesthetic frontiers were charac- teristic of the period. The magic words were “subculture”, “progres- sivity” and “avant- gardism”. West Berlin, with its unique political status, was a crucible of turbulence. Founded in 1968, Zodiak was the ultimate point of convergence for subculture in West Berlin, with Konrad Schnitzler the driving force behind it. It was also here that Tangerine Dream and Kluster first met up to perform in public. The red album (“Rot”) was Schnitzler’s first solo effort. As a member of Tangerine Dream, however, he had participated in the band’s debut release “Electronic Meditation” some three years earlier (1970). He, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius had also already founded Kluster, whose first album “Klopfzeichen” attracted a wealth of attention. On “Rot”, meanwhile, Schnitzler uncompro- misingly pursued his very own vision of electronic music. As an acolyte of action and object artist Joseph Beuys, Schnitzler embraced the former’s “extended definition of art”, in which controlled randomness assumed an important role. Schnitzler actually extended the concept of “music”. Or to put it another way: he cared not one iota for existing rules of music, preferring to create his own or conceptualizing a certain degree of lawlessness. Improvisation grew in importance. The most exciting aspect of Schnitzler’s music is not the fact that he only used synthetic sound and noise; the apparently chaotic movements of his microscopic particles of sound draw the listener into a paradoxical, yet also crystalline and vibrant artistic world. It doesn’t get much more outlandish than this. Schnitzler’s debut surpassed virtually every other pioneering artist of the day in terms of radicalness. Not content merely with making psychedelic soundtracks, he turned these on their head with his defiant artistic will. The rigour of his approach has never been matched. Schnitzler’s inimitable cascades of sound and their transparency were, and remain, unique.

[engl] All manner of trailblazers shaped the soundscape of the era. Conrad Schnitzler (born 1937) and Karl Horst Hödicke (born 1938) – longstanding members of the official artistic canon – were multifunctional artists who painted, performed, sculptured, made films and music. They were always to be found on the edge of the “permissible” and invariably went beyond “modern” perceptions of art. Schnitzler, Hödicke and many of their contemporaries arrived at a completely new definition of the avant-garde. The circumstances of Schnitzler and Hödicke’s first meeting are unknown, but it should come as no surprise that it was Schnitzler who composed the soundtrack for Hödicke’s film entitled “Slow Motion” in 1976. The two artists were cut from the same cloth, routinely crossing any boundaries they happened to encounter. Schnitzler wrote music for each of the film’s 14 sequences, linking them together in a logical progression of minimalist imagery. Each piece of music quite brilliantly accentuated the preceding one. Schnitzler’s musical sensibility was wholly compatible with Hödicke’s approach to film. Not that Schnitzler was ever a film composer. “Slow Motion” worked because Schnitzler and Hödicke were on the same wavelength, daring to experiment with sound and vision in such a way that auditory and visual components were interdependent. Nevertheless, it still makes sense to release the soundtrack without the images. Schnitzler undoubtedly responded to the pictures as he composed, but his customarily uncompromising style is very much in evidence: rhythmically structured electronic cascades, intermittent impulse chains and manual improvisations alternate with planar clouds of sound. Analogue sequencers and an analogue rhythm machine played a crucial role. The tracks on “Slow Motion” vary in length (the shortest is only 58 seconds long) and mood, but the listener never has to leave Schnitzler’s sonic universe, even without the pictures for which the music was composed. “Slow Motion” is an important document in Schnitzler’s oeuvre, seamlessly taking its place alongside his many other releases, whilst also highlighting his constructive input as an equal partner in an experimental film production. What makes “Slow Motion” particularly worth listening to is the fact that Schnitzler surrenders none of his aesthetic independence at any point in the project. It is an enduring document of its time. Asmus Tietchens, 2024

[engl] Conrad Schnitzler liked to embark on daily excursions through the sonic diversity of his synthesizers. Finding exceptional sounds with great regularity, he preserved them for use in combination with each other in subsequent live performances. He thus amassed a vast sound archive of his discoveries over time. When the m=minimal label in Berlin reissued two Conrad Schnitzler albums at the outset of the 2010 decade, label honcho Jens Stru?ver was granted access to this audio library. Stru?ver came up with the idea of con-structing new compositions, not remixes, from the archived material. On completion of the first Con-Struct album, he decided to develop the concept into a series, with different electronic musicians invited into Schnitzler’s unique world of sound.

