Kraftwerk: Pop Pioneers of Electronic Music

Random notes on Chapter 3: Kraftwerk and the Electrification of Modern Music 
from Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany by David Stubbs (2014)

Many Germans probably object to the krautrock moniker for the obvious reason it is an ethnic slur. Equivalent to, say, calling British rock Limey-rock or French rock Frog-rock. And coming from Brits (John Peel, Ian Macdonald, or Brit advertisers used the krautrock term first, it's not entirely clear) probably makes the term an even more annoying dig to a German. But another objection to the krautrock label could be that a lot of the early records that get thrown into that marketing bucket were not in fact very rockin' or rock-like music at all. 

Much of krautrock in its heyday, 1968-1975, was more instrumental, soundtrack-like sounds, more ambient, more post-rock, or even anti-rock. Can and Faust owe obvious musical debts to the Velvet Underground. So rock music. Schmidt says the presence of vocalists Mooney and Suzuki in Can's early years decisively turns the band's music towards rock. Sometimes I can mistake Amon Duul ii for a Brit prog rock band. But Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel, Cluster, and Klaus Schultz, the latter a pervasive figure on the experimental ambient instrumental soundtrack side of krautrock in its beginnings, called a compilation of their music that came out in 1972, Kosmische Musik (or 'cosmic music'). And Kraftwerk, originally calling themselves the Organisation, are the models or pop kings, the "Showroom Dummies" of this more electronic and downtempo ambient side-- and possibly more revolutionary side?-- of krautrock. (1) 

Kraftwerk were formed in Dusseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider. I think I've always thought of them as a group I admire more for their influences than their actual music. Devo, Talking Heads, New Order, and The KLF, all obviously influenced by Kraftwerk, are personal faves. Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother of Neu! begin in Kraftwerk, and as I've mentioned before Dinger was a major influence on Kraftwerk's version of the motorik sound. No doubt Kraftwerk were true pioneers of electronic music, synth-pop, Goth, electro, EDM, or really almost any other flavor of electronic pop music. Gary Numan's "Cars" (1979). Human League's "Don't You Want Me" (1981). Martin Gore of Depeche Mode credits Kraftwerk as the "godfathers" of electronic pop music. Their legacy is remarkably widespread. But my first teen exposure to Kraftwerk was more passive and relatively indifferent. I had a school friend that played the Autobahn album all the time. That song and "Showroom Dummies," about the only Kraftwerk songs I remember from the '70s, were funny and I kind of liked them as a novelty songs but I didn't like them enough to buy their albums. 

The first Kraftwerk single I actually got physically excited about and went out and purchased was  a 12" single version of "Tour de France," which appeared prominently in the 1984 hiphop movie Breakin'. The song is now known widely as Breakdance, as in the song origin of breakdance music. They put out an album called Tour de France Soundtracks in 2003, elaborating on the EDM associations in Kraftwerk's electronic sound. It was actually hiphop founding godfather Afrika Bambaataa's praise of Kraftwerk in the early '80s that got me to eventually give Kraftwerk a second and closer listen. 

Trans-Europe Express (1977) is perhaps their best, my favorite anyway, an electronic road/train song theme or two and a seamlessly gloomy electro Goth soundtrack. On the album "Hall of Mirrors" is a dramatic prelude to "Showroom Dummies," the song I'd only known as a radio single. And the whole second side, "Trans-Europe Express," "Metal on Metal," "Abzug," "Franz Schubert," and "Endless Endless" melds into one immaculately dark synth-pop suite of music. Their rock and anti-rock tendencies in perfect tension. 

That said all their peak run of albums in retrospect, Autobahn (1974) to Computer World (1981), have their moments and seem to effectively burnish Kraftwerk's robotics and cybernetics pop mystique one way or another. I can see Kraftwerk fans getting behind any one of these five albums, preference based mostly on timing, when and how they came to find the album. I think another old music pal used to rank Computer World (1981) his favorite Kraftwerk album in more or less these terms. And "Numbers," off that album, is a touchstone for early '80s Detroit techno and all kinds of later '90s EDM. Carl Craig, second wave Detroit techno pioneer, said of this vintage of Kraftwerk, "they were so stiff they were funky." Anyway, "Numbers" in the early '80s Black dance music context is not to be missed. 

