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Krautrock

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11:11 / 09.06.04

Well, I was listening to the wunnerful Resonance FM last night, and the Kosmiche show featured an interview with Michael Rother, ex of Kraftwerk, who later went on to found Neu! It occurred to me that I’d never encountered things Krautrocky on the ‘lith..

I’ve only dabbled my toes in the music, with Kraftwerk, Can and Neu! One of my favourite albums is Can’s “Tago Mago” which is just indescribable – it’s actually testing my powers of description to sum this up. Funky, spaced out, weird, odd productions sounds and twists and turns and Damo Suzuki hollering insanity over the top. The guitars and riffs don’t dominate like a lot of rock, but the lead into a psychedelic, edgy, space - Funkadelic would be a good comparison, (but a bit less obviously r & b) not least ‘cos of the acid. Neu! on the other hand, sound less tripped out, the two LPs I have are driven by a relentless beat (“der motorik” I think they called it – with reference to the autobahn, evocative of post war reconstruction Germany) with Michael Rother’s drifting, spacey riffs over the top. There’s also some softer soundscape pieces and (on Neu! 75) some absoulty kickass proto punk.

So, any fans? I would’ve thought Rizla for one, and many others here would’ve been down with crazy cosmic Germans.

13:21 / 09.06.04

I'm a fellow dabbler and one day will get round to further exploration. It's the motorik that probably appeals most to me, so I think I prefer Neu! to Can (I got quite obsessed by Neu & Neu75 a few years ago and realised where Stereolab nicked a lot of ideas from...). However, you can't beat a bit of Ege Bamyasi or, indeed, Tago Mago for some otherworldly funky shit.

I should really get some more Faust. I've only got Faust IV (supposedly their 'worst' album, but it does have the great 12 minute track called, well, 'Krautrock').

I keep forgetting to listen to Kosmische (or go to their clubs). It's a valuble education!

13:34 / 09.06.04

Well I absolutely love Can, one of the most incredible and indescribable bands of all time.

I love the way their tracks sound like you have absolutely NO IDEA what they're up to, or why they chose to put that bit there, or what the hell they're going on about.. it makes no sense at all.. and yet it all fits together so perfectly and jigsaw-like into the most amazingly organic, and yet totally weird and otherworldly, groove. And they're incredibly funny and enjoyable to listen to as well a lot of the time - it's not abstract 'worthy' stuff at all, despite all the experimentation, it just rocks out in lots of crazy new ways.

Irritatingly though, I don't actually have any of their best albums yet, just the 'Cannibalism I' compilation and the 'Delay 1968' CD of their earliest recordings. I'm perversely annoyed by the way that, unlike most other recognised 'classic' bands, Can's back catalogue is impossible to get hold of cheaply - their un-remastered and un-expanded albums are £14.99 wherever you look.

A lot of the other Krautrock stuff I've heard I'm kind of not too bothered about though, oddly. I mean, I respect Kraftwerk for their originality and the vast influence they've had on subsequent music, but I don't really get the urge to listen to them very much.. probably just my weird aesthetic taste.

I've got a copy of the first Neu! album, and I'm a touch disappointed with it really. Nothing on there really grabs me that much, although maybe it'll start to make sense after I've given it a few more listens.

14:19 / 09.06.04

You can get Can CDs for £10.99 in Selectadisc, Rizla - don't know if they do mail order. That's expensive for them - which I guess is a good thing, it means Can are always in demand. Thanks for the good description.

Kraftwerk are a funny one, I think becuase we've heard so much electronic music over the last decade plus, with dance music and so on, you lose sight of how fucking weird they must have been first time around. I did hear "Von Himmel Hoch" off their 1970 self titled album a few weeks back (on the "Kosmiche" show again) and it absolutely rocks. Amazing record.

As for Neu!, I love their first album, it doesn't so much rock as drives straight at you. There's a kind of relentlessness about it which I like, and it's kind of cut with all the subtle overtones. Having said this, I'm sure part of the attraction is the fact it's a bit exotic (helped by a nice white vinyl copy from Rough Trade) - obscure, weird, music from a lost era which summons up images for me of acid, crazy lightshows, communes, German hippies in Afghan costs.

Has anyone heard any of the other Kraut bands? Cosmic Jokers, Cluster etc? Heard a few Harmonium tracks last night which sounded great, and I was thinking about picking up some Amon Duul - any band which released an album called "Phallus Dei"* have got to be worth checking out.

