Faust, Faust Tapes (side A)

Where most Faust albums had discrete songs, including memorable ones like "It's a Rainy Day Sunshine Girl", each side of 1973's Faust Tapes is a continuously-playing collage.  Short tracks collide with each other in arbitrary and perhaps random edits.  Some segments featuring driving rock music with strangely-distorted guitars that must have been recorded direct.  Other segments are purely interstitial, in a way that presages the work of indie-rock bands in the 90s like Thinking Fellers Union Local 282.  While it's easy to think of Faust Tapes as a chaotic and unapproachable mess, the driving rock songs are surprisingly accessible and engaging — the only caveat is that they get interrupted before reaching their logical end.  While the rock songs employ perceptibly odd approaches to recording, they also sound purposeful and not rushed, and the compositional character is preserved.  The cover design collecting record reviews of earlier Faust albums, while hard to look at, is as conceptual as the collage approach of the music.