[engl] The first contact between Conrad Schnitzler, who lived in West Berlin, and Jo?rg Thomasius, who was based in the east party of the city, came about in the late 1970s. In 1985, Schnitzler visited Thomasius in East Berlin for the first time. In the meantime, Thomasius had released cassettes in the GDR both as a soloist and with his group DFO (Das freie Orchester). The following year, the idea of a joint concert in East Berlin's Erlo?serkirche was born. In the GDR, it was not possible to hold events in public without a so-called state "classification". DFO did not have this permit at that time and so public performances were only possible in the context of private or church institutions. In 1982 Schnitzler had already met the New York musician Ken Gen Montgomery, who then regularly performed Schnitzlers' compositions live at various venues worldwide. And so Schnitzler also produced 4 cassettes especially for his concert in East Berlin, which were sent by courier from West to East Berlin. On the evening of 3.9.1986, the privately announced and illegal concert took place in the Erlo?serkirche in East Berlin/GDR. Montgomery mixed Schnitzler's music live from the tapes. Jo?rg Thomasius recorded the performance and released the recording in 1987 on his own underground cassette label Kro?tenkassetten. The elaborately restored original recording is now being released for the first time on LP and CD under the title "CAS-CON II". In addition to photos and contemporary documents, it also includes Jo?rg Thomasius' and Ken Gen Montgomery's written memories of this very special evening.

[engl] Taking inspiration from deep in the mediaeval mists of times long past, CV Vision comes riding over the hills like a knight to the rescue, and his new album Im Tal Der Stutzer is packed full of galloping drums, feudal prog riffs and poetic lyrics harking back to a golden age. You might’ve caught CV Vision in Berlin, either on stage or behind the mixer at some of his favourite clubs like Arkaoda, Heiners or O Tannenbaum. He could be accompanied by synths, or drum kit, or even full band – channelling his love of Bo Hansson and Claude Larson, or Soft Machine and Picchio dal Pozzo. Always heavy on the backbeat, the songs awash with heady synths and expansive psych inversions. For this record, CV Vision recruited two wayfaring collaborators in the form of songwriter and musician Martha Rose, and drummer Uno Bruniusson. They started the project at the dawn of the Covid outbreak, and it quickly became a coping mechanism against the lockdown. During those months of uncertainty, the collaboration blossomed into a sanctuary of psychedelic prog, acid folk and warped feudal weirdness, a refuge built on layered synth lines and reel-to-reel delays. Im Tal Der Stutzer invites you into its kaleidoscopic reality from the get-go – from the pulsating swing of Die Frommen Wanderer and frenetic synth arpeggios of Die Nachricht Schneller als der Wind, to the misty-eyed folk of Lichtermond. The whole record is punctuated with field recordings of ironmongers and cowherds and campfires, adding to the theatre. It’s a testament to the wide-ranging world that CV Vision has created, that he can at once invoke the Hildebrandslied while sounding like a library record that DJ Shadow might’ve sampled. In CV Visionverse, it all makes perfect sense.

[engl] All the herbs have been smoked. Datashock deliver a new album: “Geltungsbereich Universum”. Their second for Bureau B and the eighth in a career as an internationally active collective of musicians which has spanned two decades (so far). Space is the place, as the moonstruck sparrows sing from the rooftops, or is the Earth the most beautiful place in the universe? Some say yes, others no. Datashock say nothing at all. Twenty years and counting, and yet here they are, as shoulder-shruggingly nonchalant as ever, in the environs of pop culture, where (seeing) the wood for the trees means the world. What’s going down, what’s not? What the heck! Is this still krautrock, is it space rock or experimental music? What’s the difference? Does it even matter? What’s important is that something is happening. This much we know. And now something else has happened. A new Datashock release: Geltungsbereich Universum. Of course, it couldn’t be any other way. Why set themselves limits? That has never been a concern for them. Even if, in all likelihood, they don’t make it into space, at least not this year, they have been most places and always stick to their own thing. Which is what, exactly? That’s for others to decide. The critique? This is your captain speaking, … your captain is dead. Use your ears. Listen closely and take your time to discover the musical spheres – the infinite worlds – of Datashock. For card-carrying space travellers only!

