Krautrock
195 articles
Amon Düül (I & II): Amon Duul II: Phallus Dei (Liberty).
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 21 March 1970
JUST TO prove that the Continent is taking some of the initiative, here comes a really interesting German band who appeared with the Nice and ...
Can: The Can: Monster Movie (United Artists)
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 30 May 1970
THINGS ARE certainly beginning to happen in Germany. ...
Overview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 13 June 1970
Richard Williams takes a Common Market-minded guess at a future trend in pop... ...
Amon Düül: Amon For All Seasons
Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 12 December 1970
IN THE BEGINNING there was Amon Duul, and A.D. was a musical community of about a dozen people of varied musical backgrounds. Gradually, some of ...
Amon Düül (I & II): Amon Düül: A Science Fiction Rock Spectacle
Sleeve notes by Lester Bangs, unpublished, 1971
Part One: The Aluminium Revolution IT HAD TO HAPPEN! It's been some seven years now since the impact of American popular music first rebounded ...
Overview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 30 January 1971
Richard Williams on the European bands who are rejecting the traditions of Anglo-American rock. ...
Can: Tago Mago (United Artists)
Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 29 January 1972
AS DUNCAN Fallowell says in his sleevenotes, Can could not be anything but German. ...
Interview by James Johnson, New Musical Express, 5 February 1972
OF ALL the heavy German bands Can are perhaps the most interesting and could prove the most influential. Next month they tour Britain and, judging ...
Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 4 March 1972
COMPOSER, MYSTIC, visionary, a prophet for the Age of Aquarius. There he sits in the portrait gallery on the front sleeve of the Sgt. Pepper ...
Amon Düül, Tasavallan Presidentti: Amon Düül II, Tasavallan Presidentti: Imperial College, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 9 December 1972
A CULTURAL ANECDOTE: It's early 1967 and The Soft Machine are having a little trouble getting it together — particularly Mike Ratledge. Finally, Daevid Allen ...
Amon Düül, Can, Faust, Kraftwerk, Nektar: Krautrock: Germany Calling
Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 9 December 1972
TIME WAS WHEN a sudden loud crash around West Germany was probably just an other F-One-Eleven. These days it's more likely to be the local ...
Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 16 December 1972
BOMB BLASTS AND THE BEAT: PART TWO OF IAN MACDONALD'S DEFINITIVE SURVEY OF GERMAN ROCK ...
Amon Düül, Faust, Popol Vuh: Krautrock: Germany Calling #3
Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 23 December 1972
From Amon Düül to Faust's new sound-world ...
Can: Communism, Anarchism, Nihilism
Interview by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 24 February 1973
CAN: A GROUP defined by their very lack of an image? A Few heavy theories have been batted to and fro about the formidable space-rock ...
Live Review by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 24 February 1973
CAN IS not a band which lends itself easily to review. At the Rainbow on Sunday night they drew a nearly capacity audience, which in ...
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 24 February 1973
THE STAGE WAS filled with manic, shadowy figures: three guitarists, two drummers, two singers, and a saxophonist. Through the barrage of noise, one could distinguish ...
Profile and Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, March 1973
IT IS TWELVE noon, and in the smoky sunshine of a London afternoon a group of German longhairs are unloading a huge Mercedes truck full ...
Faust: The Sound of the Eighties
Comment by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 3 March 1973
A LOW buzzing sound, at first almost subliminal, emanates from a position somewhere between the twin stereo speakers. It wavers, hesitantly, from side to side ...
Faust: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, June 1973
LONDON'S RAINBOW looked like a Berliner Ensemble production of a rock musical version of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. The stage backdrop had been raised, revealing ...
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 2 June 1973
I'VE NO CLEAR idea of what was going on at this concert at all. Faust, hardly the most publicised of bands, appear suddenly at Plymouth ...
Faust: The Helmet of the Policeman is on the Head of the Musician: Faust In Britain
Report by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 7 July 1973
FAUST WERE bored. Bored with the set they'd been playing on tour, feeling that they'd much rather lounge around all day in their London flat ...
Can: Ege Bamyasi (United Artists UA LA 063-F)
Review by Howard Wuelfing, Zoo World, 13 September 1973
AH! FINALLY another platter full of stuff to sear the audial nerves clean of all the CS&N/America/Eagles slush that's been fed to them almost without ...
Faust, Slapp Happy: Faust: Machine Heads
Report and Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 6 October 1973
THE MACHINES are taking over. My cassette recorder has started talking back at me and a minute ago my typewriter savaged my left hand. And ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 13 October 1973
FAUST IV is the chronological successor of So Far (The Faust Tapes being from the period of the transparent album) and, as such, represents the ...
Faust, Henry Cow: Faust: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 October 1973
I SENSED something weird was in the offing the moment I was met in the foyer of the Rainbow by a lady dressed as a ...
Review by Ed Jones, Cracker, November 1973
I WAS SURPRISED when Faust's third album, The Faust Tapes, became a chart hit (even at only 48p.) because it seemed so wilfully arbitrary and ...
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, November 1973
"I NEVER EXPECTED anything like this," exclaimed a small enthusiastic person who occupied the seat next to mine in Plymouth's famous Guildhall on May 19 ...
