This name Krautrock – it’s coming from some idiots. I don’t know who, but it was never used in those times. The music was called Deutsch Rock, or electro rock, underground music, free rock. It really had no name, and it also had different colours in different cities.Like from Berlin it was more cosmic,with Cluster and Tangerine dream.We were from Dusseldorf so more industrial, and Can in Cologne were more rock-orientated.
This name was later introdused by people who maybe like this music, but it’s an insult, and it’s also nonsense because we don’t eat sauerkraut. And the music wasn’t made by vegetables. It’s like saying “fish and chips music”, or “spaghetti music”. It’s great that people can see the creativity, but maybe you can think of a more intelligent name?

Ralf Hutter from Kraftwerk

Τι ταμπέλα θα κολλήσω τώρα στους Twinkranes? Γερμανοί δεν είναι αλλά θα ορκιζόμουν πως…oh fuck it…Deutschelectroundergroundfreerock inspired kids creating music that feels like a kick in the teeth..gum anyone?

or at least a cherry flavoured eye candy?

Eccoci di nuovo qui!

Questa volta abbiamo voluto sperimentare un modo nuovo di fare podcasting. Per meglio venire incontro alle esigenze di internet, dei social network, per rendire più fruibile gli episodi senza farli troppo lunghi e per renderli ancora più “on demand”, abbiamo spearato l’episodio 2 in tanti mini-episodi che usciranno regolarmente durante le prossime settimane.

In questo primo mini-episdio abbiamo parlato di una band tedesca, davvero forte! Fanno musica con una chitarra, un Commodore 64 e la scheda audio di un Game-Boy; brani semplici, orecchiabili, molto ben prodotti… Ricordano il krautrock di gruppi più famosi come i Kraftwerk… Il gusto delle loro melodie è molto “vintage”, che riporta la mente a quelle bellissime musichette tipiche dei videogiochi degli anni ‘80 e ‘90.

Trovate maggiori informazioni sulla band in questi siti:

PORNOPHONIQUE – Sito Ufficiale

Melodicamente.com – Recensione da un blog italiano

Jamendo – Pagina della Band

Oggi abbiamo ascoltiamo:

Sad Robot

Lemmings in Love

Rock’n'roll hall of fame

>>SCARICA L’EPISODIO 2-1<<

*Photography: Empty L.A. – where the humans have all been removed from the city – is another illustration of absence. [highindustrial]

*Online: Tumblr is wine, Twitter is crack – what are some other popular internet vices? defined. [coudal]

*Food: Beaver recipes. For preparing beaver. [neatorama]

*Videos: This post linking to all 6 parts about a BBC documentary called “Krautrock” is worth clicking through to for the title alone – “stretchmarks on a rock cabbage.”

Also, Pitchfork has posted the documentary “Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen” for a week. The documentary depicts Mr. Cohen in his days as a poet; before he took up pop music. [mefi]

*Phones: And the next blook deal goes to…”People Talking on Bananas.” (This site should auto-play Raffi singing “Bananaphone” when you open it.) Well, the next one to get a deal AFTER Regretsy. [presurfer]

*Music: Listen to these Singing Science recordings. Clear, earnest, strangely compelling. [coudal]

*Fashion: Whoa. If I were a woman I would totally get a book handbag! I think. (I don’t have any tendencies in that direction.) [craft]

*Today’s links: F

Pizza, Apfelsaft und Family Guy

NOM NOM NOM

kleinerblogsan

BEAK>
BEAK>
INVADA

Geoff Barrows’ pet Krautrock project surpasses any high expectations you might have of the Trip-Hop mastermind, hewing desperately close to art-rock release of the year. It’s fitting that just as Dubstep emerges into the light, the author of the previous decade’s great innovation has mined deeper and to darker extents than ever before, freed as he is on Beak>, from the constraints of fashioning other people’s work.

Admittedly, the trio of Bristolians responsible avoid fan-boy homage by only a hair, content to rework Neu’s ‘Hallogallo’ five times or so, albeit bass-heavy and with a paranoiac bent, but the results more than rival the very finest that the GDR’S post -industrial mystiques had to offer.