[engl] Der Plan (Moritz R®, Frank Fenstermacher, Pyrolator) were instrumental in ushering in the German New Wave (NDW) and are considered free spirits of synthesizer pop: electronic music created with minimal means, sometimes experimental, playful or even bordering on dilettantism, but always with a sense of humour. "Die letzte Rache" (The Last Revenge) was the soundtrack to the cult film of the same name by Rainer Kirberg – and at the same time a varied and thoroughly entertaining journey to the musical world of Der Plan.

[engl] A cynic might propound the notion that to reissue an album entitled „Es ist eine fremde und seltsame Welt” at this particular moment would be to hit the nail on the head with painful exactitude. No cynics here, however, only music lovers.

[engl] Der Plan (Moritz R®, Frank Fenstermacher, Pyrolator) are seen as key pioneers of the German New Wave (Neue Deutsche Welle). They revolutionized synthesizer pop on their debut album "Geri Reig" (1980): produced with minimal means, at times experimental electronic music, playful bordering on dilettantish, and always with a sense of humour. Brothers in the spirit of The Residents, but more radical. File under: Synthiepop from outer space.

[engl] Shrouded in myth, ‘Save Your Software’ is the long-lost album by Der Plan. Back in the mid-1980s, Moritz Reichelt, Kurt Dahlke (Pyrolator) and Frank Fenstermacher initiated the Fanuks project with the aim of making themselves immortal as Mensch-Maschinen or Man-Machines. “Fanuks” would produce music for all eternity, embarking on a never-ending world tour. Eternity would ultimately prove to be out of their reach due to various technical hurdles, but it is fair to say that Der Plan were always way ahead of their time. By the end of the decade, the Fanuks, or their respective human alter egos, had crafted six pieces. These were only rediscovered in 2020 during a thorough inspection of the Ata Tak/ Der Plan archives. Reichelt, Dahlke and Fenstermacher augmented their six visionary masterpieces with three tracks based on compositions from the year 1989. Now it works at least a little with eternity, even if ‘only’ in the form of the legendary productions that have finally been made available to the public.

[engl] This first Bureau B retrospective devoted to Die Welttraumforscher covers the Swiss project's early creative period from 1981 to 1990. The eccentric, heartwarming pop songs now sound like documents from a parallel world, interwoven with idiosyncratic fantasy, surreal stories and dreamlike apparitions. All tracks have been remastered and the artwork has been lovingly crafted with the original Forscher drawings.

[engl] When the Welttraumforscher (world dream explorer) started their journey on July 14, 1981, it was not foreseeable that it would last so long. For over 40 years now, Christian Pfluger from Zurich has been working with drawings, texts and songs on the idiosyncratic and fascinating universe of the imaginary trio. This has resulted in numerous cassettes, LP and CD releases. Most recently, a two-part retrospective was released in the spring of 2021 on Hamburg's Bureau B, giving an insight into the wonderfully rapturous dream world of the project, which despite the continuous work remains something of an insider tip to this day. With their new collection "Liederbuch", which will be released in August, the Welttraumforscher are going on tour for the first time in many years. When the Welttraumforscher open their songbook, they are met, as in a pop-up book, by the fictional friends they have invented and sung to on their journey through 40 years: the captain to the soul Kip Eulenmeister (the owl master) and the crop circle researcher (iguana) Leguan Rätselmann, the insect twins Brtz and Brxl, the space travelers Lia and Mira from the Nordkristall (northern crystal), Ohm Olunde from the silent forests and the incredible dark pilots. In their distant worldroom, the two insect beings Brtz and Brxl open up the Welttraumforscher songbook. They find the songs, from A to O, sung by the Forscher on their albums dating back to the faraway year of 1981 – on cassettes, vinyls, CDs and through digital communications kaleidoscopes. It’s Sunday and, with plenty of downtime on their hands, Brtz and Brxl listen to all the songs; the one about the yellow wight in the moors, the one about Kip Eulenmeister, the Captain of Souls, one about Leguan Rätselmann, pursuing every riddle, and one about the dark things which sometimes happen around midnight. We want one too, say say Brtz and Brxl, a songbook of our own, all the songs we like to listen to the most, collected in one album. By now it is late on Sunday evening and the moon shines above them like a colourful paper lantern. The two insect beings ponder: what shall we call our songbook? The very name we gave it, songbook. So here it is and this is what it sounds like – Brtz and Brxl wish you happy listening. As do the Welttraumforscher, whose quiet body of work turned out so well. So without further ado: welcome! Welcome to the Welttraumforscher songbook!