Faust: "We're Just Trying to Be Here Now"
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 3 November 1973
FOLLOWING A PAPER TRAIL, IAN MacDONALD TRACKS DOWN FAUST TO A DISUSED CAR LOT OUTSIDE SOLIHULL WHERE THEY REVEAL DRAMATICALLY... ...
Can: Future Days (United Artists)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 January 1974
I'VE HAD MY paltry reservations about Can in the past, but their previous album, Ege Bamyasi, allayed most of them and this, the group's fourth ...
Can: Future Days (United Artists UAS 29505, £2.25)
Review by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 16 February 1974
DESPITE THE title, which invites trouble, there's nothing futuristic about this album. It attempts nothing that hasn't already been done, often to death, before. Future ...
Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 16 February 1974
NICK KENT slinks unobtrusively into the back-room for something a little stronger ...
Review by Gary Sperrazza!, Shakin' Street Gazette, April 1974
GERMANY IS HARDLY the center of the rock universe. So the only rock and roll that seeped in during the late 60's were from those ...
Tangerine Dream: Exclusiv interview mit Tangerine Dream
Interview by Fred Dellar, New Musical Express, 29 June 1974
They were in Oxfordshire, mixing it at the Manor and sunbathing with scantily clad ladies in the presence of fully clad FRED DELLAR, who here ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 September 1974
Can in Curio City ...
Can: They Have Ways Of Making You Listen…
Profile by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 9 November 1974
ONE NIGHT IN NOVEMBER 1969 the phone rang in Irmin Schmidt's Cologne home. Schmidt got out of bed to answer it and found himself talking ...
Tangerine Dream: Is This The End Of Rock As We Know It?
Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 16 November 1974
EVER HEARD of a group who would rather not be visible to their audience and let the music work on its own? Seems peculiar even ...
Can: Imagine 20 bulls and cows going up a hill...
Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 30 November 1974
...or learn guitar the avant garde way! MICHAEL KAROLI of Can, talking to CHRIS SALEWICZ ...
Tangerine Dream: Rubycon and Alpha Centauri
Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 5 April 1975
IF I'VE ASSESSED the vibe correctly, it would seem that the appropriate critical response to Tangerine Dream is to dismiss Edgar Froose, Chris Franke and ...
Tangerine Dream: 1983 — A Synthesiser I Will Be
Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 12 April 1975
Do TANGERINE DREAM, wizzkids of organic electronic rock, play their instruments?Or do the instruments play them? ...
Report and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 19 April 1975
Three years ago German rock bands like Can and Amon Duul took Britain by storm. Now Kraftwerk are spearheading an assault of new Kraut-Rock groups ...
Kraftwerk: Keystone, Berkeley CA
Live Review by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 13 May 1975
German robots of sound ...
Kraftwerk: Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica CA
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 19 May 1975
Kraftwerk — 'Fun, Fun' at Civic ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, 19 June 1975
NOT TO TAKE anything away from Ralf, Florian, Klaus or even Wolfgang who are probably real nice geezers once you get to know them ...
Kraftwerk: The Final Solution To The Music Problem?
Interview by Lester Bangs, New Musical Express, 6 September 1975
In the beginning there was feedback: the machines speaking on their own, answering their supposed masters with shrieks of misalliance. In the music of KRAFTWERK we ...
Kraftwerk: Mayfair Ballroom, Newcastle
Live Review by Geoff Barton, Sounds, 13 September 1975
FOR THE past couple of days Kraftwerk had been rehearsing in the pleasant and appropriate surroundings of Newcastle's City Hall. Yet, strangely, for the opening ...
Kraftwerk: 2 a.m. Newcastle Hotel
Interview by Geoff Barton, Sounds, 20 September 1975
'We not only try to brainwash people... we succeed' ...
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 27 September 1975
Kraftwerk are happiest when surrounded with technology and artificial items. Karl Dallas reports ...
Interview by Miles, New Musical Express, 29 November 1975
YOU WON'T GET all sweaty or break a leg while listening to Tangerine Dream, but you will not be unmoved. You see, they haf vays ...
Tangerine Dream: Ricochet (Virgin) 38 min*****
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 29 November 1975
THE TANGS RULE. Jamie had seen it spray painted on walls all over town. In underpasses. On the back walls of railway sidings 20 ...
Can: Tales of the Supernatural
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 6 December 1975
I WAS SITTING in a standard hotel bedroom the other day, chewing the fat with a citizen by the name of Irmin Schmidt. ...
Kraftwerk: Radio-Activity (Capitol)
Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 20 December 1975
Kraftwerk: too mechanical ...
Amon Düül (I & II): Amon Duul II: Made In Germany (Atco)
Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, January 1976
NO ONE BUT this X-th generation German-American seems to have remarked on the profound ironies of Kraftwerk's recent boast that they're the first German pop ...
Kraftwerk: Exceller-8, Radio-Activity
Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 31 January 1976
EXCELLER 8 IS a 'best of album taken from the three Vertigo albums that Kraftwerk have released in this country and it's a good selection ...
Kraftwerk: Radio-Activity (Capitol)
Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, February 1976
DOES ANYBODY out there remember 1962's top ten screamer, 'Telstar', by the Tornadoes? I really loved it at the time. Not only was it one ...
Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, July 1976
THIS IS ONE for hardened Can-atics, being basically a collection of snippets which haven't made it onto past Can albums. ...
Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 11 September 1976
CAPITOL RADIO are blitzing Can's top-40 commercial rock number 'I Want More' right now; it is typical that the band would choose to issue it ...
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 23 October 1976
"IRMIN Schmidt was transporting a washing machine down the stairs, and it fell on top of him." ...
Tangerine Dream: Singalongatangs
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 6 November 1976
YOU WANT a picture of prosperity?Take a gander over there, then. Yeah, that guy sitting on the floor at the back of the audience. That's ...
Tangerine Dream: Twilight of the Dream
Report and Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 4 December 1976
TANGERINE DREAM seem to have strange ideas about off-duty entertainment. ...
Can: New Victoria Theatre, London
Live Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 11 December 1976
VIEWED IN isolation, Can's recent singles seem like some kind of sell-out. What, after all, is a "serious" German rock band, whose members include former ...
Live Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 11 December 1976
DOWN THE stairs and into the hall... and into a time warp. With the powerful aroma of smouldering illicit substances and the subdued, attentive audience, ...
Tangerine Dream: Palais Des Sports, Paris
Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 11 December 1976
T-DREAM had no support and so they started cold, but soon as the lights dimmed the Palais Des Sports audience roared and cheered and lit ...
Can: Free Trade Hall, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 18 December 1976
IN ONE OF the most glorious cases of mismatching ever seen on a British stage, Can are preceded tonight by an agonisingly kitsch comedy jug-band ...
Interview by Glenn O'Brien, Interview, 1977
KRAFTWERK is Germany's top pop group, and that's saying something because plenty of original sounds have been emanating from Deutschland since the psychedelic era. But ...
Can: Saw Delight (Virgin V2079) **
Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 4 June 1977
SOMETIMES it's nice to get phone-calls, sometimes it isn't. Know what I mean? ...
Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann, Tangerine Dream: The 120 Decibel Dream - Warning: This Page is Heavy
Interview by Miles, New Musical Express, 16 July 1977
TANGERINE DREAM have released an album — Stratosfear — written a movie score for Friedkin, completed a successful American tour and two members have released ...
Guru Guru, Uli Trepte: Uli Trepte
Interview by Archie Patterson, Eurock, September 1977
"Making music in the long run is a matter of character, not talent" – U.T. ...
Ash Ra Tempel: Regents Park, London
Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 3 September 1977
IT WAS a warm, moist evening — ideal for sitting on damp grass and peering at laser beams through your wineglass. A perfect bring-along-the-doggie-and-the-kids hippie ...
Kraftwerk talks to Caroline Coon
Interview by Caroline Coon, Ritz, November 1977
KRAFTWERK: RALF HÜTTER (composer, vocalist, electronics). FLORIAN "V2" SCHNEIDER (lyricist, vocalist, electronics) KARL BARTOS and WOLFGANG FLÜR (electronic percussion). ...
Interview by Mark Bliesener, Rocky Mountain Musical Express, December 1977
FEW BANDS are as truly contemporary, precise, efficient, and emotionally controlled as Germany's Kraftwerk. The quartet's name aptly translates to "electronic power plant," and they ...
Tangerine Dream: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 1 April 1978
TANGERINE DREAM got what must surely be the greatest ovation of their career when they played at Hammersmith Odeon last Monday. ...
Kraftwerk: We ARE Showroom Dummies
Report by Jane Suck, Sounds, 22 April 1978
Kraftwerk's hottest platter gets poseur preview ...
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 29 April 1978
SEE THE record cover. See the four men in red shirts and black ties. See them stand in line. See them in profile in the ...
Kraftwerk: The Man Machine (Capitol)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 29 April 1978
IT IS RATHER unfortunate that Kraftwerk's current popularity is based, to a large extent, on the chic appeal of David Bowie's favour. True, such favour ...
Kraftwerk: Terminal Weirdness à Paris
Report by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 29 April 1978
(Airport terminal, that is. Meanwhile somewhere up in some posey skyscraper, KRAFTWERK are boring everyone stiff...) ...
Kraftwerk: The Man Machine (Capitol EST 11728(1)
Review by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 6 May 1978
KRAFTY KRAUTS REALLY WERK! ...
Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 20 May 1978
EDGAR FROESE reflects on days of hope and dissipation, and wonders why the photographer's hiding behind a pillar. ...
Kraftwerk: The Man Machine (Capitol EST 11728)
Review by Danny Baker, ZigZag, June 1978
Springtime for Kraftwerk ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 July 1978
Reach Out, We'll Be There (Ha, Ha – Fooled You) ...
La Düsseldorf: La Düsseldorf (Radar RAD 7)
Review by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, 15 July 1978
The Kraft of Düsseldorf ...
Kraftwerk: You're never alone with a clone
Interview by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 29 July 1978
Tim Lott observes the kraft of Kraftwerk ...
Kraftwerk: The Man Machine (Capitol)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Circus, 17 August 1978
THE MAIN thing that separates Kraftwerk from the rest of its electronic German contemporaries is the band's sense of melody and rhythm. ...