*God's Cock

Oh, and BTW, one of the Kosmiche crew is ex-poster, Wheaty G, other half of Lily. Great show mate - meeting Michael Rother must be a bit like meeting God.

15:08 / 09.06.04

The only Krautrock I've ever heard is Kraftwerk, and I just kind of laughed it off. Maybe it was just that particular song, but it sound like bad techno music. I hear, however, that Can and Neu! are quite good, so I think I'll give them a go. Also, I'm a big fan of Stereolab, which is renowned for it's heavy Krautrock influences.

15:58 / 09.06.04

Meem:

"I'm a fellow dabbler and one day will get round to further exploration. It's the motorik that probably appeals most to me, so I think I prefer Neu! to Can "

Can do have their motorik moments - have you heard 'Uphill' from the Delay: 68 album? Probably the most fiercely driven (ho ho) example of motorik I've heard, real gritted-teeth, snarling stuff. One of my fave Can tracks, one of my fave tracks full stop. 'Connection' is another good motorik number, on the Unlimited Edition CD comp.

"I should really get some more Faust. I've only got Faust IV (supposedly their 'worst' album, but it does have the great 12 minute track called, well, 'Krautrock')."

Don't forget 'The Sad Skinhead', that's a cracker, that one. Otherwise, yeah, a bit so-so. So Far doesn't do a great deal for me either.

The best Faust album, in my book, is The Faust Tapes. It's just loads of studio out-takes and bits and bobs stuck together into two long tracks (one side of an LP each). Just a big sack of mad noises, tunes, spooky atmospheres and incessant riffs. All my favourite Faust moments are on there.

00:59 / 10.06.04

Saveloy:

No, I've not got Delay: 68, just Ege Bamyasi, Tago Mago and Soundtracks. But now I want it! I think Fopp had a lot of cheap Can CDs on offer recently. Hope they still do.

I really like Jennifer off Faust IV... Heard some of their recent stuff via free Wire CDs and all sounds good. Been meaning to get the Faust Tapes for years, ever since Julian Cope used to advocate them all the time in Select magazine...

For the record, I absolutely love Kraftwerk. Their synths are so... warm, I just want to wrap myself in them and float into the technological utopia they promise...

Rizla: Next time you're hungover on, say, a sunday morning, put on your Neu! album and lie in bed and be transported/healed. It's the best state to fully evaluate music, I often find...

03:35 / 10.06.04

Julian Cope's book Krautrocksampler is, even if you despise him normally, a really excellent overview of this whole phenomenon. You get the history, from The Monks playing " like animals " on US bases in Germany in the early Sixties, through to Phallus Dei and Timothy Leary recording 7-Up with Amon Duul 2 in Switzerland, having been broken out of jail by the Black Panthers, and all points in between, and then a top fifty greatest krautrock hits at the end.

I'm guessing it's out of print now, but it shouldn't be too hard to track down.

I'll get back to this later, it's a subject pretty close to my heart, but in the meantime, Illmatic, I've never had a clue to start with Funkadelic... do advise, if you could.

07:31 / 10.06.04

Hey Alex, I've been looking for that book for a while actually with no joy. Out of print. However, I've recently discovered www.abebooks.co.uk so I'm sure I can turn one up. Please dive in with recommendations, comments whatever.

With Funkadelic, I think the two best albums to start with are "America Eats It's Young" and "Free Your Mind..." heavy acid funk, basica- the later stuff in particular is of variable quality. I do like a bit of George though. Saw him two years ago at a festival - he absolutely brought the house down.

07:38 / 10.06.04

amon duuls phallus dei is pretty awful to be honest Ill-1, not worth the money or the effort of getting hold of it, have to come down on the side of Can as masters of the form, with Neu a close second

gutted to have missed them on resonance

found faust strangely unsatisfying on vynil but live several years ago they were amazing, playing sheet metal with grinders, under a baleful glow of red flares, that sort of thing,

agree that it is easy to forget how strange kraftwerk were, but remember seeing them on tomorrows world in, what 1975 or something, and they were saying how 'in the future all music wil be made by machines' and it was like something from doctor who, made me feel weird and a bit scared. but you can still catch the strangemess on earlier recordings, kraftwerk 1 & 2 plus autobahn, much more new sounding, than later stuff which basically became the blueprint for electronica.

anyone seen the can concert dvd from a few eyars ago?

a

08:33 / 10.06.04

Cheers mate, I think I'll pull it off Soulseek if anything. Pehaps Can and Neu! are a "gateway drug" - once you get a taste for it you begin to like anything with mad Germans doing madder free form acid jamming?

