THROUGH
THE EARWORMHOLE
Part
I: Krautrock
Bowie in Berlin mit einem schwein.
My
inroad to Krautrock was twofold. First, I found myself interested in David
Bowie's Berlin Period - a creative milestone in a career marked by
experimentation and a knack for staying far out ahead of the avant-garde.
Secondly, as a fan of Progressive Rock in all its permutations, Krautrock is one of the main categories of foreign progressive music, the other being Progressivo Italiano but more on that later.
Secondly, as a fan of Progressive Rock in all its permutations, Krautrock is one of the main categories of foreign progressive music, the other being Progressivo Italiano but more on that later.
The Berlin Period lasted from 1976 to 1979. It covered five albums (six if you count 2013's The Next Day) - Low (1/14/77) Heroes (10/14/77) and Lodger (5/18/79). Some consider the double live album Stage (9/8/78) to be an integral part of the period.
Ein neuer freund in einer neuen stadt.
The other two albums are by Iggy Pop, whom Bowie shared an apartment with in Schöneberg - The Idiot (3/18/77) and Lust For Life (8/29/77).
Fripp, Eno & Bowie
Die Arbeit an dem gleichnamigen "Heroes" Strecke.
Hansa Tontstudion in West Berlin 1977.
Berlin
Period Timeline
1977's Low 1977's The Idiot 1977's Lust For Life
1977's Heroes 1979's Lodger 1978's Stage
2013's The Next Day
Krautrock (as it was dubbed by the
British) was a creative music form that was forged in the fires of late 1960's postwar
Germany, itself a byproduct of the alienation felt by leftist youth movements
towards the Wirtschaftswunder (German for "economic miracle") and their
suspicion of the former Nazi architects behind it. Krautrock continued on into
the early 1980's, with its hypocenter being in the mid to late 1970's.
Krautrock
Geography
Groups under the Krautrock umbrella
lacked any real cohesion, with most of the principal players operating in
different areas of the country and largely unaware of the work being done by
their peers.
The end of the war signaled the beginning of a veritable clean slate artistically. This period became known as "Year Zero". The musicians, by and large, wanted to break away from the horrors of Germany's past and forge out into new frontiers. They did not want to play blues based rock or Schlager music. What they came up with was a mixture of electronic music (then in its infancy), free jazz and discordant classical music ala Karlheinz Stockhausen.
When mixed together in the early stages it sounded like Space Rock, but
as they advanced forward it became something else entirely, pushing out beyond the frontiers into a new form of electronic music.
THE KEY FIGURES
Brian Eno: Brian Eno is an anomaly. Both a
dilettante and a visionary, he pops up throughout the span of the 1970's
wherever musical boundaries are being transcended. He emerged from the ether of
Ipswitch Art School, a tabula rasa who quickly transformed into the de facto
voice of a group of theoretical sonic trailblazers on the vanguard of musical
exploration. From Roxy Music to his own solo work and collaborations with
Robert Fripp, David Bowie, Cluster and Harmonia (et al), he didn't just create
music, he redefined it.
ENO
KRAUTROCK ESSENTIALS
1977's Cluster & Eno 1978's After The Heat 1976's Tracks & Traces
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer and one of the great visionaries of 20th century music. He is known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, aleatory (controlled chance) in serial compositions and musical spatialization. He was a major influence on many of the Krautrockers, with two members of Can studying under him - Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay.
Florian Schneider: Florian Schneider
founded Kraftwerk with Ralf Hütter in 1970. Originally Schneider's main
instrument was the flute, which he would treat using electronic effects. He
also played violin, electric guitar (including slide guitar), and made use of
synthesizers (both as a melodic instrument and as a sound processor). After the
release of their 1974 album, Autobahn, his use of acoustic instruments
diminished.
Ein Beispiel für die frühe Kraftwerk Ton.
David Bowie titled his Heroes instrumental track V-2 Schneider after Schneider, and was heavily influenced by Kraftwerk's sound.
Dieter Moebius: Dieter Moebius met Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Conrad Schnitzler at an art school in Berlin. They founded the band Kluster in 1969. After Schnitzler departed to join Tangerine Dream, the duo changed their name to Cluster. Moebius and Rodelius joined with Neu!'s Michael Rother to form Harmonia which also worked with Brian Eno.
Hans-Joachim Roedelius is best known as a
co-founder of the Krautrock groups Cluster
and Harmonia. In 1968 Roedelius, along with Konrad Schnitzler, founded the Zodiac Free Arts Lab - a venue that hosted and organized events themed upon electronic musical improvisation.
Julian Cope: Julian Cope is a musician and
musicologist. He wrote this book…
Dielmar Garland Kurzfilm über den Zodiak Arts Lab von 1968 bis 1969.
Krautrocksampler:
One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik - 1968 Onwards - published in
1995 by Head Heritage. It is considered a definitive guide to Krautrock. It is currently
out of print and original copies fetch a hefty sum on the interwebs. PDF's can
be found with a cursory search and can be consumed guilt free due to the
refusal of Cope and his publishers to accept freely given currency by putting
the book back in print.
Here is a list of Cope's top 50 Krautrock albums.
The Bands
Amon Düül II: Generally considered to be
the first of the Krautrockers. They were part of a West German commune which
included the leaders of the Red Army Faction aka The Baader-Meinhof Group.
