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KRAFTWERK

UPDATE

Kraftwerk were rapturously received at the Tribal Gathering rave-orientated music festival, which was held in England in May 97.

Contrary to the suggestion that Kraftwerk had dried-up, reworked versions of numbers like 'Radioactivity' and 'Trans-Europe Express' showed that the grand-fathers of European electronic music have not been standing still. In comparison with the originals, the new material is more distorted, more cut-up, more ambient, and, above all, more dancey - a quality for which Kraftwerk have a keen aptitude.

At times they even gave the impression of sampling themselves, but their timing was brilliant as the appreciation of the crowd indicated. Also significant was the cross-genre classical interlude in Trans-Europe Express.

And coming through the rave treatment was above all the strength of the original melodies. I can't help smiling to myself when I hear their tunes: the magic remains undiminished.

One significant change has been in their message. Their celebration of modern technology, always a little tongue-in-cheek, has now become more openly sceptical as evidenced by the new voice-over to 'Radioactivity'.

Kraftwerk also performed some as yet unreleased material, so perhaps a new album is really on its way.

Rik - 18 June 1997

KRAFTWERK are virtually the founders of modern electronic music. It all began when Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider were driven as a reaction to post-war Americanisation to strive for a 'European industrial folk music' which both addressed the modern age and was rooted in their native Ruhr.

The result was the electronic music of Kraftwerk which not only gave rise to a whole generation of English synth-pop groups, but also had a profound influence on Black dance music, as well as the evolution of house, techno and industrial.

Inherently modest, even shy, they view themselves as workers manufacturing music rather than as pop stars, and welcome the more-or-less anonymous production of dance music which they view as a technologically-induced democratisation of cultural access.

The key to their essence and greatness is the combination of avant-garde electronic wizardry such as the innovative genius of 'Autobahn', and good, catchy, tunes like 'The Model'.

Kraftwerk have been accused of being purely mechanical or even 'coldly Germanic', but these criticisms represent merely a failure to appreciate the irony, ambiguity and subtlety of their message. Kraftwerk are concerned with the themes of man and technics. They are tuned to the technical reality of the modern world, but they are not uncritical of it. The Autobahn album ends with the tranquil, lyrical 'Morgenspaziergang'...'Radioactivity' is hardly welcomed.

In the concept of the Mensch Maschine (the man-machine), man and machine are fused. Automatons provide another ambiguous theme. Robots resemble people: people resemble robots. In Les Manequins/Showroom Dummies, the said dummies break through the glass to go disco dancing. This analogy of humanity with automatons was, intriguingly, a leitmotiv of the Vorticist writer, Wyndham Lewis.

Despite going back a long way and having such phenomenal influence, Kraftwerk's own output has been quite small, a fact usually attributed to a presumption of perfectionism. Their last release was The Mix (1991 CDP 79 6671 2), a successful reworking of some of their earlier material more in keeping with the techno music they've spawned. The Mix was more than just a remix in that it involved the digital recreation of earlier analogue sounds. The electronic sounds which are now common on any MIDI keyboard originally required the development of specialist equipment by Kraftwerk themselves.

Kraftwerk's de-personification and exteriality reflects a sort of 'neo-classical modernism' which they share with some of the more interesting exponents of the early twentieth-century avant-garde. Provoked by Coca-Colanisation, Kraftwerk reached back before the anti-modernist Hitler era to embrace the early modernist traditions of the Bauhaus. This has invested Kraftwerk with a certain 'retro-Futurism', a future seen from the past like watching Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Rik - 8 November 1995

DISCOGRAPHY OF LPs (German titles)

Tone Float (As Organisation) (1970)
Kraftwerk 1 (1970)
Kraftwerk 2 (1971)
Ralf Und Florian (1973)
Autobahn (1974)
Radio-Aktivität (1975)
Trans-Europa Express (1977)
Die Mensch Maschine (1978)
Computerwelt (1981)
Electric Café (1986)
The Mix (1991)

The important 'Tour De France' has never appeared on an LP.

INTERNAL LINKS

EXTERNAL LINKS

THE KRAFTWERK FAQ (Kevin Busby)
http://www.kraftwerkFAQ.com

Main text last revised: 8 November 1995. Update added 18 June 1997. Discography added 21 March 2002.