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Krautrock

Monster Movie (1969) - Can [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Related: art rock - space rock - rock - 1969 - German music -

Even less known in the United States is Can, perhaps the best of the spacey, early '70s German ensembles that combined elements from avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and the Velvet Underground with jazz, funk, dub and other influences. This style is often called "Krautrock," after a song from 1973's "Faust IV," the final album by Faust, another German group of the period. [Sept 2006]

Definition

Krautrock was a musical style or movement that was largely associated with a number of German acts during the late 1960s and 1970s such as Can, Faust, Tangerine Dream and Neu!.

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. Later German groups such as Kraftwerk are also sometimes considered part of the Krautrock movement.

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, 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. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krautrock [May 2004]

Can (band)

Can (originally "The Can" a few years, sometimes spelled "C A N", or "CAN" by fans) was a experimental rock music group founded in Germany in 1967. They found little success in conventional terms (they never had a hit song), but they were one of the major Krautrock bands; and "anarchist community" who have had a great influence on modern rock and electronic music. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_%28band%29 [Jul 2005]

Art rock [...]

Artrock aus Deutschland wird im allgemeinen als Krautrock bezeichnet. Für diesen ist (gegenüber dem britischen Artrock) vor allem kennzeichnend, dass er fast gänzlich frei von Einflüssen des Blues ist und die Musiker frühzeitig und intensiv mit den Mitteln der elektronischen Musik arbeiteten. --http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artrock [May 2004]

Melody Maker, Nov 1992

Krautrock wasn't a movement, but a moment, a final thrust of the psychedelic project to gobble up every kind of music, and every kind of non-musical noise too, in order to excrete the outermost sound conceivable. But there were as many differences as affinities between the principal Krautrock players. If Can were fusion, Faust were fission. Can were into total flow; they oozed a self-irrigating flux of forms that grooved. Faust were more assembled, a concotion of jutting angles, jolting jump-cuts between genres, and jarring juxtapositions. Put simply, Can rolled, Faust rocked. --Simon Reynolds via http://www.faust-pages.com/publications/reynolds.melodymaker.html [Oct 2006]

CDs

  1. Tago Mago (1971) - Can [Amazon.com]
    Coming out with standard pre-Pavement material up until Aumgn, with nice rants courtesy of then lead singer Kenji Damo Suzuki and neatly syncopated beats that would even have Beyoncé go "woo" Can susbsequently indulge into the unavoidable "bruitiste" wank till the gentler transe of Bring me Coffee or Tea Please puts an end to the pain. Erm...let's say it's a taste to be asserted but never understood neither explained. This LP will win early adopters a seat in the supercilious community of curled lips while those too honest to fake complete adoration will retain the Tago out of the Mago. -- Tigersushi

  2. Space Box: 1970 & Beyond (Space, Krautrock & Acid Trips) [BOX SET] Various Artists - New Age [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
    Disc: 1 1. Valium 10 (12' Version) - Hawkwind 2. Slo Blo - Pressurehed 3. Wolf City - Amon Duul II en 4. Mominous - Ron Geesin 5. Boots Of Ascension - F/I 6. Apropos Cluster - Cluster 7. Brainticket - Architectural Metaphor 8. Gongwash Indelible - Gong 9. Burning Sky - Porcupine Tree 10. Third From The Sun - Chrome 11. 10 Seconds Of Forever - Nik Turner 12. International Sponge - Alien Planetscapes

    Disc: 2 1. UFO - Guru Guru 2. In Aquarian Dream - Melting Euphoria 3. Deranged (Zero Gravity Mix) - Kraftwelt 4. Past Zero Time - Dark Matter 5. Sehr Kosmisch - Harmonia 6. This Alien Nation (Space Mix) - Darxtar 7. Time Center - Michael Moorcock's Deep Fix 8. Vision Of Infinity (7' Version) - Farflung 9. Number 6 - Brainstorm 10. Contrapuntal Interstellar Radars - Conrad Schnitzler 11. Time Of ... - Hawklords

    Disc: 3 1. Devoted Bone Dance - Faust 2. Leaving The Body - Helios Creed 3. Ich Mache Einen Spiegel - Popol Vuh 4. 12-24-2011 - Anubian Lights 5. Tribal Elders - Nick Riff 6. The Changing - Harvey Bainbridge 7. Interferon - Zero Gravity 8. Tangerine Sky - Dilate 9. 21:51 (Edit Version) - Kluster 10. Scorpius (Deep Space Version) - Steve Peregrine Took 11. Vortex In My Cortex - The Brain 12. Cysyrgy - Spiral Realms 13. Gamma Days - Surface 10

  3. Neu! (1972) - Neu! [Amazon US]
    Neu! was recorded over four days in Hamburg with Can producer Conrad Plank, and its static, aggressive harmonies and almost (but not quite) robotic sound still has a resonance that echoes even today. As any musician from Add N to X to Sonic Youth, from Stereolab to Cabaret Voltaire could tell you, early '70s Dusseldorf band Neu! were one third of the original triumvirate--alongside Can and Faust--that defined Krautrock. Michael Rother (guitar/keyboards) and Klaus Dinger (drums) formed the band in 1971, and with their first three albums established a pattern of minimalist melodies and locked groove "motorik" beats that were to later exert a tremendous influence over left-field music, both in dance and rock. Indeed, one of the great U.S. avant-garde '90s bands, Negativland, take their name from a track on this album. "Hallogallo, Sonderangebot," "Im Gluck"--these are the conveyor-belt grooves, the elemental sweep and soar of the neon-bright autobahn, and the sound of the future when it was still shiny and clean. As David Bowie put it, "[Neu! were] Kraftwerk's wayward, anarchistic brothers." And so much more. --Jerry Thackray, Amazon.com

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