[engl] The second collection sees Bureau B zoom in on the years 1992 to 2012 in the Welttraumforscher universe. A more pensive atmosphere of melancholy pervades the tracks documented herein, as if the more spherical musical journeys and expeditions undertaken by creator and sole member Christian Pfluger lead to increasingly enchanted worlds.

[engl] Tension. Performance. Resistance - our Zonic Spezial documenting underground cassette culture in the latter years of the GDR caused quite a stir when it first appeared in 2006. A collaborative effort with the legendary ZickZack label and Verbrecher publishing house, “Spannung. Leistung. Widerstand. Magnetbanduntergrund DDR 1979-1990” (to give the work its full title) caused many lis- teners, especially those in the West, to prick up their ears in astonishment when they played the book’s accompanying CDs. This odd potpourri of swirling post-punk manifestations was compiled with solid interpretive authority by Bert Papenfuß, Bo Kondren, Bernd Jestram, and Ronald Lippok. They did, however, erroneously attribute one piece to Jörg Thomasius and Dieter Zobel’s Os- tkraut band Das Freie Orchester instead of the “Musik aus dem Regen” tape on their own Kröten Kassetten imprint. Whilst the Zonic Spezial itself has become an eminently collectible rarity, Bureau B succeeded in making at least parts of the musi- cal spectrum available to a wider international audience with their 2014 release “Magnetband”. Serendipitously coinciding with the publication of a second book, “Magnetizdat DDR” (no listening material this time around), Bureau B now revisit the experimental electronic underground of the German Democratic Republic with two releases: “Acht Gesänge der schwarzen Hunde”, a collection of Jörg Thomasius productions spanning the years 1980 to 1990, and “MEZ 31,00” by Dieter Zobel aka Didier Leboz, recorded in 1988 and released as a solo Kröten cassette in the watershed year of 1989. Das Freie Orchester emerged from the off-centre environs of Prenzlauer Berg in 1985 as a wild and outstanding descendent of the so-called Komplexbrigade. Ever open to progressive tendencies, with a strong predilection for all things Kraut (including Can, of course) and emboldened by the GDR free jazz which was sweeping the international scene as well as the Treptow Cultural Centre, upstairs and downstairs, the orchestra wholly identified with the concept of free expression: everything was improvised. As seriously as they took their sonic explorations, their love of unserious paronomasia was just as pronounced. Dieter Zobel, first and foremost DFO guitarist, dreamed up the Leboz brand name for the instruments he had built himself, then took DFO-speak a step further by christening his devices sadophone and masophone or Metallic Noise Masturbator, names which only served as rough approxima- tions of the bizarre sounds they generated. “MEZ 31,00” was actually a rather more conventional production, based on a Yamaha CX5M purchased with Western currency left to him by his grandmother. The Yamaha would also spawn a further and possibly superior Zobel Kröten tape by the name of “Moschus”. Zobel, it should be said, was not so thrilled with the instrument, bemoaning the fact that “it was pretty hopeless, you couldn’t use it with a mouse and the MS DOS operating system was a nightmare. Today it would just get laughed at.” The only plus point he could find was its sound: “actually quite decent, eight voices with eight different sounds and multi timbral at that. An abso - lute first back then!” The sequencer in particular was “hellish, you could only enter musical notation, there was no undo function and you couldn’t even record keyboards manually! There was no way you could listen to individual parts, you had to play back the whole thing to listen out for wrong notes and then write everything down on paper.. ouch! When you played faster sequences with lots of notes, it starting stuttering. But what the heck ...” Clearly not everything was perfect in the (Far-Eastern) electric West! Zobel, fascinated then and now by minimal music in the style of Steve Reich and Terry Riley, nevertheless got to grips with the “in- fernal machine” and emulated the compositional techniques of the aforementioned masters he so revered. He layered numerous loops of the same sequence but of different length to create concentrated polyrhythmic forms. Those in the know were reminded of contemporary Japanese ambient works, including Hiroshi Yoshimura’s early albums or Yasuaki Shimizu’s "Music For Commercials". In spite of his toils with tricky equipment, Zobel took his initial steps in algorhythmic composition, largely using his own devices. For around 20 years he has been crafting sequencers, samplers, synths or effects with Native Instruments Reaktor. From hardware to software: it’s a tough habit to break. Freestyle remains the modus operandi for Das Freie Orchester, who recently came together for a final album, but Zobel has also discovered his love for dub.