I taped the interview so I'll chuck it your way when I see you - it was only Michael Rother and IIRC correctly the Kosmiche guys didn't play anything that's not availalbe. They played some tracks off his new album which I wasn't mad on. Didn't have the same puch as his early stuff, but I'll have to listen to them again.

You always see a lot of Can members later solo albums secondhand - Holger Czukay is it? Anyone know if there any good?

09:39 / 10.06.04

The best Faust album, in my book, is The Faust Tapes. It's just loads of studio out-takes and bits and bobs stuck together into two long tracks (one side of an LP each). Just a big sack of mad noises, tunes, spooky atmospheres and incessant riffs. All my favourite Faust moments are on there.

random poorly remembered anecdote;

I remember reading an interview with the bloke out of Stereolab, and he said that when he were a lad, for some reason 'The Faust Tapes' was really widely released on special offer for the price of a single. So as it was cheap and looked really weird, him and all his school chums went out and bought it.. and the rest is history etc.

09:43 / 10.06.04

Oh, and while I'm here, I'll take the chance to ask the immortal question; what's the difference between Amon Duul and Amon Duul II?

I've got some tracks recorded by Amon Duul II and Hawkwind's Robert Calvert, and they're fucking terrible, so that's put me off investigating further..

10:14 / 10.06.04

Here you go, Riz

In the beginning there were three Amon Duuls. Amon Duul I was the infamous political/musical commune group led by Ulrich Leopold, the brother of drummer Peter. Amon Duul II formed when Chris Karrer broke away from the commune to concentrate on broadening the musical side of Duul. But before either of these, there was Amon Duul O. Formed in 1966 and featuring Karrer on guitar, Lothar Meid on bass and drummer Christian Burchard ... ADO was a short-lived experiment which indulged the trio's early obsession with John Coltrane/Ornette Coleman-inspired free jazz.

From the intro to the article:

a tale of 60s hippy communes, internecine warfare, drug-fuelled counterculture nights, and strange encounters with Can, Jimi Hendrix and the Baader-Meinhof group.

As I said above, it's the psychedelic imagery of this stuff that appeals to me as much as the music. Actually, more than the music, bearing in mind I've never heard any AD 1 or 2. I suspect I could be in for a terrible surprise...

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:55 / 10.06.04

Ill: if you like ambient, Holger Czukay's collaborations with David Sylvian are fab. Extracts on this site, Flux + Mutability just edges is, for me. Tho' Plight and Premoniotion is also very good.

More later on the joyousness of Kraftwerk and Can. Never been able to get on with Neu, for some reason...

08:01 / 11.06.04

Timothy Leary recording 7UP with Amon Duul 2

It was of course with Ash Ra Tempel. I thought I was joking about my brain as well, but apparently not... I haven't felt so ashamed since that time in junior school...

Anyway, ten at random from Cope's top fifty ( they're listed alphabetically, and I don't really have time to write out the whole thing. )

Amon Duul 2 - Yeti
Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation
Popul Vuh - In Den Garten Pharoas
La Dusseldorf - La Dusseldorf
Harmonia - Musik Von Harmonia
Ash Ra Tempel - Ash Ra Tempel
Cluster 2 - Cluster
Cosmic Jokers - Cosmic Jokers
Klaus Schultze - Irrlicht
Walter Wegmuller - Tarot.

He also obviously mentions Can, Faust, Neu ! etc.

I haven't even heard half of these, but just going on Cope's reviews ( which I wish I had to quote, ) they all sound amazing.

08:55 / 11.06.04

haven't even heard half of these, but just going on Cope's reviews ( which I wish I had to quote, ) they all sound amazing.

Ah, but this is the thing. This is kind of what I was getting at with my "gateway drug" comment above. Is Cope's excitement in those reviews a product of his own fascination with the history, tracking down the records and his own acid addled tastes? I'm sure a lot of us have had the experience of being overwhelmed by the image of some music, or enthusiastic reviewers extolling it's virtues only to be disappointed with our actual purchases. I wonder is it *objectively good* (obviously, ojectively good is a complete bollocks statement, what I mean will I personally enjoy it, without half a bucketful of LSD)? Suck it, and see I suppose.