The greater revelation is that the non-motorik-governed tracks, traversing dark-as-fuck Doom-Metal, Post-Rock and haunted electronic miasma, virtually best the stretches of exquisite Kosmische. These parts of the album resonate with torment, transmitting images of, downed helicopters, lead-poisoned old men, polluted canals and windswept cemeteries, below the threshold of conscious perception.

‘Dundry Hill’, every bit a distressing experience as you’d expect from the man who gave the world ‘Threads’, marries cavernous moaning to the almost imperceptible sound of distant nuclear sirens; the master of chilling atmosphere at the top of his game. Absolutely essential.

John Calvert

9/10

DOWNLOAD: ‘BACKWELL’, ‘HAM GREEN’, ‘DUNDRY HILL’
FOR FANS OF: NEU, GOD SPEED YOU BLACK EMPOROR!, PORTISHEAD.

If you are into electronic music making (whatever sort of) then don’t miss this BBC documentary about the legendary “Krautrock” decade in germany:

See all six parts on youtube.

“We`re not cosmic rock, we`re comic rock.”
Mani Neumeier, 1973

A free form jazz mentality, avoiding musical clichés and commercialism, has always characterized the music and philosophies of German freak `n roll band GURU GURU who have categorically occupied their own special stage within the realms of modern music. From it`s LSD induced origins in the late `60s to it`s present day configuration which still rocks and grooves with intensity, countless personnel changes have occurred making it more of a succession of musical ventures and concepts under the moniker GURU GURU, which came about as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the BEATLES and their guru worshipping of the late `60s. GURU GURU were one of the first bands to become associated with the German Krautrock movement from that era along with bands such as XHOL CARAVAN, AMON DUUL and CAN. However, the band was not partial to the absurd stereo-typing and preferred the terms “acid space” or simply, “acid rock” which better described their loud, trippy, improvisational music.

Krautrock • Germany

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Tomorrow
2. Tango fango
3. Soba soave bossanova
4. Un, deux, trois
5. Nightbear
6. Banana flip
7. L. torro
8. Salto Mortadella
9. Das lebendige Radio
10. Rattenfänger

Line-up / Musicians

- Ingo Bischof / keyboards
- Tommy Goldschmidt / percussion
- Sepp Jandrisits / guitar
- Jogi Karpentiel / bass
- Mani Neumeier / drums, keyboards, producer
- Roland Schaeffer / synthesizer, guitar

M: And what about my voice?
E: Your voice sounds as soft as the raindrops on the roses I have in my garden.
M: Oh, Elvis. But don’t you think we’ve been waiting too long?
E: No, I think it was right to take a break.

CD plus PC data, Musiques Intemporelle, 1995

We’re suckers for echo machine guitar blissouts by Krautrock types such as Achim Reichel/AR & the Machines and Mañuel Göttsching. Best of them all are Überfällig and Samtvögel by the lovely Günter Schickert, which remain firm favourites in our own little noise bunker. This particular disc collects up sound scraps and demos from 1980-1984, along with a little multimedia suite including a clutch of movies and some sound loops. There’s a cracking couple of echo guitar moments, along with some more out-there moments, and a smattering of more song-based stuff that’s closer to his older stuff with GAM.

If you’re new to him, start with those other discs, which get posted hither and thither frequently, but click that link if you’re a sucker for everything the guy does or just a general rarity collector geek-child like us.

01. Dig It (1:13)
02. Töchter der Neere (10:00)
03. Arabische Nächte (11:20)
04. Dig It 2 (1:59)
05. Monkeys (7:46)
06. Dig It 3 (1:04)
07. In der Zeit 1 (6:37)
08. Now (3:30)
09. Sirenen (3:50)
10. Somnambul (5:36)
plus 3 AVI movies and 36 sound loops in WAV format (all included)

Link | Discogs

In the wake of the ridiculous debacle which was Synth Britannia of a few weeks ago, by way of an act of contrition BBC 4 screened the almost exponentially more intelligent and engaging documentary, Krautrock: The Rebirth of Europe. Comparisons of this degree of magnitude are almost certainly invidious: if you must do reflective social and musical history, then this is indubitably the way to do it. Setting the socio-political context with a degree of nicety, the reaction against schlager and Anglo and American pop which was to ultimately become the zenith of industrial techno as personified in the form of Kraftwerk, the introduction sets out a far more compelling appraisal than was ever ventured in the totality of Synth Britannia. Wenders and Herzog, Baader and Meinhof. Fitzcarraldo. Checkpoint Charlie, the Vopos. All of these appeared within the first ten minutes or so, and none of them struck a false note.

