s/t
[v:s/t]²
Save Our Sperms Records

Last moonth 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 hypnitic, 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.

Copyright © 2009 JP