Overview by Jeff Walker, Waxpaper, 15 September 1978
IN JAPAN, LOCAL bands copy both the look and sound of Western rockers – an imitative art form which thrives while the fans wait for ...
Kraftwerk: The Man Machine (Capitol)
Review by Stephen Demorest, Rock Scene, October 1978
MORE UNIVAC rock from the Berlin brainiacs. These geeks (you want a definition of 'geek', just look at this cover) nicknamed themselves "the man machine" ...
Popol Vuh: Nosferatu (Egg)****
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 7 April 1979
SHROUDED IN mystique since their inception in the early 70's, Popol Vuh are arguably the least known exponents of Teutonic 'rock' music in this country. ...
Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 5 May 1979
POPOL VUH'S extended title for this soundtrack to Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu is 'On The Way To A Little Way'. That says a lot ...
Nina Hagen: The Euro Woman Cometh
Profile and Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 9 June 1979
THE LOBBY OF Blake's Hotel in Kensington is a hive of useless activity. As I walk through the open glass doors with the just-so scrolling ...
Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 16 June 1979
Can Nina Hagen become Germany's most important contribution to radical pop culture since Brecht? CHRIS BOHN learns about growing up on the wrong side of ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 July 1979
IF I WERE to tell you that a record you've probably never heard of was the album that David Bowie's been trying to make these ...
Interview by Archie Patterson, Eurock, 1980
Can's first singer Malcolm Mooney talks about joining Can, the writing and recording process, gigging with Stockhausen, and the decline of his mental health and ultimate breakdown.
File format: mp3; file size: 56.1mb, interview length: 1h 01' 40" sound quality: ***
Tangerine Dream: Santa Monica Civic, Santa Monica CA
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 24 November 1980
ROCK MUSIC has undergone some major upheavals in the 3½ years since Tangerine Dream last played in Los Angeles. The German trio appeared untouched by ...
Kraftwerk: Computer World (EMI EMC 3370) ***
Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 16 May 1981
Deutschmark doublethink ...
Kraftwerk: A Computer Date with a Showroom Dummy
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 13 June 1981
And we'll fahr'n, fahr'n, fahr'n auf der Autobahn — until big daddy takes our Volkswagen away. Chris Bohn and Anton Corbijn do the Spanish hustle with Kraftwerk ...
Kraftwerk: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica CA
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 1 August 1981
WHEN KRAFTWERK played the Santa Monica Civic in 1975, the German quartet's electronic music seemed like an academic aberration from the rock norm, and the ...
Kraftwerk: Rock's Mad Scientists
Profile and Interview by Richard Harrington, The Washington Post, 2 August 1981
Kraftwerk Moves Electronic Music Out of the Lab and Onto the Dance Floor ...
Popol Vuh: Popol Music — A Clearer Vuh-Point
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 26 September 1981
RUN SILENT, run deep. Like still waters, like Greta Garbo, like Charlie Parker said about his man Thelonious: "The Monk runs deep". ...
Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 4 February 1982
TWELVE YEARS OF PRACTICAL ELECTRONICS FINALLY PAY OF WITH THE SUCCESS OF 'THE MODEL'DAVE RIMMER TOURS THE WERKS ...
Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 6 February 1982
"I'm not nuts," says RALF HÜTTER of mighty Germanic megastars KRAFTWERK. "Blimey," gasps MARK COOPER (PHD Engineering and Knitting) in disbelief. Well, is he or ...
Can, Holger Czukay: Holger Czukay: Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 February 1982
AN AMBIENT tape is burring in the background. "I made a special cassette for a new kind of radio programme," explains Holger Czukay as we ...
Can, Holger Czukay: Holger Czukay: Ode to normailty
Interview by Mick Sinclair, Sounds, 17 April 1982
Mick Sinclair in spontaneous discussion with HOLGER CZUKAY ...
Profile and Interview by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 10 July 1982
AHA AHA AHA...Video didn't kill any radio star who wasn't already tottering dodo-like on the edge of extinction anyway. The best and brightest radio stars ...
Can, Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt, Neu!: A Trance In Tatters: Krautrock und Beyond
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 November 1982
Can: Delay 1968 (Spoon); Holger Czukay: Canaxis (Spoon); Irmin Schmidt: Filmmusik Vol 2 (Spoon); Neu!: Black Forest Gateau (Cherry Red) ...
Can: Malcolm R. Mooney: An Interview
Interview by Archie Patterson, Eurock, 1983
WITHOUT A DOUBT Germany's Can was one of the pioneering groups of what has become known today as EuroRock. Malcolm Mooney, a black American, was ...
Einsturzende Neubauten: Acklam Hall, Notting Hill
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, August 1983
IT IS THE professed aim of Einsturzende Neubauten to exhaust music, to drain it until it implodes into a single catastrophic moment. This, however, is ...
Holger Czukay: The Lunatic Has Taken Over The Asylum
Interview by Biba Kopf, New Musical Express, 12 May 1984
"WHEN I WAS 39 it was a very special year for me," reminisces Holger Czukay. ...
Live Review by Biba Kopf, New Musical Express, 8 November 1986
IT BEGINS with a word that sounds like BOING! The BOING! Triggers a controlled BOOM!, blanketed by a downbeat TSCHAK! In case you didn't catch ...
