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Last month we presented S/T's Gorp album, a homage to Van der Graaf Generator. Here is another homage album, to another 1970s (and beyond) underground groundbreakting band, German Faust. I haven't listened to any Faust music for several years, probably due to a boring concert by them in the mid 1990s (the Faust T-shirt I bought at the gig was pretty cool, though!). But, the 70s recordings by the band, at least, are highly recommendable. s/t has picked a mix of five old and newer songs, I guess, including the most classic of them all It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl.

In fact S/T has released two Faust homage albums. One on vinyl simply called v:s/t and this, the other one on CD. The tracks of [v:s/t]2 are all linked together and the album might be divided into two: The first two songs It's A Rainy Day... and Das Lied Eines Matrosen sound if not acoustic, at least analogue with repetitive piano and guitar respectively. Quite hypnotic, a bit like primitive early Velvet Underground, tribal and fascinating. The remaining three are more of the electric and digital kind. Airy, lots of keyboards, particularly a memorable glowing organ in Flashback Caruso that reminds more of post Barrett Pink Floyd at it's very best [A Saucerful Of Secrets (the song) and Echoes (also the song)] than Faust.

Except for News Zum Ersten April that might be a bit long with lots of spoken words in German and noisy keyboards, [v:s/t]2 is very well worth checking out in its own right. Great and original packaging, too. Also, the album works as a teaser for deeper dives into v:s/t, the S/T and Faust catalogues.

Unknown, Luna Kafé, 2009-04-09

link: Luna Kafé