11. Faust – Faust IV
This is probably my absolute favourite record ever made. I remember driving to my friend’s house and he put ‘The Sad Skinhead’ on I remember thinking, "What the hell was that?" When he said it was Faust, I had heard of them but had no idea what they sounded like.
I remember going off and trying to ‘find’ the band on my own – I wanted to discover them for myself and not have people tell me which was the best record, or which were the best songs to listen to. I wanted to go off and discover Faust for myself.
It was when I listened to Faust IV from beginning to end that I was absolutely blown away. It’s playful, it’s beautiful, it’s exciting – it starts with a 10-minute Krautrock song and then goes into this weird, all-over-the-place song which has no rules. And I love that. The conviction of it is tongue-in-cheek in places, which I am almost jealous of – it even ends with a song called ‘It’s A Bit Of A Pain’! For me it has the best attitude of any album I have heard.
Also, I must mention the extraordinary sound of everything – the placement of all the little weird guitar parts. It’s almost like you can close your eyes and pinpoint where everything is coming in. There is so much I love about the record but its attitude is the most prevalent thing. I hope it has seeped into my music. It’s what I try go for when I am in the studio – to try and record in as short amount of time, so that I can achieve a sense of spontaneity. I cannot achieve that during lengthy recording sessions – it would iron all of that stuff out. For me, recording really quickly means you can keep some of that playful attitude that I so love on this record.