Interview by Mark Sinker, Rock's Backpages audio, 1987
Herr Czukay talks about his friend Jah Wobble; Damo Suzuki's life after Can; using exisiting music; what he listens to, and his hatred of political music; his LP Movies and the similarity between his music and film; on the German soul; Rome Remains Rome, and music journalism.
File format: mp3; file size: 23mb; Interview length: 23' 57"; sound quality: ***
Faust: Return of a Legend: Munic & Elsewhere
Review by Biba Kopf, New Musical Express, January 1987
MEPHISTO CALLING. Good news – Faust are back. Released from a devil's pact with silence, they're noisily celebrating the repossession of their souls. A new ...
Kraftwerk: Electric Café (Warner Brothers)
Review by Glenn O'Brien, Spin, March 1987
Platter du Jour ...
Einstürzende Neubauten, Showaddywaddy: Kilburn National, London
Live Review by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 19 September 1987
SAY WADD? ...
Einstürzende Neubauten: A Berlin of the Mind
Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 19 September 1987
As EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN return from their two years of self-imposed exile, group-face Blixa Bargeld tells DELE FADELE why they remain the best burst on the ...
Einstürzende Neubauten: Fünf Auf Der Nach Oben Offenen Richterskala (Some Bizzare/Relativity)
Review by Howard Wuelfing, Spin, November 1987
AT THE CORE of the Neubies' schtick is a knee-jerk rejection of every last element considered essential to rock music: guitars, drums, blues-based chord changes, ...
Tangerine Dream: Quiet Please! Musicians Sleeping!
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, New Musical Express, 10 March 1990
2019 Note: Tangerine Dream were the first band to play in East Berlin after the fall of the Wall. It had been ten years since ...
Holger Czukay: Radio Wave Surfer
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, February 1991
THE MAESTRO'S really gone on an extended lunch hour this time. Radio Wave Surfer, the latest in a sporadic series of album bulletins from rock's ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Dery, The New York Times, 16 June 1991
WHEN VOLUNTEERS are needed for the first brain chips surgically inserted microcircuits that, the theory goes, will boost brainpower Kraftwerk will be first ...
Kraftwerk: Barrowlands, Glasgow
Live Review by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 20 July 1991
THEY SMILE. That's the first surprise. Dressed in black, the four Kraftwerk-ers briskly stride on stage to take their places behind the giant computer consoles ...
Kraftwerk: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by David Toop, The Times, 23 July 1991
FOLLOWING THIS year's release of a remix album, a greatest hits by any other name, Kraftwerk fans have been forced to ask themselves whether this ...
Interview by Mark Dery, Keyboard, October 1991
Keyboard: THIS IS your first tour in almost a decade. Why now? ...
Julian Cope: Krautrocksampler: One Head’s Guide To The Great Kosmiche Musik - 1968 Onwards
Review by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, December 1995
Since it deals with that most fetishised of genres, Krautrocksampler is appropriately enough an intensely fetishisable object. Purportedly the first of a whole line of ...
Amon Düül (I & II): Communing With Chaos: Amon Düül II
Retrospective and Interview by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, February 1996
WHEN THE GERMAN rock explosion (now recognised as Krautrock) first hit these shores in the early 70s, the temptation to label it as a thriving ...
Cluster, Julian Cope, Hans-Joachim Roedelius: Hans-Joachim Roedelius: Harmonic Convergence
Interview by Rob Young, The Wire, November 1996
When Cluster's Hans-Joachim Roedelius met his number one fan Julian Cope, Rob Young was there to hear the exchange. But first, he spoke to Roedelius ...
Amon Düül, Faust, Neu!: Welcome To The Machine: Kraut Rock
Overview by John McCready, The Face, November 1996
Julian Cope has championed it, new Nineties bands are ransacking it and the ageing German hippies that first created it are now packing in techno ...
Can: Art Terrorism! Sensory Derangement! Holistic Vomiting! Available Weekends…
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
CAN ALWAYS added to more than the sum of their experience and influences. When the group made the seminal Monster Movie in 1968, three of ...
Faust: Deconstructing the nuts, bolts and girders of rock - or simply having a smashing time?
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
A DAY OR TWO after their Queen Elizabeth Hall concert, my ears are still ringing when I go to interview Jean-Hervé Peron, one of the ...
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
Do the men play the machines? Or the machines play the men? How four humanoids with one vision revolutionised pop. ...
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
IT'S SOMETIME IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER OF 1973-4, and Faust are playing Sheffield City Hall. ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
Chilly symphonies and misty synth-scapes: the Gothic revival starts here ...
Profile by John McCready, The Independent, 23 May 1997
IT IS inevitable and happens to everyone. James Brown's new bag is now full of holes. David Bowie, a former ideas factory, is reduced to ...
Can: Automation For The People
Guide by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1997
A DEEP DISTANT DETONATION ECHOED by an aftershock and a seething high-frequency fallout of fire and rain. Out of this drizzle rises a robotic one-bar ...
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, August 1997
A considerable portion of the German experimentalists output re-released on CD and limited issue vinyl: 24 albums spanning 1968-1994, including original issues, anthologies, compilations, and ...