Anyway, more Krautrock nerdery here:

Woebot's Kraut 10

BTW, anybody with an obscure vinyl fetish should check out his blog, no new content for awhile but it's still awesome.

lord nuneaton savage

10:42 / 11.06.04

Krautrock is hard to define because all the bands are so different. They did'nt know each other, rarely played with each other (with some exeptions, at one point Amon Duul II were practicaly interchangable with Popol Vuh) and when they did meet generally did'nt get on.

I think Amon Duul II are probably my favourite, very beardy, lots of vocal ullulation and guitars that go KLAAANNGGG!!! very loudly. Yeti is probably the best starting point. Believe me it's not prog, it has a ragged ineptitude all of it's own.

Also on a more 'Rock' tip the first Ash Ra Tempel lp is fucking essential, especially if your into free rock like Acid Mothers or Comets on Fire. It makes Hendrix sound like the Kingsmen. I shit you not.

There's loads more. From more well known stuff like Wegmuller's Tarot (which is a Cosmic Couriers release and features all of Ash Ra) to more mysterious stuff like Brainticket's bad trip epic Cottonwood hill.

If you're at all into the current american improv rock stuff (Comets, Sunburned hand etc) then stuff like Amon Duul and Faust is pretty much the motherlode.

I fucking love krautrock.

12:26 / 11.06.04

ash ra temple sucks big logs tho'

like the ozrik tentacles, with everything bad that this implies, new age lift muzak, at least amon duul 2 are interestingly annoying

now as for the scorpions....

ahem

a

12:28 / 11.06.04

I dunno mate, if it's getting an Acid Mothers compasion - I'll check it out at least. LNS - thanks for the recommendations..

at the scarwash

16:55 / 11.06.04

Acid Mothers are playing in town soon.... are they worth seeing in these days?

19:37 / 11.06.04

Yeah, saw Acid Mothers Temple about a week and a half ago. Very cosmic, very far out, very good. Played with Subarachnoid Space and the Flat Can Co. a local free form noise guitar freakout band, which features members of the great Speaker Cranker, a very kraut inspired Cleveland band.

Anyone on here pick up Earth Monkey's Audio Sapian? Fucking aces, it's Pete Bog's kraut 1972 style band with sonic embellashments by Steven Stapleton, aka Nurse With Wound.

21:02 / 11.06.04

Acid Mothers are playing in town soon.... are they worth seeing in these days?

Whatayoumean "these days"? They're worth seeing all day, every day!!

lord nuneaton savage

10:45 / 14.06.04

A-fuckin'-men

Oh, avoid Ash Ra Tempel's 7up (the one with leary on it) it's basically a bad cosmik blues record. S/t, Join Inn and Schwingungen are the ones to go for.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:02 / 14.06.04

Acid Mothers Temple are truly fucking wicked. Go see them. EVEN IF THEY'RE NOT PLAYING, GO SEE THEM. They're that good.

Yup, "Krautrocksampler" is a fantastic book. It's written with such enthusiasm and passion that you can almost hear the music as he describes it.

Ash Ra Tempel were ace... but they reformed a few years back to play Copey's "Cornucopia" festival... and they were fucking terrible.

Although, to anyone who likes Can... bad name aside, the Damo Suzuki Network are fucking awesome. Damo's still bonkers, and they play some old Can stuff, too.

15:54 / 15.06.04

I am currently listening to the first track off Amon Duul's Yeti (downloaded) and I have to say I quite like it. Sounds about a million miles away from Can, Neu! and Krftwerk, and it is indded quite beardy. Great bass, mad operatic singing, and oh - now a violin. I feel like I should be doing freaky arms in the air dancing. I've just noticed the singer is quite out of tune,which kind of adds to it. It's quite mad. It's so seventies acid, its amazing.

lord nuneaton savage

10:57 / 16.06.04

The one to download next is 'Archangels thunderbird' which is kind of like their version of 'Louie Louie'. Except nothing like it, of course.

Then you must pay a visit to the 'Eyeshaking King' wherein a dalek has inexplicably been put on vocals.

I'm fucking jelous of you being able to listen to it for the first time.

13:18 / 16.06.04

I will do, I will do, but it won't be till next week, as I only get to nice up the broadband when I visit an "aged relative".

