gunther wüsthoff: [to|digi]tal

Having completed his military service as a naval radio operator, Gunther Wüsthoff was in the midst of his German and fine art studies when he encountered Rudolf Sosna and Jean-Hervé Peron. It was May 1969 and each of them had a guitar so they decided to make music together. Polydor International headhunter Uwe Nettelbeck tracked them down on February 23 1971, prompting them to form the legendary krautrock band Faust with three other Hamburg musicians a few days later. Wüsthoff stayed with the band for five album and three tours through France and Great Britain before leaving in 1974. In subsequent decades, Wüsthoff had various technical jobs at Studio Hamburg and Filmhaus Hamburg and also studied technical editing so he could work as a freelancer. He continued to play music, introducing electronic instruments and computers into his work at an early stage. [to|digi]tal (pronounced "total digital"), a collection spanning the years 1979-2007, offers a clear insight into how he consciously integrated these means of production into the recording process. "Motto: Due to previous but also temporary excesses of mainstream consumption and the omnipresent, repetitive emissions of the western world's music industry, devoid of contours and as slick as possible, we are faced with an indissoluble weariness. A criterion for music one can listen to today is, for me, that an element of friction is present: temporally, metrically, rhythmically, tonally or harmonically. Or that somewhere, something is somehow imperfect. Only then can music be truly alive." --Gunther Wüsthoff, 2005