Krautrock
Encyclopedia
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music
scenes that appeared in Germany
in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one particular scene, style, or movement, as many krautrock artists were not familiar with one another. BBC
DJ
John Peel
in particular is largely credited with spreading the reputation of krautrock outside of the German-speaking world.
Largely divorced from the traditional blues
and rock & roll influences of English and American rock music up to that time, the period contributed to the birth and evolution of electronic music
, ambient music
, alternative music
and New Age music
. Key artists associated with the tag include Can
, Amon Düül II
, Ash Ra Tempel
, Faust
, Popol Vuh
, Cluster
, Tangerine Dream
, Klaus Schulze
, Neu!
, and Kraftwerk
.
The term krautrock was originally a humorous one coined by the UK music press (such as New Musical Express and Melody Maker
), where "krautrock" found an early and enthusiastic underground following. The term derives from the ethnic slur "kraut
", and its use by the music press was inspired by a track from Amon Düül
's Psychedelic Underground
titled "Mama Düül und Ihre Sauerkrautband Spielt Auf" ('Mama Düül and her Sauerkrautband Strike Up.') As is often the case with musical genre labels, few of the bands wished to see themselves pigeon-holed, and tended to eschew the term. The term is also a problematic category due to the considerable differences between the artists so labelled.
Musicologist Julian Cope
, in his book Krautrocksampler
, says "Krautrock is a subjective British phenomenon," based on the way the music was received in the UK rather than on the actual West German music scene out of which it grew. For instance, while one of the main groups originally tagged as krautrock, Faust
, recorded a seminal 12 minute track they titled "Krautrock", they would later distance themselves from the term, saying: "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."
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 1960s and 1970s (mainly the free jazz
pieces by Ornette Coleman
or Albert Ayler
). 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 rock and roll rhythm and energy with a decided will to distance themselves from specifically American blues origins, but to draw on German or other 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."
Typical bands dubbed "krautrock" in the 1970s included Tangerine Dream
, Faust
, Can
, Amon Düül II
, Ash Ra Tempel
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 post-WWII cultural vacuum in Germany and tending to reject Anglo-American popular culture in favour of creating their own more radical and experimental new German culture and identity, and to develop a radically new musical aesthetic. 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 the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd
, Frank Zappa
, Jimi Hendrix
and the Beatles, for example, led members of groups like Can and Kraftwerk to embrace popular music for the first time.
The signature sound of krautrock mixed rock music
and "rock band" instrumentation (guitar
, bass
, drum
s) with electronic
instrumentation and textures, often with what would now be described as an ambient music
sensibility. A common rhythm featured in the music was a steady 4/4
beat, often called "motorik
" in the anglophone music press.
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 weapon
s, pollution
, and war
inspired protests and activism. Avant-garde music had taken a turn towards the electronic
in the mid-1950s. The avant-garde minimalist music
current which emerged in the beginning of the 60s with the works of Americans La Monte Young
, Terry Riley
and Steve Reich
using drones and loops (often with synthesizers and tapes) in a kind of psychedelic and space-oriented music.
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. Like their American, British and international counterparts, German rock musicians played a kind of psychedelic music
. In contrast, however, there was no attempt to reproduce the effects of drugs, but rather an innovative fusion of jazz, free-jazz and the electronic avant-garde, and 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, 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 by two former students of Karlheinz Stockhausen
, 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 electronic instrumental music with an emphasis on static drones
. In 1970, Popol Vuh
became the first krautrock group to use an electronic synthesizer
, to create what would be known as "kosmische musik". By 1971, the bands Tangerine Dream
and Faust
began to use electronic synthesizers and advanced production. The term Kosmische musik dates from that period. The bands Tangerine Dream
, Ash Ra Tempel
, Sand (Golem album) and Cosmic Jokers
(all linked by collaboration with Klaus Schulze
), would follow suit in the years to come. Faust
also made use of synthesizers and tape manipulation in a way foreshadowing the noise rock
of the future.
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 album
s, 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 best-known German bands, Kraftwerk
, had released albums like Autobahn
and Radioaktivität
("Radio-Activity" in English), which laid the foundation for the British 1980s synthpop
/new wave music
, 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 then began to release a more expansive version of the kind of music that TD was making.
By the mid-late 1970s
onward the terms electronic rock, electronic music, new instrumental music and new age have been used more often than Krautrock and Kosmische Musik, though the early scene continues still today to be regarded as a style in and of itself.