Kraftwerk play Tribal Gathering
Report and Interview by Toby Manning, Jockey Slut, December 1997
HOW ON EARTH DID UNIVERSE ENTICE THE TECHNO INNOVATORS BACK ONTO A STAGE? LET'S FIND OUT. ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Spring 1997
In order of their first replies, Michael Karoli, Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay revisit the early days of Can: the first time they played together; how they shared everything; their homemade studios; how they met; drummer Jaki Liebezeit and the rituals of repetition; the group's social environment; the importance of original American frontman Malcolm Mooney, and meeting his successor Damo Suzuki; the latter's unforgettable first gig with the band. Oh, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats... (Please note that there are approximately 10 minutes of annoying tape hiss from about 29 minutes in to about 38 mins.)
File format: mp3; file size: 69.5mb, interview length: 1h 12' 26" sound quality: ***½
Holger Czukay: No Borders Here: Holger Czukay’s Movies and On The Way To Peak Of Normal
Review and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, March 1998
Mute’s admirable disinterring of the entire Can-related catalogue reaches Holger The Bassman’s first two solo albums. ...
Kraftwerk: Hollywood Palladium, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 1998
Techno-Rocking Kraftwerk Charges Up In its first L.A. concert in almost 15 years, the German quartet shows the influence of its ground-breaking circuit-driven music. ...
Ash Ra Tempel, Can: Krautrock Revisited: Life After Can and Ash Ra Tempel
Essay by Richard Gehr, Spin, 20 July 1998
EVEN BEFORE KRAFTWERK'S great mid-'70s cars, trains, and airwaves trilogy, Krautrock was largely about getting away – especially from Germany itself. The band Can in ...
Rammstein: Nude Power Generation
Report and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, 21 November 1998
Last month, German shock metallers RAMMSTEIN were branded Nazis by the British press. We have flown to America to uncover the truth. We will subsequently ...
Can: Hildegard Schmidt and Wolf Kampmann: Can Box: Book
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, February 1999
IN 1968 CAN walled themselves up in a Cologne studio and, give or take the odd defection, stayed there for the next nine years making ...
Can: Can Box: Book By Hildegard Schmidt & Wolf Kampmann (Medium Music Books PBK £16.99)
Book Review by Biba Kopf, The Wire, March 1999
IN ITS COMPLETE form, Can Box will contain a live double CD and a video concert, alongside the generically named Book. Amazingly, the live recording ...
Can, Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt: Can: Paladium, Cologne, Germany
Live Review by Don Watson, The Wire, May 1999
DURING THEIR heyday in the mid-70s, Can put great emphasis on the subjugation of the individual to the sound of the group. At their best ...
Can, Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt: The Can Founders: Columbiahalle, Berlin
Live Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, May 1999
Running order: Holger Czukay/Michael Karoli's Sofortkontakt/Irmin Schmidt & Kumo/Jaki Liebezeit's Club Off Chaos ...
Can Solo Projects: Barbican, London
Live Review by David Stubbs, New Musical Express, 30 October 1999
KRAUTROCKERS CAN'S influence on modem music has been more profound perhaps even than Kraftwerk's. Way back in 1973, with 'Moonshake' they were making prototype techno, ...
Amon Düül: Hallucination on Sustain: 25 Years of Amon Düül II
Retrospective by Scott Fischer, Eurock, 2000
AS AN ESTABLISHED trend of musical non-adventurism became the keynote of the early '70s, an alternative motif of sonic exploration became necessary and was provided ...
Guru Guru, Uli Trepte: The Beat Has Gone: Thoughts and Opinions 'bout a Long Forgotten Scene
Retrospective by Uli Trepte, Eurock, 2000
IN 1968 A mutated kind of mindset emerged in then West Germany to form a scene that turned the tide of times, after the war ...
Ash Ra Tempel, Coil, Julian Cope: Julian Cope's Cornucopea: South Bank Centre, London
Live Review by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, May 2000
BILLED AS "a festival of plenty" by its curator Julian Cope, the two nights spent in the company of his various label mates, old mates ...
Faust: The Faust Tapes: Faust Epiphany
Retrospective by Don Watson, The Wire, September 2000
ONE OF THE EFFECTS of the rabid reissue programs that accompanied the CD revolution was to offer shrinkwrapped package tours into your teenage bedrom. Music, ...
Faust: Nosferatu Soundtrack, Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, October 2000
Interludes With A Vampire ...
Faust: The Wumme Years 1970-1973
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, November 2000
A 5-CD BOX SET comprising the bands first two Polydor LPs, Faust and So Far, and two further compilations of rarely heard material, BBC Sessions ...
Faust: The Wumme Years 1971-73
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, May 2001
THERE'S STILL nothing quite like the first side of Faust's eponymous debut album, recorded in 1971 and released by a bemused Polydor in 1972. These ...
Current 93: Invisible Jukebox: Current 93
Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, May 2001
Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, May 2001
Krautrock revisited and remastered: Bowie, Eno, Thorn Yorke, Damon Albarn, Stereolab and Sonic Youth pay sleevenote homage to the Lennon And McCartney of Teutonic boogaloo ...