To be honest, though, in my most recent check-in with the Kraftwerk catalog I still found myself reaching most for Kraftwerk's first two experimental albums, the least familiar to me, and especially Kraftwerk 2 (1972). No motorik tempos, more flute, even some guitar; absolutely minimum words, strictly experimental and generally chaotic. Meandering and slow building jams eventually reach these momentary peaks and then recede again like the tide. Maybe a precursor to Einstürzende Neubauten, the '80s German industrial band? Lots of bell ringing clanks and industrial like atmospherics anyway. Hypnotic and, again, vaguely psychedelic.  

I never caught up with Kraftwerk's funky appeal until late but can see now their dark gothic melodicism, always in evidence, was maybe their greatest lasting influence. Anyway, they were a significant influence on Goth and hiphop and electro and EDM, that's a pretty impressive legacy. But I guess I'm still admiring them most for their influence and not how personally satisfying I find playing their records. 

Footnotes:

1. Apparently, later, Schulz is dismissive of the 'kosmiche musik' name as too corny and sci-fi. Hawkwind indulge in this even worse-- corny sci-fi allusions, I mean-- but like 'space rock' I think 'cosmic music' fits. Or fits as well or better in many instances as krautrock, anyway. Psychedelic tinged German instrumental soundtrack music circa 1968-1975.  

2. Full disclosure, Bam, an old school hiphop music favorite, has now posthumously, he died in April, been charged with sexual abuse of several under age boys. Ugh. 

country blues-jazz-soul-funk proto-disco

Despite the upscale disco-w-strings velvet rope fantasy stereotype, Barry White, "The Hustle," Deodato*, what struck me reviewing '70s disco DJ playlists in The Disco Files was how much gutbucket country blues-jazz-soul-funk gets played in the underground gay discos. The first two tracks following are in that spirit and the other three I'm pretty sure I found in TDFs. 

"That's What Love Will Make You Do," Little Milton (1971): Stax/Volt soul single. A country blues soul workout with a buoyant groove. There's a 21 minute extended mix out there, in case you looking for the full meal disco deal.

"Let My People Go," Darondo (1972): Obscure soul man from the Bay Area. Put out three singles in the early '70s, then got hitched and decamped to Fiji. Slinky funk groove set to beseeching blues plaint. Brings the slow disco heat. 

"Njia (Nija) Walk (Street Walk)," The Fatback Band (1973): Proto-disco and proto-hiphop, The Fatback Band were in the middle of chart R&B and dance music throughout the '70s. TFB's "King Tim III (Personality Jock)" came out a few months before "Rapper's Delight" in '79 and gets mentioned as one of the first commercially released hiphop or rap songs. They are not the JBs, nobody is, or even the Ohio Players, but solid P-Funk approved funk. 

"Soul Turn Around," Blue Mitchell (1973): Jazz trumpeter Mitchell goes way back and is reputably the most recorded trumpeter sideman on soul jazz organ records in the 1950s. Next he played in the Horace Silver Quintet from 1958 to 1964, and appears on an all-time jazz album favorite, "Song for My Father" (1965), and then went on to play in Ray Charles' touring band in the late '60s and early '70s. In short, he was a soul jazz pro's pro from the 1950s through the 1970s. And I have a big weakness for hot instrumental pop like this. Another one of those '90s retrospective series that I love was Rhino's Rock Instrumental Classics, five volumes, which included many jazz-funk and disco classics but not this one, not so much a failing of the series as another indication of what a brilliant period the disco era was for the rock era pop instrumental. 

"Philadelphia," B.B. King (1974): B.B. King made a disco record?! No way, exclaims the disco sucks people. But he did. Here's B.B. King channeling TSOP's funky disco sound. 

