How Krautrock Came to Be

For something often so sparse and inorganic, Krautrock has odd roots. Most of the inspiration came out of the Psychedelic seen of the late 60's, like most Prog Rock. Germany had as much of a counterculture as anywhere at the time, and American and British Psych groups got wide recognition. Where the Krautrockers began to split off (circa 1970) was their incorporation of a distinctly German identity in the music. Having been twice robbed of a national feeling after the two world wars, German youths were ready to forge something new.

Politics played a role in the making of Krautrock. Many of the best known groups and the most obscure tangents were socialist, communist, or even anarchist in nature. While Krautrock genraly de-emphasizes lyrics, this is reflected in the music. Atonal, irregular, and jarring, Krautrock often grates at the ear due to its rejection of many traditional parts of music theory. As a result, Krautrock became amongst the more liberal and anti-establishment of the music scenes of the 70's.

Additionaly, like many other Prog hotbeds (Italy, Spain), the Germans put a bit of their own music heritage into the music. For centuries some of the most revolutionary composers including Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner were German nationals. This tradition is both upheld and subverted. On one hand, there was a rejection of the old ways to achieve a new form of art, a German tradition. On the other hand, these prior episodes were emotional and romanticist, this time the revolution was far from it. Krautrock, in essence, is a post modern spiritual successor to prior achievements from the country.

The mutli-layered origins of Krautrock often worked in conjunction to make some truly unique music. Though the genre was effectual killed of by Punk in the late 70's, a resurgence in the CD age has benefited the old groups well. Due to the lack of synthesizers and lyrics, Krautrock is amongst the freshest and least dated pieces of classic prog.

Faust-Faust IV

Faust are a group of well known Krautrock eccentrics. Their style combined minimalism with rawness, displaying lots of fuzzy guitars and heavy rythym. Their first 3 albums were acclaimed by listeners, but sold piss poorly. With Rudolf Sonsa (Guitar, Keys, Vocals), Hans Joachim Irmler (organ), Jean-Hervé Péron (Bass), "Zappi" Diermaier (Drums), and Gunter Wüsthoff (sax, synths) this band of Germany's headed to England to record their 1973 Faust IV. The result is often considered one of the best Krautrock albums of all time.

The first track is and ode to their music, entitled "Krautrock". This song is the EMBODIMENT of minimalism, with a repeated guitar riff and keyboard for 7 whole minute before the drums even show up. Over it's 12 minute run, the track takes you into a trance like state and is one of the most enveloping works of music I've ever heard. Afterward is the humorous "The Sad Skinhead", which is a quick song that has a circus feel to it. The two contrast nicely. This is followed by the low key, "Jennifer". This song is a drone like trip, driven by the bass with a little guitar riff on top. After a while, it decays into noise. It's a strange part of this album, but one of it's highlights due to the spaciness.

Flip the album over, and we have an instrumental medley called "Just a Second" / "Picnic on a Frozen River, Deuxième Tableau", with is sort of a funk-Krautrock, as unlikely as it sounds. Electronic bird sounds abound. Then there's the bouncing "Giggy Smile", which is irreverent, bass heavy, and every minimalistic. It's the best track on the album due to it's combination of the minimalism with accessibility. "Läuft...Heißt das es läuft oder es kommt bald...Läuft" follows, which is really a violin riff with some fake french on top. The weirdness of this album just keeps coming and coming, with the finale "It's a Bit of a Pain" capping things off as an accoutic ballad on this album of tangents. It's then subverted with an ear-destroying noise in the chorus.

Faust IV is quirky. Less avant garde than its predecessors, the album finds strength by making the strange accessible. There's groove, even dancebility, to many of the parts. Not many prog rock albums have that quality. It's got all sorts of twists and changes of mood, but what it lacks in consistency it makes up for in charm.

This album is a bit like that cool old man that lives next door. Grade: A

Can- Future Days

After several albums of all out weirdness, for the fifth effort, Krautrock kings Can took a drastic change in direction. They eschewed the avant garde and fuzzy elements of their music and made an ambient album. 1973's Future Days took the band's prior minimalism and made it the focal point of the music, Czukay, Karoli, Leibezit and Schmidt make their instruments recede into nothingness. Damo Sazuki features less prominently, and he would leave the group after the album to become a Jehovah's Witness.

The album fades in with some very distorted symbols for the title track. There is almost no formal instrumentation here, just some strange effects layered on each other and a wispy vocal. Can defiantly sees the future as a fairly sterile, orderly place. Afterward comes the aptly titled "Spray", with an ocean like feel conveyed via the washed out keyboards and rhythmically pounding drums. ?It's a bit more active, but it still has that empty and power full feel. Juxtaposed in the mix is the three minute (the rest are all 9+) little pop dity "Moonshake." It's a nonsensical song, and although it's not to bad, it kills the mood of the album. This should have been a single.

