I'm sooooo green: The Beginner's Guide to Krautrock At this time of year, most of us will have heard more than a few bars of Stille Nacht (aka Silent Night), perhaps sipped some glühwein (mulled wine) and chomped on some stollen. So how about a Teutonic taster of a different sort to last the whole year round? Focusing on the the pioneering electronic musicians of the late 20th …
Have Linda Spa and Iris Camaa left Tangerine Dream? Shame if they have - those two in concert with TD were two of the sexiest sights in music. Iris looked so genuinely happy all the time while drumming, while Linda was just so.....so junoesque while playing that electrified sax and clarinet.
But how long can Edgar keep going? At last years "Phaedra Farewell" concert in London he rather looked as if Parkinson's was catching up with him. Still a bloody brilliant concert though.
Both replaced by Hoshiko Yamane and Ulrich Schnauss (who isn't a girl, and is one of the very few TD members to have a successful independent career before joining.)
I never liked what Spa and Camaa added. The music was always nice enough and they're very competent musicians, but it always sounded samey, bland, and Californian (not in a good way).
Maybe they didn't argue with Edgar enough when he was launching into Yet Another Endless Edgar Noodle?
The new Schnauss-ified CD has some lovely moments though, up there with the late Virgin years, IMO.
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Very Cool. Space means I'm limited to the iPad emulation, which doesn't sound bad at all, in fact I've used it in a couple of really crap DnB pieces I've penned. Must get round to buying the Korg legacy collection VSTs which I believe includes the MS20. That MS20 is a killer for the bass lines.
I saw Kraftwerk at T in the Park, 2013 - you 'd hardly have thought that 4 middle aged Germans standing still behind identical looking consoles would be a dynamic gig, but it was. And applications for the Tate gigs melted the servers - not bad for folk who haven't released much for 30 years...
Krautrock has decades of experience, and as you point out, inspired so many other schools of music, that when you hear experienced masters of the genre play, you hear all the other schools too - I'll definitely go to as many more as I can.
And besides - Hütter is a cyclist, and cycling cross country with Kraftwerk on the player is always a blast...particularly this time of year.
Then you may also like to search out: The Institute for Transacoustic Research / The (Vienna) Vegetable Orchestra / Gomme Handschuhe Doodlesack(?). But I can't quite remember exactly who performed using the sounds from distressed computers in suitcases as they were savagely chopped and hacked with axes, anybody?
Holger Czukay, co-founder of Can, studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen, who, if my memory serves me well, once wrote a passage for piano wherein the pianist was required to use his/her buttocks.
Tangerine dream certainly reached its zenith in the 70s and early 80s, particularly their live albums, but the departures of Baumann, Schmoelling and Franke pretty much led to a steady decline. Now it's just elevator music. As for Klaus Schulze, when he is good he's fantastic but when he ain't, he stinks.
Awesome article. German born, I was actually an expat, growing up in the US, but then returned in the early 70 when my muscially formative years began. Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk had so much influence on me that I *still* listen to mostly electronic or at least electronic heavy music. Though much of it with a born-by date no later than the late 80s, with a few exceptions. I did miss the Can and Neu! days.
You can find the not-bad BBC doco on Youtube.
Can't quibble much with TD's best years, though I'd personally go up to maybe Logos and then it was all downhill. When you started to see TD albums classified as "New Age" you could only go "sic transit gloria mundi".
Overall the influence of those greats is felt throughout Germany's music. Techno, industrial, even gothic: in their dominant forms all arguably born in Germany and out of the krautrock influence. Mildly interesting counter-example would be the NDW (German New Wave), which was influenced by British New Wave/Synthpop (Gary Numan et al), with those UK worthies influenced by Krautrock.
Here too, I believe there's a decent BBC doco on Youtube? I believe I watched them back to back, but during a painkiller addled hospital stay so my memory may be hazy.
Beer, because that's what I'd like to have while getting together with authors, readers and commenters of this article to discuss until unconsciousness! ;)
With music so controversial and strange many people still wonder if this actually was music. Hack radio shows in Germany often play Klaus Wunderlich just to remind people there's still something besides mainstream music like "Welle Erdball".
Welle Erdball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7j9P-Go14s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPgm6XCokNw
Klaus Wunderlich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8unxg0Il1lA
In the late '60s and '70s TD were great but then as a friend of mine commented became TDM, very samey for much of their work.
Faust were very interesting particularly with their first two albums then they became too far 'out there' even for me.
I really liked Emerson Lake and Palmers take on electronics for rock some of their stuff, especially live was incredible and many tried to copy them, they were lads from Croydon so local to me, they had a great following in South London.
If you want really weird from Germany though, I would go for Klaus Nomi he was a Falsetto and I think a classically trained opera singer but he made a couple of albums using a lot of electronic music, strange stuff but it had a certain something, I can't remember the venue but I saw him perform in London, good stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmLk2vSXXtk
I think he may well have been the inspiration for Keith Flint's haircut in the Firestarter video.
I remember as a spotty 13 year old sod someone I met suggested I seek out Tangerine Dream and Einstürzende Neubauten. I know EN are not technically part of the original Krautrock movement but discovering those two bands really opened my eyes to the fact that music is not all 4/4 verse/chorus/verse/chorus. Led me to seek out more Krautrock even to this day I still like to source all sorts of bizarre music from all over the world.
Back in the day it got me a fair amount of verbal from idiots at school for being one of those weird kids, so what?! At least I grew up with an open mind for music, as did my parents who had to put up with me playing it!
...those being Amon Düül II and Passport.
Both are currently active to my best knowledge. Amon Düül II split off from the original Amon Düül, which was a Commune band which had included a certain Ulrike Meinhof and Karl Bader... the members who split off to found Amon Düül II were fed up with the non-professionalism of the group and became rather successful (by comparison).
Passport was founded by honorary citizen of New Orleans, Klaus Doldinger, in the late 1960s to play more experimental music than the Dixieland Jazz he had done before; the band featuring a young Udo Lindenberg on drums for the first album; the style was firmly Krautrock until the later 1970s. Some good stuff, too, including a few TV themes, two of which are still running (both show and theme). From the second album until the mid-80s, their drummer was studio legend Curt Cress. Who in turn had trained one of the drummers I played with in my most successful band. Small world. *shrug*
Passport, these days, is RockJazz in the more classical sense, but they do celebrate their earlier days in concert; well worth attending IMHO. Same goes for AD2 if you can catch them; they don't tour quite as widely, but they do tour.
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