Don't know if you've looked at the link above, but Matt Woebot makes the point that part of the power of the music was it's unaccessibility, and I did kind of feel as if I was cheating downloading it - it would've been a lot more powerful if I'd hunted it down for 50 guilders in an obscure shop in the 'Netherlands or some such. (This is one of the things I like about Rizla's blog, btw - he's just going on what reaches him rahter than being a download junkie). Those issues aren't exclusive to Krautrock though, and maybe that merits a thread on it's own - the ethics of downloading has had lots of debate on various music blogs. This kind of relates to what I was on about above, as part of the power of a music is it's image (for me anyway) and a factor in this is it's relative obscurity, as obscurity often bestows hippness or coolness, adn personally I like to noodle away in obscure areas of music history.

09:51 / 17.06.04

Found a couple of interesting articles on Julain Cope's Head Heritage site:

Obituary to Can guiraist Michael Karoli

Julain adds fuel to the fire of the great Ash Ra Tempel debate

After reading his description, I'm really going to have to listen to those guys.

19:44 / 17.06.04

Acid Mothers Temple are truly fucking wicked. Go see them. EVEN IF THEY'RE NOT PLAYING, GO SEE THEM. They're that good.

i couldn't possibly agree more. i just had the privelege of seeing them the other week here in sunny San Diego. oh my fucking GOD ALMIGHTY IN HEAVEN WHO I DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IN what a fucking show.

15:18 / 24.06.04

My tuppence worth:

Love Can the most. Monster Movie is my favourite, no soundscape stuff (don't really enjoy it when they get all free). Malcom Mooney was my favourite Can vocalist, even on their (much later) Rite Time album. Damo's okay too.

VonKobra,Scuttling&Slithering

09:12 / 25.06.04

JA JA SEHR GUT MEIN FREUNDEN

I've actually recorded a cover of Yoo Doo Right on a CD a band I was with put out a few years ago.
Neu and Faust and Kraftwerk and La Dusseldorf... I've particularly started to listen to LD lately quite a lot... "GELD" being pretty fucking cool I think....

DADDY

EAT YOUR BANANA

TOMORROW IS SUNDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

But "The Sad Skinhead" has to be my favourite Krautrock song.

APART FROM ALL THE BAD TIMES WE HAD
I ALWAYS HAD FUN WITH YOU
GOING PLACES
SMASHING FACES
WHAT ELSE COULD WE DO?

Pure genius.

Mullets and Flowing White Capes, you can't beat it.

22:36 / 02.07.04

Just popping in to say;

the first track on Neu! 2 is amazing!

It's like if Kraftwerk were crusing along the Autobahn, and they suddenly died and kept on crusing right into Heaven..

09:30 / 05.07.04

Neu2 is meant to be the dodgy one, Riz. Apparently they ran out of studio time, and having next to no budget, remixed the same track twice by playing it at differing speeds. This takes up the second side. In the interview I heard recently, Michael Rother stated he didn't think they were at their best on that LP.

Made a couple of Kraut purchases myself this weekend. I picked up Cluster's Zuckerzeit which is produced by Rother. Very odd early synth LP - '74 I think. Much like the discussion of Kraftwerk above, it sounds very dated now but is still quite pleasing on the ear. Nice wobbly synths and enveloping warm sounds but overall the album doesn't have much direction. Maybe that's the point. I still like it.

I also picked up Ash Ra Tempel's Schwingungen which is great, especially the second track "Flowers must die". A mad, formless rock monster - twelve minutes of an intense percussive jam with random saxes, synths and insane guttural bellowing over the top, truely dreadful lyrics which become quite magical when screamed by an insane German hippy (see the link to Julian Cope's site above for a transcript).

I remember seeing Ash Ra at Julian Cope's "Cornucopia" thingy at the South Bank a couple of years ago and I thought they were appalling. Drawn out, noodley cosmic guitar chords. I can see that too much LSD might lead one into this kind of prog indulgence, but if this LP is representative they rocked mightily back in the early days.

lord nuneaton savage

12:10 / 05.07.04

You only have to check out Gottsching's late 70's/early 80's stuff under the name Ashra to see where his coming from these days. Cosmic noodles as long as yer arm basically.

Later Krautoma can be a dissapointment, avoid Amon Duul's album from last year, it's shit. Also there was a load of stuff produced under the Amon Duul name throughout the 70's and 80's ("Hawk meets penguin" is the title that springs to mind) this is an entirely different beast to the cosmic beard music we know and love. Try before you buy!

The only ones still worth checking out are Faust, who have recently collaborated with NY MC Dalek on the album "Derbe respect alder". Recommended, but it does occasionaly sound
a bit like yer dad collaborating with Public enemy, ie the keep on GOING INDUSTRIAL! which is a bit of a pain. Still they keep it real I suppose.

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