Originally the band's private tapes circulated to their friends, The Faust Tapes was released by Virgin in 1972 for 49p. After selling 60,000 copies, becoming a Top 10 album, and thus losing the record company £2,000, it was deleted, later resurfacing on CD at normal price. So many people bought it for the price and discovered when they got it home that it was enormously unusual. Beautiful, strange and threatening electronic and tape effects, seeded with an unpredictable stream of acoustic, rock, jazz, free-form, ambient and classical music, weave an alien tapestry of sound. There is nothing like The Faust Tapes, even in Faust's other work (which is also worth hearing, by the way).