. On the other side of the Wall
, these bands tended to be stylistically more conservative than in the West, to have more reserved engineering, and often to include more classical and traditional structures (such as those developed by Kurt Weill
and Bertolt Brecht
in their 1920s Berlin theatre songs). These groups sang in German, often featuring poetic lyrics loaded with indirect double-meanings and deeply philosophical challenges to the status quo. The best-known bands representing these styles in the GDR were The Puhdys
and Karat. Krautrock must generally be regarded, however, as a primarily West German phenomenon; the East German musical avant-garde may be argued to have been more genuinely represented by, for example, political singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann
, whose work more aptly bears comparison to Woody Guthrie
or early Bob Dylan
than to any progressive rock artists.
, notably artists such as The Fall, Joy Division
, and This Heat
. The genre was also a strong influence to David Bowie
's Station to Station
(1976) and this kind of experimentation led him go to his 'Berlin Trilogy
'. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the resurgence of electronic music and a new generation rediscovering much of the early German music, krautrock came to be considered a style in and of itself. Artists such as Stereolab
, John Frusciante
, The Mars Volta
, Deerhunter
, Wilco
, Laika
, Mouse on Mars
, Bowery Electric
, I Am Spoonbender
, Tortoise
, Coil
, and Fujiya & Miyagi
working under the post-rock
and electronica
rubric
s have often cited bands in the krautrock canon as being among their more significant influences.
Krautrock has also been an influence on Hawkwind
, in particular Dave Brock
who supposedly penned the sleeve notes for the British edition of Neu!'s first album
Radiohead
has covered Can's song "Thief" and cite Can, Faust, and Neu! 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
. 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 "Spiders (Kidsmoke)." In interviews Jeff Tweedy
has often spoken of his admiration for Can and Neu!. Current 93 covered Sand's "When the May Rain Comes" on their album Thunder Perfect Mind. Julian Cope
has always cited krautrock as an influence, and wrote the book Krautrocksampler on the subject. The Kosmische Club was founded in London at his suggestion in 1996, with the motto "Music from the Future", and did much to promote the genre on the underground music scene, including promoting gigs featuring many of the original German musicians and through a weekly radio show on Resonance FM
since 2002.
The Legendary Pink Dots
claim heavy influence from krautrock—naming in particular Can, Faust and Neu!—with one of their few cover songs being Neu!'s "Super" on the Cleopatra Records
album A Homage to NEU!, which featured covers and remixes by bands including Autechre
, Dead Voices On Air
, Khan, System 7
, James Plotkin
, as well as an original track from Michael Rother.
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
scenes that appeared in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one particular scene, style, or movement, as many krautrock artists were not familiar with one another. BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
in particular is largely credited with spreading the reputation of krautrock outside of the German-speaking world.
Largely divorced from the traditional blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and rock & roll influences of English and American rock music up to that time, the period contributed to the birth and evolution of electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
, ambient music
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
, alternative music
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
and New Age music
New Age music
New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
. Key artists associated with the tag include Can
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
, Amon Düül II
Amon Düül II
-Studio Albums:-Live Albums:-Compilations:-Singles:-External links:*...
, Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel are a German krautrock group of the 1970s, and are an example of cosmic or space rock.-History:The group was originally founded by guitarist Manuel Göttsching, keyboardist/drummer Klaus Schulze, and bassist Hartmut Enke in 1971. All three founding members had previously played...
, Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
, Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh (German band)
Popol Vuh was a German electronic avantgarde band, in the mainstream-media so called Krautrock, founded by pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969 together with Holger Trülzsch and Frank Fiedler...
, Cluster
Cluster (band)
Cluster is a German experimental musical 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 has been...
, Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German 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...
, Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze is a German electronic music composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before launching a solo career consisting of more than 60 albums released across five decades.-1970s:In...
, Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
, and Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
.
Origin of the term
The moniker "krautrock" was slapped on the experimental German rock movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s by the British music press, and ironically retained by its practitionersThe term krautrock was originally a humorous one coined by the UK music press (such as New Musical Express and Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
), where "krautrock" found an early and enthusiastic underground following. The term derives from the ethnic slur "kraut
Kraut
Kraut is a German word recorded in English from 1918 onwards as a derogatory term for a German, particularly a German soldier during World War I and World War II. Its earlier meaning in English was as a synonym for sauerkraut, a traditional German and central European food.- Etymological...
", and its use by the music press was inspired by a track from Amon Düül
Amon Düül
-External links:* - Extensive bio @ Perfect Sound Forever* mainly focussed on their collaboration with Robert Calvert of Hawkwind...