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 2001
The colossal early '70s Krautrock groove of Neu! has influenced everyone from David Bowie to Radiohead. Now, 30 years on, they're back. "We had no ...
Review by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, September 2001
ENDGAME ARE a trio from Leicester, featuring brothers Alan and Steven Freeman, with musician, engineer and designer Jim Tetlow. ...
Can, Damo Suzuki: D.A.M.O. Interview
Interview by Archie Patterson, Eurock, 2002
DURING THE MONTH of October Damo Suzuki and band made a short tour of the US in support of the excellent new album Odyssey. They ...
Señor Coconut y Su Conjunto: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 29 June 2002
WHAT A TREAT — to sip a cup of Assam in the Festival Hall ballroom while Señor Coconut y Su Conjunto play Kraftwerk cover versions ...
Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express
Review by Pat Blashill, Rolling Stone, 22 October 2002
WITH THEIR 1974 international smash hit 'Autobahn', Kraftwerk had coolly demonstrated that an experimental electronic group from Dusseldorf, Germany, could kick out perfect pop on ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages, 2003
The Can keyboard player on the recording of Future Days: The mood of the band at the time; the difference between singers Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki; recording ‘Bel Air Suite’, and the meaning of the cover artwork, the I-Ching hexagram for Ting (The Cauldron).
File format: mp3; file size: 13mb, interview length: 13' 31" sound quality: * (phoner)
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 2003
IT SPEAKS volumes for Can's protean, constantly-changing sound that fans, indeed the band members themselves, rarely agree which is their best album. ...
Retrospective by David Hemingway, Record Collector, October 2003
Kraftwerk regularly appear in lists of the most influential artists of all time. David Hemingway takes the digital pulse to find out exactly why. ...
Memoir by David Stubbs, The Wire, March 2004
David Stubbs recalls early arousals caused by Faust's "wonderful wooden reason". ...
Kraftwerk: Triumph Of The Machines
Comment by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 12 March 2004
KRAFTWERK'S MOST recent record, the long-waited Tour de France Soundtracks their first album of new material since 1986's Electric Café, and a variation on ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, April 2004
KRAFTWERK's impact on electronic rock is incalculable, from Bowie's Low to Radiohead's Kid A. In this rare interview, mainman Ralf Hütter reveals all about this ...
Can: Monster Movie/Tago Mago/Ege Bamyasi/Soundtracks
Review by Frances Morgan, Plan B, September 2004
MY MEMORIES aren't sepia-tinted; they're midnight-blue and smile-white, fleet-footed but with ash on my toes and holes in my tights where I kicked off my ...
Harmonia's Hans Joachim Roedelius: The man music tried to forget
Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 18 February 2005
Before Kraftwerk, there was Hans-Joachim Roedelius. Meet the neglected pioneer of German electronica. ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, June 2005
FEW BANDS in pop history are quite as mysterious, elusive and maddeningly eccentric as Kraftwerk. But few remain as enduringly influential either. In 2005, even ...
Retrospective and Interview by Simon Witter, MOJO, September 2005
2009 NOTE: This is a 9000-word "Director's Cut" version of a 5000-word piece written for MOJO in September 2005. ...
Can: Monster Movie/Soundtracks/Tago Mago/Ege Bamyasi
Review by Mike Barnes, bbc.co.uk, Winter 2005
Can's forays into rock music were ego-free, expressionistic and pared down to the bone... ...
Tangerine Dream: The Essential Collection (Metro Doubles) ****
Review by Jeff Tamarkin, AllMusic.com, 2006
DISTILLING the essence of a force as monumentally influential and prolific as the German electronic music pioneers Tangerine Dream to a two-CD checklist of essentials ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, May 2006
Among the great German bands of the '60s and '70s kosmiche avatars Amon Düül and Ash Ra Tempel, motorik pioneer Neu!, synth wunderkind Tangerine ...
Review by Rob Chapman, The Wire, May 2006
IN DECEMBER 1972, when the late Ian MacDonald wrote the first authoritative, and still near-definitive, guide to German experimental rock for NME he sorted the ...
Kraftwerk: Ralf Hütter – He's More 'Aaaaaah'
Interview by Simon Witter, Dummy, Spring 2006
2008 Note: When I met Ralf Hütter in London in early 2006, it was ostensibly to hear about the release plans Kraftwerk had for that ...
Interview by Jon Savage, Observer Music Monthly, 10 August 2008
Julian Cope believes in music made by outsiders for outsiders. Now 50, and still incandescent with his passions for Krautrock and stone circles, he tells ...
Can, Cluster, Faust, Harmonia, Kraftwerk, Neu!: Krautrock
Retrospective and Interview by John Doran, Record Collector, January 2009
In the early 1970s a revolution in sound occurred that was as influential in its own way as the birth of rock'n'roll or reggae. John ...
Live Review by Simon Witter, Daily Telegraph, 1 April 2009
IN A YEAR in which it would be almost easier to count the bands not reforming, and in which a startling percentage of pop newcomers ...
Kraftwerk at the Manchester International Festival
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Daily Telegraph, 19 June 2009
The unlikely rock star Ralf Hütter talks about cycling and the Kraftwerk concert at Manchester. ...