Baader & Ensslin Meinhoff
In 1970, Rainer Werner Fassbinder worked on a German television documentary called The Niklashausen Journey which featured Amon Düül II
performing. Fassbinder was part of the New
German Cinema movement which featured Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog among
others. Herzog would later go on to work with Popol Vuh.
Amon Duul II in Die Niklashausen Fahrt
Fassbinder, Herzog & Wim Wenders
Amon
Düül II Essentials
1969's Phallus Dei 1970's Yeti 1972's Wolf City
Can: Can formed in Cologne, Germany. Their
music had strong elements of minimalism (punctuated by the hypnotic drumming of
Jaki Liebezeit) fused with psychadelia. As a unit, they constructed most of
their music through collective spontaneous composition. In 1970 they were
joined by street musician and vocalist Damo Suzuki and produced much of the
music that they are best known for.
1969's Monster Movie 1970's Soundtracks 1971's Tago Mago 
.jpg)
Faust: Faust formed in Wümme, Germany in
1971. "There is no group more mythical than Faust," wrote Julian Cope
in his book "Krautrocksampler",
which praised the essential influence the German band exerted over the
development of ambient and industrial textures. Their music, a cacophonous
sound collage of cut-and-paste musical fragments, never became commercially viable.
They did, however, have a solid cult following. In 1972 they released the album
"Faust So Far", which earned
the group a contract with Virgin. In 1973 they released "The Faust Tapes" followed by "Faust IV" - a commercial failure that
resulted in the loss of their contract with Virgin, who refused to release
their planned fifth album.
FAUST ESSENTIALS
1972's Faust/So Far 1973's The Faust Tapes 1973's Faust IV
Klaus Dinger & Michael Rother
NEU! - NEU!(Pronounced Noy as in "noise" - German
word for "New!") formed in 1971 in Düsseldorf by Klaus Dinger and
Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk. Though they failed to achieve
commercial success, the band is retrospectively considered one of the founding
fathers of Krautrock.
One of the defining elements of their music is what is often called the Motorik beat (meaning "motor skill" in German) later referred to as the "Apache beat". At least one third of their recorded output is in the Motorik form. Here they deconstruct the traditional rock song format, with its verses and choruses, intros and changes, stripping it down to a single minimalist 4/4 beat, which Dinger repeats continuously throughout the entire track.
Beat 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
Hi-hat
x x x x x x x x
Snare - - x - - - x -
Kick x x - x x x - x
Tangerine Dream: Tangerine Dream is an electronic
music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many
personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member.
Their most stable line-up was as a trio consisting of Froese, Christopher
Franke and Peter Baumann. Tangerine Dream's early Pink Years released
on the Ohr label (the Ohr logo was a pink ear) had a pivotal
role in the development of Krautrock. Their "Virgin Years" albums
helped define what became known as the Berlin School of electronic music. These
and later albums were influential in the development of electronic dance music.
TANGERINE DREAM ESSENTIALS
1972's Zeit 1974's Phaedra 1975's Rubycon
1979's Force Majeure
Hans-Joachim Roedelius & Dieter Moebius
Cluster: Cluster was a Berlin based group
who influenced the development of contemporary popular electronic and ambient
music. They have recorded albums in a wide variety of styles ranging from
experimental music to progressive rock, all of which had an avant-garde edge.
Cluster was active from 1971 until 2010, releasing a total of 15 albums,
including two collaborations with Brian Eno. Musician, writer and rock
historian Julian Cope places three Cluster albums in his Krautrock Top 50.
CLUSTER ESSENTIALS
1971's Cluster 1972's Cluster II 1974's Zuckerzeit
1976's Sowiesoso
Kraftwerk: Kraftwerk which translates to "power
station" in German, are an electronic music band formed by Ralf Hütter and
Florian Schneider in 1970 in Düsseldorf. The signature Kraftwerk sound combines
driving, repetitive rhythms with catchy melodies, mainly following a Western
Classical style of harmony, with a minimalistic and strictly electronic
instrumentation. The group's simplified lyrics are at times sung through a
vocoder or generated by computer-speech software. Kraftwerk were one of the
first groups to popularize electronic music and are considered pioneers in the
field.
Kraftwerk Essentials
1970's Kraftwerk I 1972's Kraftwerk II 1973's Ralf und Florian
1974's Autobahn 1978's The Man Machine 1981's Computer World
Popol Vuh: Popol Vuh was founded by
pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969. The name Popol Vuh, a
manuscript containing the mythology of the Maya, translates roughly as "meeting place". The band
contributed soundtracks to the films of Werner Herzog, including Aguirre: the
Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde, Heart of Glass and The
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, in which Fricke appeared. Popol Vuh disbanded
following the death of Florian Fricke in Munich on December 29, 2001.
Florian Fricke in der 1974 erscheinenden Film
"Das Rätsel der Kaspar Hauser" unter der Regie von Werner Herzog.
There are many fascinating and influential albums and artists to discover in this genre. The primer above merely hints at the deep waters that flow through these artists. Many albums take multiple listens to get a good bead on what is going on. The reward for discovery is an expanded and limitless musical horizon that can be explored for decades - an uncharted world both known and unknown. Step out beyond the stale limits of popular music and who knows where it will take you.
Coda:
As always, the last word goes to David Bowie. May he continue to fill the cosmic void with wonderment and remind us always of the extraordinary transcendent power of the creative heart and mind. Godspeed.
David Bowie
Fell to Earth January 8, 1947
Returned to the Cosmos January 10, 2016
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