On the B side is the side-long suite "Bel Air", which has many shorter movements instead of one long one. It starts of similarly to the title track, with even matching maracas. Then all of a sudden the rhythm section seals the show, with some layered keys and guitar chords to liven the mix. All goes quiet for a heavily fuzzy middle, then farm sounds, and afterwards there's cycle back to the beginning. This is a far cry from their prior side longers, and even casual fans might enjoy this. Good background music/

This is one of the first ambient albums ever created. Ahead of its time in many ways, Future Days is one of a handful of blueprint albums for electronic music. With just light sprinklings of lyrics, guitar, and even formal keyboards, the sparseness is the entirety of the album's embodiment. That does make it difficult to get in to the record until several listens, but there's a lot on offer. Not quite a Tago Mago, though.

This album is like a cloud, an interesting and beautiful object that passes by with so little fanfare it barely goes noticed. Grade: B+

Krautrock: Germany's Strange Experiment

Barring the UK, no nation on this earth produced more classic progressive rock than Germany. In addition, their particular brand of Prog rock is quite different from any other, distinguishing itself by the weird. This month, Germany will be the country of honor.

"Krautrock" is a term coined by the British Press and is often rejected by the bands the label applies to. It's not a very specific tag, with a vast variety of artists under the genre. It it's most pure sense, the term means prog rock from Germany, but there is much German prog that isn't Krautrock. There are three main indicators of something fallin into this genre. First, there is a raw, underpoduced feel to the Krautrock albums. Secondly, minimalism, whether in the sound itself or in the composition itself, often features. Lastly, there is a large electronic element to the music. The organic mood of many symphonic prog or folk prog albums will be absent from Krautrock almost without exception.

This still leaves room for a great deal of variety. This is Krautrock:


As is this:


The first kind, exemplified by bands like Neu!, Kraftwerk, and Popol Vuh, is what I call "Soft Krautrock", and beat Brian Eno to the creation of Ambient Music by a good 6 or 7 years. The latter by bands like Gila, Amon Duul II, and Guru Guru, is "Hard Krautrock", which is more guitar driven. To complicate it, a great number of the bands did some of both.

Some of the most wacky, avant garde, and silly progressive rock came from Germany. With just three album reviews, I can just barely scrape the surface of all the wonderful music the country has to offer.

Can- Tago Mago

Can is possibly the most acclaimed of the Krautrock groups, and Tago Mago their Magnum Opus. The ambitious group of Holger Czukay (Bass) Irmin Schmidt (Keyboards), Michael Karoli (guitar) and Jaki Liebezit (drums) formed in Cologne, and started out with African American vocalist Malcolm Mooney. After their debut album Monster Movie in '69, however, mental health issues prompted Mooney's return to the states. His replacement, Damo Sazuki, was a Japanesse man who screeched and yelled as much as he sang, giving lots of shock value to the group. After a 1970 release of soundtrack work, the band recorded Tago Mago, an epic double album, sent to stores in 1971.

The record begins with "Paperhouse", which is a nice mix of both the heavy and mellow schools of Krautrock. Suzuki's vocal rolls out very easily, and the guitar riff carries the song forward though open air. As the song goes on, it starts to get faster and more frenzied, and then slows down. This leads into the jarring transition into "Mushroom", where Sazuki goes ape with unintelligible screaming, but then the music gets quiet and filled with guitar drone. A very weird song that grows on you with repeated listens. Next up is "Oh Yeah", which is just an absolute masterpiece of the genre. Its 7 minutes of repeated guitar riffs, backmasked vocals, steady 4/4 beat, and wind sound effects are sublime and enchanting. After those 3 songs, it's time for the side long "Halleluwah". Compared to the A side songs, this one relies much more heavily on the rhythm section. It's got a central grove that the vocals and guitar overlay on top of for minutes and minutes on end with only brief breaks, and strange sounds go overhead continually. It's not quite "Revolution 9" weird, but it's not the kind of stuff you want to introduce people to Krautorck with. However, for the fans, it's an absolutely essential piece of minimalism.

Sides C and D, however, do take the weird up to level eleven, to the point where they've left Krautrock entirely and become straight avant-garde. Another side long track, "Aumgn", is a sound collage of guitar & bass feedback, ambient strings (including violin scratching), sitar, pure electronic sounds, and what sounds like heavily distorted animal noises that take the listener for an 17 minute trip into some of the most far out music I've ever heard. I like this, although though this piece divides fans of Progressive Rock heavily. "Peking O." on the D side adds 11 and 1/2 further minutes to the trip, and it's even more intense with Sazuki's screams, and some broken pseudo melodies. The record finishes up with "Bring Me Coffee or Tea", a nice, quiet song that parallels "Paperhouse" to give the album a cycle. After the last two tracks, it's a welcome cool-down.

The only thing that everyone can agree on about this record is that it is strange. Some people will think this is a pile of crap, and others will think it's pure genius. I, for one, fall in the latter. During the height of "Aumgn", the rhythm takes me to places where not even Pink Floyd or Neu! dare tread. It's truly one of a kind, as even Can never released another album like Tago Mago (their next release, Ege Bamyasi, plays like a watered down version.)