Kraftwerk: The Elusive Kings of Digital Pop
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 25 September 2009
AFTER FOUR DECADES spent standing guard over one of the most secretive and enigmatic bands on the planet, it seems that Ralf Hütter is loosening ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, October 2009
HE MIGHT have spent most of the past two decades cocooned in the Kubrickian perfectionism of his secret Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf, but Kraftwerk's ...
Cluster, Tortoise: Tortoise / Cluster: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, November 2009
CURRENT DEFINITIONS of jazz are clearly somewhat flexible, judging by the avant-rock double bill that closed this year's London Jazz Festival on Sunday night. The ...
Retrospective and Interview by Max Bell, Classic Rock, April 2011
SUMMER 1971. The five members of Can are huddled around a bottle of wine and a stereo suitcase Revox A77 tape recorder, listening to the ...
David Bowie, Kraftwerk: Taxi zum Klo's Berlin is a sexual playground
Retrospective by Jon Savage, The Guardian, 21 April 2011
Bowie, Christiane F and Taxi zum Klo: these are the things that made Berlin so alluring to the British pop culture of the late '70s ...
Can: Tago Mago – 40th Anniversary Edition
Review by Luke Turner, bbc.co.uk, November 2011
The blueprint for much of the leftfield music of the past 40 years. ...
Review by Wyndham Wallace, bbc.co.uk, June 2012
Can do: quintessential krautrock rescued from the archives. ...
Kraftwerk: Ladies und Gentlemen, the future has arrived
Retrospective by David Stubbs, The Independent, 27 January 2013
To the unenlightened (i.e. most of us), they were just naff. Now, with good reason, they are hailed as prophets. David Stubbs hails synthpop pioneers ...
Kraftwerk: Why Kraftwerk Are Still The World's Most Influential Band
Retrospective by Jude Rogers, The Observer, 27 January 2013
Kraftwerk's fusion of art, beats and electronics has become a template copied by musicians everywhere. Now they plan to take London's Tate Modern by storm ...
Kraftwerk: Is Kraftwerk still a functioning pop group?
Comment by Ben Thompson, Daily Telegraph, 6 February 2013
On the eve of Kraftwerk's eight sell-out concerts at Tate Modern, Ben Thompson tries to give comfort to the ticketless. ...
Kraftwerk: Autobahn at Tate Modern
Live Review by Paul Morley, Daily Telegraph, 7 February 2013
WHEN I SAW Kraftwerk 38 years ago, as much as they were about the future, I didn't think they would actually make it into the ...
Can, Conny Plank, Kraftwerk, Neu!: Conny Plank: The Soundtrack Of Our Youth
Profile by David Stubbs, The Quietus, 13 February 2013
As Gronland release a four-disc box set of the music of Conny Plank, David Stubbs remembers the "midwife of Krautrock"... ...
What's In a Word: "Krautrock" as a Term
Book Excerpt by David Stubbs, 'Future Days' (Faber), August 2014
"THE GERMANS have every right to be critical of the word 'Krautrock'," says Wire's Colin Newman, and it's hard to disagree. It would be one ...
David Stubbs: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany
Book Review by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 22 August 2014
Krautrock is a term that is bandied about alarmingly freely by bloggers, hipsters and, most of all, bands, desperate for its reflected cool — but ...
Edgar Froese, Tangerine Dream: Edgar Froese 1944-2015
Retrospective by Jim Sullivan, Rock's Backpages, January 2015
THE GUYS in Tangerine Dream — leader Edgar Froese, plus more than 20 others over the years — always gave us the silent treatment in ...
Cluster, Harmonia: Dieter Moebius, 1944-2015
Obituary by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 22 July 2015
THOUGH BORN IN Switzerland, Dieter Moebius, who has died aged 71, was destined to become renowned as one of the pioneers of so-called Krautrock. ...
Acid Mothers Temple: Hope & Ruin, Brighton
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 29 September 2016
NON-STOP head-melting psychedelia — each pulsating, echo-drenched disco-rock groove excels the one before, ending in a collective instrumental howl: AMT are hot, sweaty cool sonic ...
Can: Ulrich Adelt: Krautrock: German Music In The Seventies (University of Michigan Press)
Book Review by Rob Young, The Wire, April 2017
AS ULRICH ADELT points out in his introduction to this sweeping survey of German music, there have been relatively few books on krautrock, even fewer ...
Tangerine Dream: Union Chapel, London
Live Review by David Stubbs, The Guardian, 25 April 2018
For their first UK show without founder member Edgar Froese, the synth pioneers enlivened their proggy ambience with techno, but still created the same cosmic ...
Book Excerpt by Rob Young, 'All Gates Open: The Story of Can' (Faber), May 2018
ONE OF THE many resonances of Can's name is the canister housing reels of celluloid film, a precious container protecting that most flammable and crumply ...
Michael Rother: "I Enjoy Silence!": Michael Rother's 13 Favourite Albums
Interview by Patrick Clarke, The Quietus, 27 February 2019
With a show at London's Under The Bridge on 5 April, Michael Rother of Neu!, Harmonia, and a newly-boxsetted solo career takes Patrick Clarke through ...
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