Was British synth culture so much more vapid than the nascent German industrial techno culture? The answer is probably no and the richness of experience which was the documentary Krautrock, set against the echoing vacuity which was Synth Britannia, can only boil down to the fact that Ben Whalley, the maker of these two documentaries suffers from creative bipolarity of the sort heretofore only evidenced in Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde.  Even Karlheinz Stockhausen, that enfant terrible godfather of the world of experimental sound got a look in. Maybe he’d like to have another stab at Synth Britannia, doing it properly this time.

What a combo – The Black Dog and a selection of stunning Kraut grooves. You know it’s gonns be a winner.

“It’s now so hard to imagine a time when there was no synths and a time when musicians/artists didn’t stick to the tried and tested formulas  that would become rockisms of modern music. Many of the original Krautrockers paved the way for much modern electronic music, influencing all that bands that influenced us in turn.

We’ve gone for a pretty wide mix of artists and included people like Stockhausen and Nono because they are pretty much the godfathers of everything electronic. We hope you enjoy it.” – The Black Dog

1. Klaus Schulze – Irrlicht – Caroline Records
2. Ash Ra Tempel – Cosmic Tango – Kosmische Kuriere
3. Karlheinz Stockhausen – Oberlippentanz Fur Trompete Solo – Acanta
4. Kluster – Klopfziechen Part One – Schwann
5. Luigi Nono – Y Entonces Comprendio – Deutsche Grammophon
6. Cluster – Plas – Brain
7. Harmonia – Sehr Kosmisch – Brain
8. Cluster – Live In Der Fabrik – Brain
9. Faust – Mamie Is Blue – Polydor
10. Popol Vuh – Ah! – Pilz
11. Neu! – Negativland – Brain
12. Neu! – Hallogallo – Brain
13. Can – Spoon – United Artists
14. Harmonia – Vamos Companeros – Sony
15. Eno, Moebius, Rodedelius & Plank – Pitch Control – Sky Records
16. Kraftwerk – Tanzmusik – Crown Records

LINK

Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany:
Documentary which looks at how a radical generation of musicians created a new German musical identity out of the cultural ruins of war.

Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard. They shared one common goal – a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany’s gruesome past – but that didn’t stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain from calling them Krautrock.

[direktlink]

[via andreas schepers]

Ringhausen, Musican from Germany, the first Musictool 1975 its a do it your self Tonegenerator (XR 2206) and a WEM Copycat Delay.

My Musicheros are : NEU!, Ashra, Achim Reichel (grüne Reise/Echos), Harmonia deluxe, Steve Reich, the old Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and much more…

Since 1998 Sound-Programmer (not Designer) for Sound Art Elmenhorst.
Synthesizer Sounds for: Waldorf Q, Quasimidi Polymorph, Yamaha….and other
My big Hobby Akustik Recording….

Are you sequenced ?
Mr. Ringhausen (Hans-Ulrich Günther)

www-tracey.archive.org/details/SFIRE015

http://sfintrecords.altervista.org

Seeing an opening cut on the jacket simply titled “Krautrock” intrigued me, as I certainly count myself among the fans of the genre known by the same name. I never had a clue that the genre title used to describe the likes of Kraftwerk, Can and Neu! actually came from a Faust record.

 This opening track is actually a noisy instrumental piece of loud, pulsing synthesizers that thread an array of randomly growling electric guitars with a steady tambourine beat beneath it all. Halfway through the tambourine gives way to a drum kit that takes over the rhythm and the guitars continue to wrestle and wind with each other, oblivious to the beat. It’s some of the most blissed-out noise ever recorded.

The piece actually reminds me of early Stereolab. Stereolab were never shy about their early Krautrock influences, and beyond their rhythmic electric guitar jangle clearly inspired by the work of Neu! I can finally hear where Faust figures into their equation.