[engl] Dumbo Tracks returns with a second album Move With Intention - the anticipated follow up to 2022’s eponymous debut. Philipp Janzen and collaborators deliver a varied collection of nine zoned-out grooves direct from Dumbo Studio in Cologne, with vocal contributions from Portable, Ada, Marker Starling, Rubee Fegan and nothhingspecial. Looking back to his musical upbringing, Philipp Janzen switched up the recording process from the first record to incorporate more of a live band element. The result is a more eclectic sound which allowed more freedom to experiment, while keeping the collaborative spirit that is a vital Dumbo Tracks trademark. The genesis of the record began in Italy, where Philipp and co-producer Julian Stetter traveled to jam out ideas on modular synths over the course of a few days. These ideas served as the basis for more instrumental tracks back at Dumbo Studio, where Philipp invited friends to develop the tracks further within a live dynamic. For the final phase of the record, Philipp enlisted the artistry of five vocalists: spoken word frontwoman Rubee Fegan, Canadian singer songwriter Marker Starling, house romantic Portable, Bonn-based haunted pop artist nothhingspecial and Hamburg’s techno visionary Ada. Rubee Fegan contributes her anecdotal observations to four songs, not least on the opening track “Daughter Of Flood” with her poetic remark “sip on the wave of her.” It’s a vocal style that Philipp had been looking for for ages, and finally found after hearing Rubee’s band Smile. Long-time collaborator Christopher Cummings aka Marker Starling lends his lilting tenor to “Slow Despair”, an uplifting drum machine and organ workout. Track three “What If” shifts the goal posts, as an acid bassline rises over a swung groove that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Manchester warehouse, before we emerge into a clearing of heartbreak and expectation, courtesy of singer producer nothhingspecial. The title track sees Philipp and crew slow the tempo down to a molasses dreamscape, a beatdown groove that’s joined by Paris-residing artist Portable. Portable’s emotive voice is the perfect foil for the tracks’ invocation to mindfulness, aided by filtered hi-hats and widescreen sequencers. “Mica” takes the synths and drum machines out to the countryside, and finds producer and singer Ada supplying the most sensitive of vocals and flutes to a song that carries the kosmisch torch. Organs spill over rolling drums and dub reverb, underneath Rubee’s cosmic voiceover on “A Naked Star”, and the album concludes with “My Eyes Won’t Close” a chromatic modular descent into despair, vividly described by nothhingspecial. It all makes for a gloriously eclectic album, an anarchic pop record that follows its own rules. Move With Intention is both electronic yet alive, motorik and pastoral, filled with dancefloor grooves and a krautrock swagger. In this sense the intention is clear: to respectfully rip up the rule book and keep moving forward.

