Krautrock
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| Music of Germany | ||
|---|---|---|
| Popular and modern | Electronic - Rock (Krautrock) - Hip hop - Alpine New Wave - Highlife - Cabaret - Volksmusic - Schlager - Klezmer - Heavy metal | |
| Classical | Chorale - Opera - Baroque - Classical - Romantic | |
| Folk | Lieder - Oom-pah - Volkslieder - Schuhplattler - Yodelling | |
| History (Timeline and Samples) | ||
| Awards | German Music Instrument Prize - German Music Awards | |
| Charts | Media Control | |
| Festivals | Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Donaueschinger Musiktage | |
| Media | Keys | |
| National anthem | "Das Lied der Deutschen" | |
| Regional music | ||
| Bavaria - Danish-German - Swabia - Sorbia - Northern Germany | ||
| Other Germanic areas | ||
| Austria - Denmark - Flanders - Liechtenstein - Luxembourg - Netherlands | ||
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental bands who appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s. It is based on the derogatory British ethnic slur "Kraut", which refers to "a German person" (and is derived from the name of the German pickled cabbage dish sauerkraut), and was coined by the music press in Great Britain, where "krautrock" found an early and enthusiastic underground following. BBC DJ John Peel in particular is largely credited with spreading the reputation of krautrock outside of the German-speaking world. As the popularity and influence of these groups has grown, the term "krautrock" has become generally accepted in the English-speaking world, and is more a simple descriptor than an insult.[1][2] It should be noted, though, that few or none of the groups in questions ever referred to themselves with this term. In his book Krautrocksampler, Julian Cope, for example, goes so far as to say that "Krautrock is a subjective British phenomenon" (64), as it is based rather on the way the music was received in the UK than on the actual West German music scene it grew out of. Members of the group Faust, today, distance themselves sharply from the term:
| “ | ... when the English people started talking about Krautrock, we thought they were just taking the piss... and when you hear the so-called 'Krautrock renaissance', it makes me think everything we did was for nothing.[3] | ” |
Krautrock is an eclectic and often very original mix of Anglo-American post-psychedelic jamming and moody progressive rock mixed with ideas from contemporary experimental classical music (especially composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, with whom, for example, Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay of Can had previously studied) and from the new experimental directions that emerged in jazz during the 1960's and 1970's. Moving away from the patterns of song structure and melody of much rock music in America and Britain, some in the movement also drove the music to a more mechanical and electronic sound. The key component characterizing the groups gathered under the term is the synthesis of Anglo-American rock and roll rhythm and energy with a decided will to distance themselves from specifically American blues origins, but to draw on German or sources instead. Jean-Hervé Peron of Faust says:
| “ | We were trying to put aside everything we had heard in rock 'n' roll, the three-chord pattern, the lyrics. We had the urge of saying something completely different.[4] | ” |
Typical bands dubbed "krautrock" in the 1970s included Tangerine Dream, Faust, Can, Amon Düül 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 need to develop a radically new musical aesthetics and cultural identity for the post-WWII. Many of these groups began their musical careers with little or no awareness of or interest in rock and roll; exposure to the increasingly radical and innovative music of, in addition to the Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, or the Beatles, for example, led members of groups like Can or Kraftwerk to embrace popular music for the first time.
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".[5]
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.[6] Like their American, British and international counterparts, German rock musicians played a kind of psychedelia. It was however, strikingly innovative as a 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 (and in that way the krautrock scene can be seen to parallel the emerging Canterbury scene in England at the same time), 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 Gärten 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.
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[edit] Influence of Krautrock on later generations
Krautrock was highly influential on the development and diversification of Post-punk, notably artists such as The Fall and This Heat. 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, Mouse on Mars, Tortoise and Coil working under the post-rock and electronica rubrics have often cited bands in the Krautrock canon as being among their more significant influences.[citation needed] Radiohead has done a cover of Can's song "The Thief" and cite Can, Neu! and Faust among their influences, while The Secret Machines not only covered Harmonia's "(De Luxe) Immer Wieder" on their The Road Leads Where It's Led EP, but have also played live with Michael Rother[7]. Porcupine Tree has also covered Neu!'s Hallogallo as a demo for their album Signify. 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).[citation needed] In interviews Jeff Tweedy (the band's lead singer/songwriter/guitarist) has often spoke of his admiration for bands such as Can and Neu!.[citation needed] Julian Cope has always cited Krautrock as an influence, and wrote the excellent Krautrocksampler on the subject.
[edit] Samples
- 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.
[edit] Notable artists
- Amon Düül I
- Amon Düül II
- Ash Ra Tempel
- Astraleinhorn
- Birth Control
- Brainticket
- Can
- Cluster
- Cosmic Jokers
- Deuter
- Eloy
- Embryo
- Faust
- Grobschnitt
- Guru Guru
- Harmonia
- Indigo
- Jane
- Kraftwerk
- La Düsseldorf
- Mythos
- Neu!
- Novalis
- Popol Vuh
- Klaus Schulze
- Tangerine Dream
- Troya
- Thirsty Moon
- Wallenstein
- Witthüser & Westrupp
[edit] References
- ^ "Mondo Sonora Interview with Jochen Irmler", Mondo Sonora, November 2002.
- ^ Miles, Milo. "German Rockers Who Foretold the Future", New York Times, May 6, 2001.
- ^ The Wire 275, Jan. 2007, 20.
- ^ The Wire 275, Jan. 2007, 20.
- ^ Wolk, Douglas. "The old Neu!: Rediscovering the roots of motorik", The Boston Phoenix, August 23, 2001.
- ^ A brief summary of German rock music
- ^ Bruss, Andrew. "Secret Machines - Light's On", Glide Magazine, 29 August 2006.
- Julian Cope, Krautrocksampler: One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik - 1968 Onwards, first published: 1995, Head Heritage, 140 pages, ISBN 0-9526719-1-3