*- Brazilian pianist, composer, and jazzy disco record producer Eumir Deodato has a daughter married to actor Stephen Baldwin and a granddaughter married to Justin Bieber. Keeping up the legacy of the '70s disco era's decadence, they're apparently still getting into trouble at nightclubs in the 2020s. 

Brian Eno's Ambient Music in Early Electric Miles Davis

I could be mixing it up with something else but I'm fever dreaming Brian Eno had to be listening to this Miles Davis recording of a David Crosby song, "Guinnever," when Eno collaborated with Jon Hassell to make his much beloved by me (and, yes, his hilariously pretentiously titled), Fourth World, Vol.1: Possible Musics (1980) and his solo album On Land (1982), both abstract portraits of "possible" geographic spaces.  

Apparently, when Crosby first heard Mile's version of his song he was so disapproving Davis kicked him out of his studio. Crosby's beautiful melancholy folk pastoral, "Guinnevere," is stretched truly beyond recognition, and to nearly a half an hour of music in the version I share below. It's like the barest pulse of a melodic bass line from the original, everything stretched out as if surveying strange mysterious landscapes, not unlike Eno's later ambient albums. This barest ambient impression of a melodic bassline in "Guinnevere," which Xgau says actually was already coming from Mile's Sketches of Spain classic, functions as ambient launchpad into percolating tempos of the thick steamy tropics, fluttering in and out of exotic slow-building bird mating rituals, Arabian sandstorms and lunar space landing keyboards, ghostly horn fantasias, epic ambient tableaus of jazzy space rock soundtrack music. 

Miles recorded "Guinnevere" in 1970, with a lot of his fusion regulars of the day, Wayne Shorter, Airto, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Bennie Maupin; a long list of musicians contributed to the recording. The album with a seven minute version came out in 1979, on Circle in the Round, just in time for Eno, always in the mix in those days, working with Jon Hassell, experimental trumpet player (actually, to my crude ears he sounds more than a little like a spacey foghorn tape-manipulated version of Miles), and composer (Vol. 2 of the Fourth World series on his own is equally stirring; and he has other very good ambient albums as well). And then Eno's On Land in '82; again, sonically sketching geographic terrain like Mile's "Guinnevere." There it is several of Eno's key ambient moves in early electric Miles. 

By ambient, big word now, I mean in the OG sense: unimposing and slow developing soundscapes that work well as background music. They fill the space without overwhelming the space; you can ignore the music if you want but if you do pay attention to it you can sometimes find ambient music mesmerizing and in moments physically and/or emotionally stimulating. Eno's original definition of ambient music, basically. 

I know there's all kinds of other shades of ambient music now but I'm going back to Eno's '70s originals, and even before that, the proto-ambient music source, early electric Miles Davis, 1970 to 1974, outtakes from his Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, On the Corner sessions, stretched out, sprung like Stockhausen ambient jazz landscapes, exotic soundscapes, beautiful black and blue soundtracks like "Guinnevere."

Like a space age Black Power music; Miles electric '70s peers with some of Sun Ra or Coltrane's most out there free spiritual jazz. But Miles is strictly secular, his spirituality rooted in the blues. His electric music an Afro-futurist meditation on the blues in 1970s that sounds cold, fierce, and visually other-worldly. Miles on another high modernist musical tip, like music writer Greg Tate was always writing about him. 

I still don't know how much this is Miles and how much producer Teo Macero, a topic of some controversy apparently. This half hour long suite was left off the studio release of Bitches Brew (1970) and appears first on the 1998 release of The Complete Bitches Brew sessions. In the same vein try "Calypso Frelimo" off Get Up with It (1974). Space rock funk at another early ambient peak for Miles.

Miles was a mother in these years; a jazzy space rock exorcist unable to escape his demons. Churning out beautifully dark and visionary music.  