The next song is an extreme shift from the fuzzy, trippy ebb and flow of “Krautrock.” “The Sad Skinhead” cuts into the hypnotic state induced by the early track with a sloppy, over-modulated yell and creepy, stalking guitar lines, with occasional moans of feedback, with lyrics sung in heavy accented English:

“Apart from all the bad times you gave me
I always felt good with you
Going places, smashing faces
what else could we do?”

 Again, in perfect complement/contrast to that almost annoying song, the next cut stuns in its shift of tone. “Jennifer” blows over you like a cloud of soothing, enveloping cool air.* The throbbing, rhythmic drone below a lugubrious and dreamy guitar hook on “Jennifer” pulses with amazing vividness on the wax. This is easily my favorite track on the album. The dreamy, breezy guitar hook repeats over and over again as the singer croons surreal lyrics: “Jennifer, your red hair’s burning/Yellow jokes come out of your mind” before swelling into a wash of noisy distortion that ebbs and flows like waves lapping the shoreline of some faraway, other-worldly beach made of white noise. Then, the crash of a cymbal cuts the noise off only for a coda featuring some old-time sounding piano, that still follows the Krautrock aesthetic of catchy, simple, redundant hook with random improvisation flitting and dancing over it. In this case, the low end becomes an anchoring droney, hook, and the higher octave winds up and down the scales in some nightmare attempt to make a melody.

The second side opens with “Just a Second,” another brilliant instrumental of guitars and synthesizers, which melts into the psycho bounce of “Giggy Smile,” which has an extraordinary amount of shifts in tones and styles, opening with a zany polka-like sing-song and shifting into a chill jazz number with saxophone and then ending in some super catchy, driving keyboard hook with guitars weaving in and our and zipping about. It’s so repetitive it sticks in your head, but the layers of the improvised guitar playing is so dynamic, it never grows tiresome.

“Giggy Smile” comes to an abrupt halt and you suddenly hear what sounds like some casual conversation in the recording booth in German, the only spoken or sung German on the entire record. Just as this peek behind the curtain appears, it vanishes into the pastoral ramble of “Lauft… Heisst Das es Lauft Oder es Kommt Bald… Lauft” (that is the brief spoken German dialogue). The gentle acoustic guitar punctuated by a driving violin and handclaps and a distant, howling flute with vocals sung in French again offers an odd shift away from the stylings of the other tracks.

As the whirring din of rattle hushes “Lauft” and a meandering synthesizer that recalls the mood music of another famous Krautrock act, Tangerine Dream—or another Krautrock-influenced Englishman Brian Eno—hums along like an ambient puff of harmonic smoke. It swells loudly then dissolves into another soft acoustic-guitar driven song that again has pastoral qualities, the finale: “It’s a bit of a Pain.” The track, a beautiful, soft moment of rambling acoustic guitar and dreamy piano, punctuated by the occasional juxtaposition of white noise buzz from some other-dimensional synthesizer, soon rambles off into quietness, closing out one of the greatest art rock records ever composed.

Caught up with the mastery of the music on the record, I have to hand it to Capitol/EMI in its remastering. Subtle sounds, like the delicate throb of “Jennifer,” which is more felt than heard, is as clean as can be (hence why you need the vinyl, as on the CD things get muddy due to the limits of compressed sound). The rattle above the calming acoustic guitar and whining violin of “Lauft” almost hovers out of the speakers, as if it’s coming from another room.

Sourced from the original master tapes, according to the liner notes on the inner sleeve (which even faithfully reproduce the band’s tour dates at the time of the record’s release), the dynamic depth of these complex tracks, so laden in noise, dazzle. This is the sort of record made for appreciation through the depth of vinyl. I honestly do not believe I would have enjoyed it as much had I heard it on CD first. This music is too dynamic and complex to be relegated to that restrictive medium, much less the mp3 format.

*I can’t help but think about that out-of-order Wolfmother record I got earlier this week, and how important the order of the tracks are on this record. Fitting songs on two sides of a record is an art mostly lost on today’s musicians. With the varied dynamics and sounds on Faust IV that lend so much to the flow of the songs, the right order of tracks is essential to experiencing this record all the way through. It’s a true masterpiece through and through.