[engl] On their self-titled debut album Etienne Jaumet and Fabrizio Rat, both trained pianists, re-invent their favourite instrument to make us hear it in a totally new way. While the former creates unusual sounds thanks to the rhythmic machines that accompany his piano, the latter uses this classical and romantic instrument par excellence to explore the techno sphere. "The basic idea of our duo is to confront the harmonic richness of the piano and the synthesizer through rhythm. To explore our interactions through live music. To develop new atmospheres thanks to the evocative power of unusual sounds. Somewhere between ambient and sound experimentation...'

[engl] Originally part of 2021’s Faust Box Set release commemorating the bands 50th anniversary Momentaufnahme I and II are now set for their own stand alone release by popular demand. This is for all those that missed out on the limited edition box set release. They collect together music recorded at the band's studio - a converted schoolhouse in rural Wümme between 1971 and 1974 in a similar vein to the way in which 'The Faust Tapes’ (released in 1973) was assembled. These two albums range from minimal electronic pulses, ambient dreamscapes, vocal collages to heavy drone, ritualistic percussion and psychedelic grooves. Highlights include the hypnotic space jams of ‘Vorsatz’ and ‘Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür’, the delicate acoustics of ‘I Am... An Artist' and the radiophonic workship-esq 'Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre‘. Let’s let founding member Jean-Hervé Peron explain more.... Faust? were originally a group of musicians, each following our own inspirations, desires, illusions: many facets, many directions, different styles, different languages. We often had to struggle with the clash of our egos but there was also a natural tacit understanding of each other's role. We had the privilege to work with a great producer and an extraordinary recording engineer. From spring 1971 to spring 1974 we existed as a group. Then Faust became a Gestalt with various incarnations. Momentaufnahme? Don't panic here, it is only German for 'Snapshot’. Momentaufnahme I and II present a collection of unreleased snapshots which offer a wonderful insight into the world of Faust. Some tracks are extremely raw and experimental, others are fully rounded productions. So far we have MA I and MA II but we plan to do more of these when we come up with more material or new ideas.

[engl] Originally part of 2021’s Faust Box Set release commemorating the bands 50th anniversary Momentaufnahme I and II are now set for their own stand alone release by popular demand. This is for all those that missed out on the limited edition box set release. They collect together music recorded at the band's studio - a converted schoolhouse in rural Wümme between 1971 and 1974 in a similar vein to the way in which 'The Faust Tapes’ (released in 1973) was assembled. These two albums range from minimal electronic pulses, ambient dreamscapes, vocal collages to heavy drone, ritualistic percussion and psychedelic grooves. Highlights include the hypnotic space jams of ‘Vorsatz’ and ‘Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür’, the delicate acoustics of ‘I Am... An Artist' and the radiophonic workship-esq 'Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre‘. Let’s let founding member Jean-Hervé Peron explain more.... Faust? were originally a group of musicians, each following our own inspirations, desires, illusions: many facets, many directions, different styles, different languages. We often had to struggle with the clash of our egos but there was also a natural tacit understanding of each other's role. We had the privilege to work with a great producer and an extraordinary recording engineer. From spring 1971 to spring 1974 we existed as a group. Then Faust became a Gestalt with various incarnations. Momentaufnahme? Don't panic here, it is only German for 'Snapshot’. Momentaufnahme I and II present a collection of unreleased snapshots which offer a wonderful insight into the world of Faust. Some tracks are extremely raw and experimental, others are fully rounded productions. So far we have MA I and MA II but we plan to do more of these when we come up with more material or new ideas.

[engl] The living Krautrock legend faUSt, around for over 40 years now, have recorded a new album! Jean-Hervé Peron, Zappi W. Diermaier (both founding members), James Johnston (Gallon Drunk, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds), and Geraldine Swayne (...Bender) have come up with another archetypical faUSt album: inspiring, innovative, unpredictable, crossing boundaries, anarchic – faUStian! "something dirty" is a definitive milestone in the long history of this world-famous musical institution from Hamburg.