Here's the Crosby, Stills, & Nash original, 1969, all melancholy pastoral acoustica, beautifully forlorn harmonies, "she/Ma'lady/we shall all be free," or for the purposes of enjoying the song anyway. Works for me but how Miles got from this CSN song to his electric voodoo Miles in outer space version I do not know but at any rate what a near miraculous act of musical creativity. Crosby warmed to it years later. 

I know electric Miles is way too slow and freaky austere for casual CSN pop music fans; think "Almost Cut My Hair" stretched and slowed down to three times its original length. But if you're into jazz or ambient or exotic longform background music early electric Miles and Eno should not be missed. Sonic safari music that goes well with reading. And strong coffee. Recommended. 

If it took CSN for you to read this far I don't have any problem with that. 

Rock & Roll Showman: David Johansen, 1950-2025, R.I.P.

When I first read Robert Christgau's memoir, Going into the City (2015), I was disappointed to learn that his favorite album of all-time had changed to Television's Marquee Moon, and was no longer The Clash's debut album; US version, that came out in 1979, for me, original 1977 version for him. (Thanks for the edit.) I'd had the impression for years, decades, that The Clash album was his favorite and one of mine too; I liked that we shared that. Claiming Marquee Moon now, although a good album, struck me as a lame homer gesture. Somewhat understandable as something people do as they get older, things closer to us grow more dear, but too damn austere an album for an Xgau number one, by my lights. I might have expected his move would have soured me a bit on his Stranded (1978) Desert Island faves the New York Dolls but not at all. Actually, either one of the Dolls original classic albums from the early 1970s, New York Dolls (1973) or Too Much Too Soon (1974), would have made more sense to me as his all-time album favorite: NYC homers but undeniably, quintessentially, irrationally exuberant rock & roll music. Todd Rundgren gives the debut the glam rock power pop sheen of a big loud (if somewhat rickety) runaway subway train. "Personality Crisis" and "Jet Boy" should have been hits; "Frankenstein" is an epic hard rock masterpiece. The second album, TMTS, wasn't the song album of the debut but Shadow Morton's production might have sounded even better. The band turns covers of Sonny Boy Williamson, The Coasters, and Philly International, really, everything they touch, into a gloriously big and trashy burlesque of 1950s rock & roll. The Cramps, for one celebrated example, were born of such lustful irreverence. My enthusiasm for everything Dolls even carried over into all Johansen's early solo albums, even the often maligned In Style (1979), and up to 1982's live album Live It Up, which I saw at the Euphoria Tavern in Portland, OR. Great show; and Johansen was a great showman. NYC's proud idiosyncratic version of Mick Jagger. I lost interest with Johansen's Buster Poindexter persona, however; found "Hot Hot Hot" more annoying than anything else, but still liked that he had found a niche in the music industry. He played in the SNL house band for years. And then I fell back into the fold with their 2006 comeback album, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This, and liked even a song or two on their subsequent last two studio albums, Cause I Sez So ('09) and Dancing Backwards in High Heels ('11); if overall each significantly less than the album previous to it. They were aging out of being able to play Dolls style rock & roll but deserve credit for still being able to do so convincingly for as long as they did. But I'll always think of Johansen lead style as going best with the sludgy feedback roar of Johnny Thunders' guitar; again, not unlike Jaggers and Richards. David Johansen was one of the great 1970s NYC rockers and, in the end, a consummate music biz pro, going from the lower east side all the way uptown and back. And represents some favorite music, inspired by his original Desert Island endorsement, I still share with Xgau. 

"Looking for a Kiss," peak period Dolls. Click on the youtube connection. 

