There have been many researches about the krautrock genre. From Jose Zegarra Holder and Adele Schmidt’s Romantic Warriors three-part docuseries on krautrock, Julian Cope’s Krautrocksampler released in 1995, Nikos Kotsopoulos’ Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and Its Legacy, Christoph Dallach’s Neu Klang, David Stubbs’ Future Days, and the encyclopedia of the genre entitle A Crack in the Cosmic Egg by Steve Freeman.
The genre had given birth to bands such as CAN, NEU, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Kraftwerk, Popol Vuh, and Harmonia to name a few. Why do you think bands and artists like Magazine, David Bowie, Brian Eno, The Mars Volta, Public Image Ltd, and Ultravox were paying attention to these guys. Because they knew something special was happening across the landscapes of Germany that was in your face, right to the bone, and surreal to the core.
That and the book written by founding member of the cult group Ton Steine Scherben, Wolfgang Seidel entitle Krautrock Eruption: An Alternative History of German Underground in the 60s and 70s, details what Seidel went through during that time frame. Originally released in Germany nearly ten years ago and translated by Alexander Paulick from the German band Kreidler, Seidel takes a trip down memory lane for readers who may be new to the world of the krautrock genre.
He describes that the genre was according to Martin Busser who wrote in Antipop, that Krautrock was created in a post-fascist, only superficially de-Nazified country in which every deviation from the norm was still punished. Meaning that if anyone who walked on the street either as a man with long hair, or a woman with short hair, was still at risk of being beaten up. Often understood as part of the social movement around non-alienated labor, economic forms, debating ecology, and the critique of capitalism’s.
After the Second World War ended, according to Seidel he was listening to Frolic at Five on the American Forces Network. From Elvis Presley, Bill Hailey, Ricky Nelson, then the British Invasion came along. It wasn’t just The Beatles for him, but The Searchers who at one point took the stage of the Deutschlandhalle with 30-watt suitcase amps and everyone went crazy. But as soon The Rolling Stones played at the Waldbühne, it was a volcanic experience that was like a stick of dynamite ready to explode at any second.
But let’s not forget classical music. Early as the beginning from Schoenberg, the score to the sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet starring Leslie Nielsen with an electronic soundtrack composed by Bebe and Louis Barron, the attraction of the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, designed by Le Corbuiser as Varese’s ‘Poeme Electronique’ was played from a surround system thanks to a light show that happened.
And of course, controversial composer Karlheinz Stockhausen who was considered the godfather of electronic music. Two of his students, who would later form as CAN; Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay, started out in Beat Bands originally before they became in who they were when they formed in 1968. Someone had asked Stockhausen if he was very familiar with CAN, his reply was yes, he knew about CAN, they were former students of his years ago.
Seidel who had been there in the beginning, born in a West Berlin backyard in 1949, surviving the first half of the ‘60s, admiration of sci-fi novels he bought with his pocket money, this is his own take of what he had witnessed throughout his writing, top to bottom. Yes, there are the big names from the genre ranging from Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, CAN, NEU!, Faust, and Popol Vuh to name a few, but there are a few who are often under the radar.
There are mentions of Xhol Caravan, Embryo, Guru Guru, Conrad Schnitzler, Klaus Schulze. And let’s not forget avant-garde American composer Tony Conrad who had started his career in the big apple during the early 60s as a member of the Theatre of Eternal music working with John Cale, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and Angus MacLise, had collaborated with Faust on their only album together, Outside the Dream Syndicate which was originally released in 1973.
There’s a moment in the book where Seidel mentions that the genre is often referred to as the “motorik beat” which you can hear from drummers such as CAN’s Jaki Liebezeit and NEU’s Klaus Dinger, where they would maintain a groove the anticipates the stoic beats of rhythm machines to the musical context with jazz-inspired timing. He also describes Tangerine Dream’s 1972 magnum opus Zeit that consists of pulsating slow motion where the sound can develop over long periods of time without any recognizable destination.
The closing section of the book is an Agree to Disagree discography chosen by krautrock expert Holger Adam adding his own lists of from A&R Machines’ Echo, Agitation Free’s Malesch, The Cosmic Jokers sole self-titled 1974 debut, Manuel Gottsching’s Inventions for Electric Guitar, to Gunter Schickert’s Überfällig. This gives not just readers, but listeners who might be very new to the music, a treat to delve into the world of the scene in Germany that was way ahead of its time. Highly explored and worth checking out.
