Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental bands who appeared in
Germany in the early
1970s. It was originally a somewhat derogatory term coined by the British music press from the
slang term "Kraut", meaning "a German person" and taken from the traditional German dish of pickled cabbage,
Sauerkraut. However, because much of the music produced by these bands has since come to be very highly regarded, the term "krautrock" is now generally seen as an
accolade rather than an insult.
[ ]Krautrock is essentially a subgenre of
progressive rock, but instead of mixing it with
classical music and
jazz like the British and the Americans, the Germans drove the music to a more
mechanical and
electronic sound.
Typical bands dubbed "krautrock" in the early 1970s included
Tangerine Dream,
Faust,
Can, and others associated with the celebrated
Cologne-based producers and engineers
Dieter Dierks and
Conny Plank, such as
Neu!,
Kraftwerk and
Cluster. Bands such as these were reacting against the post-WWII cultural vacuum in Germany and tending to reject
Anglo-American popular culture in favour of creating their own more radical and experimental new German culture.
Mostly instrumental, the signature sound of krautrock mixed
rock music and "rock band" instrumentation (
guitar,
bass,
drums) with
electronic instrumentation and textures, often with what would now be described as an
ambient music sensibility. Many albums featured a pulsing rhythm section so steady that its practitioners dubbed it
"motorik" -- a mongrel word meaning, roughly, "mechanical music."
By the end of the
1960s, the American and British
counterculture and
hippie movement had moved rock towards
psychedelia,
heavy metal,
progressive rock and other styles, incorporating, for the first time in popular music, socially and politically incisive lyrics. The
1968 German student movement,
French protests and Italian student movement had created a class of young, intellectual continental listeners, while
nuclear weapons,
pollution and
war inspired protests and activism. Avant-garde music had taken a turn towards the
electronic in the mid-
1950s; the roots of electronic music, however, extend into the 19th century.
These factors all laid the scene for the explosion in what came to be termed
krautrock, which arose at the first major
German rock festival in
1968 in
Essen. Like their American and British counterparts, German rock musicians played a kind of psychedelia. In contrast, however, there was no attempt to reproduce the effects of drugs, but rather an innovative fusion of psychedelia and the electronic avant-garde. That same year, 1968, saw the foundation of the
Zodiak Free Arts Lab in
Berlin by
Hans-Joachim Roedelius,
Klaus Schulze and
Conrad Schnitzler, which further popularized the psychedelic-rock sound in the German mainstream.
Originally Krautrock was a form of
Free art, which meant that Krautrock bands gave their records away for free at Free Art Fairs.
The next few years saw a wave of pioneering groups. In
1968,
Can formed, adding
jazz to the mix, while the following year saw
Kluster (later Cluster) begin recording
keyboard-based instrumental music with an emphasis on static
drones. In
1971, the bands
Tangerine Dream and
Faust used electronic synthesizers and advanced
production techniques to make what they called
kosmische musik. The band
Ash Ra Tempel and the project Cosmic Jokers were experimenting with these new sounds as well.
In
1972, two albums incorporated European rock and electronic psychedelia with Asian sounds:
Popol Vuh's
In Den Gaerten Pharaos and
Deuter's
Aum. Meanwhile, kosmische musik saw the release of two
double albums,
Klaus Schulze's
Cyborg and
Tangerine Dream's
Zeit (produced by
Dieter Dierks), while a band called
Neu! began to play highly rhythmic music. By the middle of the decade, one of the most well-known German bands,
Kraftwerk, had released albums like
Autobahn and
Radio-Activity, which laid the foundation for
electro,
techno and other styles later in the century.
The release of
Tangerine Dream's
Phaedra in
1974 marked a divergence of that group from Krautrock to a more melodic sequencer-driven sound that was later termed
Berlin School. In that same year
Klaus Schulze delivered one more LP of pure Krautrock,
Blackdance, and began to release more hypnotic versions of what TD was doing.
By the late
1990s and early
2000s, with the resurgence of electronic music and a new generation rediscovering much of the early work of German music in that period, Krautrock came to be considered a style in and of itself. Artists such as
Stereolab,
Laika,
Boredoms,
Mouse on Mars, and
Tortoise working under the
post-rock and
electronica rubrics have often cited bands in the Krautrock canon as being among their more significant influences.
Radiohead has done a cover of Can's song "The Thief" and cite them as one of their influences. The band
Wilco has shown a growing Krautrock influence in their music, specifically on
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and several songs on
A Ghost is Born, especially on songs like
Spiders (Kidsmoke). In interviews
Jeff Tweedy (the band's lead singer/songwriter/guitarist) has often spoke of his admiration for bands such as
Can and
Neu!.
Julian Cope has always cited Krautrock an influence, even going as far as to write a book on the subject.
*
Sample of "Hallogallo", the lead track off
Neu!'s
debut, and a definitive Krautrock track.
*
Sample of "Green Bubble Raincoated Man" from
Amon Düül II's album
Wolf City.
*
Amon Düül I*
Amon Düül II*
Ash Ra Tempel*
Birth Control*
Brainticket*
Can *
Cluster*
Cosmic Jokers*
Eloy *
Faust*
Guru Guru*
Harmonia*
Jane*
Kraftwerk*
La Düsseldorf*
Neu! *
Popol Vuh*
Klaus Schulze*
Tangerine Dream*
Troya*
Thirsty Moon*
Wallenstein*
Witthüser & Westrupp*
Introduction to German Krautrock *
Krautrock @ pHinnWeb*
krautrock website*
The Crack In The Cosmic Egg Krautrock Encyclopedia