Herbie Hancock Group Funks It Up On Danish TV, 1976:

I'm no expert on solo projects related to Miles Davis' electric period; I've heard albums by Weather Report Mahavishnu Orchestra, Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Chick Korea, and Herbie Hancock but not even close to all of them. And what I've heard has their charms but most strikingly they always seem to back up my sense of how wildly out there and singularly awesome were those Miles electric records. None of the members of his electric albums on their own ever sound very much like any of those Miles records to me. If anything comes close it'd be some space rock patches on Herbie Hancock's Sextant (1973) or Thrust (1974), everything else by Hancock is way too pop funky for the dark heavy space rock explorations of Bitches Brew or Live Evil, etc. (BTW, where does that space rock sound on the electric Miles come from, anyway? Drugs maybe play a part but I think it's at least in part Miles' infatuation with Stockhausen inspired bleeping and atmospheric goofing on the keyboards.) Anyway, this longish Hancock live set appeared on Danish TV in 1976. It goes with the long instrumental passages in early Earth Wind & Fire or the Crusaders more than any Miles. But I'm still stanning for groove music like this, as its own reward, no lesser step child to free jazz or pop music with words; if, in this particular comparison, not as beloved to me as Miles' electric albums. Nonetheless, Hancock's jazz-funk is its own thing and I like it just fine. Sure, there are some smooth jazzercising genteel affectations to Herbie-- you ought to see him later in his tinted glasses and neck scarves (Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld, right?)-- but he charts in the classic funk period ("Chameleon," '74) and the early hiphop era ("Rockit," '83) and, again, in the acid jazz phase of the EDM explosion in England in the early '90s ("Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)"); that's three decades on the dance music charts. Feel the groove. 

Hot Tub Time Machine: Morning After World Blues Rock

 "Toxika," Plastic People of Universe (1974): I've been thinkin' maybe it's ab time to pull out those Milan Kundera novels again or take another look at that German film The Lives of Others (2006). But some Plastic People will have to do, for now. This track comes off an album called Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned. So definitely no "Good Day Sunshine," even if that song comes off Revolver. The Plastic People recorded Egon Bondy in 1974 but the record circulated only by cassette until 1978 because it could not be officially released under the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia. Sometimes in my sampling of their work they sound like musicians trained to play orchestral music trying too hard to play rock music. And then there's "Toxika," where they make rock music with the serious, relentless, rigor of chamber music and it all makes sense. Work it, worry it, grind it, and pound away at it until it feels right again, and then get up and do it again tomorrow. Enduring the wasteland. Jamming as a blues thing, with an Eastern European folk music backbone. Job well done. 

"Engel Der Gegenwart," [Angel of The Present], from a soundtrack to a Werner Herzog film, Heart of Glass (1976). The story is set in an 18th century Bavarian village known for producing brilliant ruby glass. When the master glass blower dies, the secret of the production of the ruby glass is lost. The villagers are driven mad trying to recover the lost secret that provided an identity to their home town, and they more or less took for granted only a short time before. Weirdly, maybe even illegal somewhere, all the acting was performed under hypnosis. The people look like harmless zombies, in my dim memory of seeing the film at Cinema 21 in Portland in the early '80s. Popol Vuh's audio accompaniment is warmer, not quite so austere and melodramatic as the narrative, more bucolic, ritualistic, grieving, slow building acoustic and electric guitar grandeur that promises some spiritual release in little evidence in the story. The music is consummate bluesy ambient folk music with historical gravitas, even if entirely imagined by Florian Fricke in a house in the German country side in the 1970s. BTW, check out the Spaghetti western music allusion in the intro. 

"It ain't easy, it ain't easy, it ain't easy to get to heaven when you're going down." "It Ain't Easy," David Bowie (1972). Gives Three Dog Night song more of an epic blues rock My Generation-feel, the way Bowie gives mythic glitter to everything he touches at this point. Turn it up. 

"The Right Stuff," Robert Calvert (1974)

The space rock Roky Erickson and the best of the four Hawkwind vocalists-- I know, low bar-- in their classic years; 1970-1975. From a solo album called Captain Lockheed & The Starfighters. The cracked actor Captain schtick is "The Right Stuff" and Calvert's best stuff. Very proto-'70s punk rock. And an indelible vocal stylist, if eccentric and more than a little erratic. Eno produced a couple solo albums with him. Calvert also wrote poetry and short science fiction. Johnny Rotten says he was an early influence. The Don Quixote of space rock. 

Punk Rock Tuesday.