While Tago Mago is not for the faint of heart or the fans of classical structure, it stands up with the very best of Progressive Rock albums. Grade: A

Guru Guru- Hinten

Guru Guru is a little less known than the biggest Krautrock bands, but they defiantly played a role in the scene. Founded in 1968, the band released what is generally considered their best album, UFO, as a debut in 1970. Hinten was the followup the next year, and Guru Guru's classic lineup of Mani Neumeier (drums), Uli Trepte (bass), and Ax Genrich (guitar). They were proponents of the free form freak-out Krautrock, similar to Amon Duul II or Faust. Known as ultra-liberals, they read some political philosophy during some of their concerts.

This album has 4 tracks, all 10 to 12 minutes in length. The opener "Electric Funk" charges right onto the scene with blaring jazz guitar. Going through many back and forth rushes of noise between the speakers, the track would not be out of place on a Jimi Hendrix album. Later on there's some funky bass and drumming with a Jazz rock feel, plus some warble sound effects. This song is followed by "The Meaning of Meaning", which has a slow to moderate tempo, but goes everywhere with screeching from guitars. This one can get a little bit tiring by the end of it's 12 minutes of droning.

Side B gives us "Bo Diddly", which is another long form jam. This one takes on a bluesy feel. It also moves around through some sup rising cycles centering around a few central riffs. This is the most typically Krautrock song here. "Space Ship" closes out the album, and it takes a totally different turn than the other tracks. It begins as tape collage of spacey sound effects, feedback, and electronics. Defiantly not one for the faint of heart late at night.

With an album like Hinten, you're going to either love it or hate it. While many would find its fuzzy, gritty approach off-putting, I think most Prog fans would enjoy it for the depth and alien qualities. This album defiantly has a lot to offer, even if in a strange and withered package.

Straddling the border between Krautrock, Jazz, and Prog, Hinten is worth checking out. Grade: B

Neu!- Neu!

Today I'll take my first dip into one of the largest and most misunderstood subgenres of prog: Krautrock. Neu! were a German duo consisting of Klaus Dinger on drums and Michael Rother on Guitar. In 1971, these two split from famed electronic band Kraftwerk due to their perception of lack of focus. Neu! Began playing underground, and released this self titled debut album in 1972. It sold poorly (30,000 copies), but it is hailed today as a masterpiece by many musicians and fans alike.

This six-track album starts off with “Hallogallo” which is typical of this form of Krautrock in its sheer mellowness. This song is a great example of Dinger’s “Motorik” beat (or “Apache” beat), where he would strip down traditional rock structure to a minimalist, repetitive 4/4 beat. This beat became Neu!’s signature. Rother adds sparse guitar throughout, which creates a mellowed out feel. A cool, spacey little track. After a little over 10 minutes, “Hallogallo” ends and “Sonderangebot” starts. In total contrast to what came before, the song opens with claustrophobic electronic sounds. It continues through all sorts of strange noises, making a very eerie impression. After fading out from ringing noises, we reach “Weissensee” via segway. This song falls somewhere in between the two prior songs, as the feel is both claustrophobic and mellowed. More repetitive drumming from Dinger, but he changes it from time to time so “Weissnensee” can’t be called Motorik. Towards the end, Rother’s guitar takes prominence. The track carries on with minimalism and ends side A.

The B Side begins with “Im Glück”, and water noises. Electric guitar fuzz fades in eventually. The song merely hums along with little things going on in the background. No drumming features, and by far “Im Glück” has the most minimalistic approach on Neu! Water noises take us out of the track for a cycle. Afterwards, “Neagtivland” begins with a jackhammer, dogs barking, and screeches. Neagtiveland is not so much like Neu! Or other mellow Krautrock, it’s more similar to Faust or Early Can, abrasive and difficult on the ears. It flies around with Motorik beat, guitar fuzz, guitar riffs, and a general aggressive feel. “Neagtivland” certantly is the least accessible but most interesting track on the album, including other surprises like sudden stops and tempo changes. The final song is “Lieber Honig”, and unfortunately I consider it Neu!’s weakest. An infant like moan dominates the track, and it is annoying as anything. This is truly a shame, as the guitar in nice and relaxing under it.

Neu! Is not always an engaging album, but is always a strange one. The tracks contrast with each other more than most other albums, but the contrast crates quite a bit of interest. Neu! Pioneered a new minimalist electronic style, which would go on to influence acts as diverse as David Bowie, Radiohead, New Age acts, and their old bandmates in Kraftwerk. Soulless but oddly human, mellow yet slightly aggressive, Neu! proves to somehow be accesable. The album itself is hard to take as a collective since there isn’t great cohesion between many of the tracks. However, when effort is made to seem those few similarities together, we have a work that is fun to listen to. Krautrock is rarely flows so well. Nothing is perfect, yet nothing is horrid.

Neu! Has such strength in its pioneering of drum beats and electronic music that its weaknesses are very easy to overlook, and I’d recommend it for your Prog collection. Grade: B