's Psychedelic Underground
Psychedelic Underground
Psychedelic Underground is a 1969 psychedelic rock album by the German band Amon Düül.-Track Listing:*All Songs Written & Arranged By Amon Düül.# "Ein Wunderhübsches Mädchen Träumt von Sandosa" 17:03# "Kaskados Minnelied" 2:54...
titled "Mama Düül und Ihre Sauerkrautband Spielt Auf" ('Mama Düül and her Sauerkrautband Strike Up.') As is often the case with musical genre labels, few of the bands wished to see themselves pigeon-holed, and tended to eschew the term. The term is also a problematic category due to the considerable differences between the artists so labelled.
Musicologist Julian Cope
Julian Cope
Julian Cope is a British rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator...
, in his book Krautrocksampler
Krautrocksampler
Krautrocksampler: One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik - 1968 Onwards, written by musicologist and former The Teardrop Explodes singer, Julian Cope, is a book describing the underground music scene in Germany from 1968 through the 1970s. The book was first published in the United Kingdom...
, says "Krautrock is a subjective British phenomenon," based on the way the music was received in the UK rather than on the actual West German music scene out of which it grew. For instance, while one of the main groups originally tagged as krautrock, Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
, recorded a seminal 12 minute track they titled "Krautrock", they would later distance themselves from the term, saying: "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."
Characteristics
Krautrock is an eclectic and often very original mix of post-psychedelicPsychedelic music
Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the...
jamming and moody progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
mixed with ideas from contemporary experimental classical music (especially composer Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
, with whom, for example, Irmin Schmidt
Irmin Schmidt
Irmin Schmidt is a German keyboard player and composer, probably best known as a founding member of the band Can.-Biography:...
and Holger Czukay
Holger Czukay
Holger Czukay is a German musician, probably best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can. Described by critic Jason Ankeny as "successfully bridg[ing] the gap between pop and the avant-garde," Czukay is also notable for creating early important examples of ambient music, for exploring...
of Can
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
had previously studied) and from the new experimental directions that emerged in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
during the 1960s and 1970s (mainly the free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
pieces by Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
or Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer.Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved...
). 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
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
and electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
sound. The key component characterizing the groups gathered under the term is the synthesis of rock and roll rhythm and energy with a decided will to distance themselves from specifically American blues origins, but to draw on German or other sources instead. Jean-Hervé Peron of Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History: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."
Typical bands dubbed "krautrock" in the 1970s included Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German 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...
, Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
, Can
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
, Amon Düül II
Amon Düül II
-Studio Albums:-Live Albums:-Compilations:-Singles:-External links:*...
, Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel are a German krautrock group of the 1970s, and are an example of cosmic or space rock.-History:The group was originally founded by guitarist Manuel Göttsching, keyboardist/drummer Klaus Schulze, and bassist Hartmut Enke in 1971. All three founding members had previously played...
and others associated with the celebrated Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
-based producers and engineers Dieter Dierks
Dieter Dierks
Dieter Dierks is a German record producer mostly known for his collaboration with the rock band Scorpions.- Youth :...
and Conny Plank
Conny Plank
Konrad "Conny" Plank was a German record producer and musician. He was born in Hütschenhausen. His creativity as a sound engineer and producer helped to shape some of the most important and innovative recordings of postwar European popular music, covering a wide range of genres including...
, such as Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
, Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
and Cluster
Cluster (band)
Cluster is a German experimental musical 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 has been...
. Bands such as these were reacting against the post-WWII cultural vacuum in Germany and tending to reject Anglo-American popular culture in favour of creating their own more radical and experimental new German culture and identity, and to develop a radically new musical aesthetic. 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 the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
, Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
and the Beatles, for example, led members of groups like Can and Kraftwerk to embrace popular music for the first time.
The signature sound of krautrock mixed rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and "rock band" instrumentation (guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s) with electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
instrumentation and textures, often with what would now be described as an ambient music
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
sensibility. A common rhythm featured in the music was a steady 4/4
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
beat, often called "motorik
Motorik
Motorik is a term coined by music journalists to describe the 4/4 beat often used by "Krautrock" bands such as Neu! and Kraftwerk...
" in the anglophone music press.
History
By the end of the 1960s, the American and British countercultureCounterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
and hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
movement had moved rock towards psychedelia
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
, heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
, progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
and other styles, incorporating, for the first time in popular music, socially and politically incisive lyrics. The 1968 German student movement
German student movement
The German student movement was a protest movement that took place during the late 1960s in West Germany. It was largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments, and the poor living conditions of students...
, French protests and Italian student movement had created a class of young, intellectual continental listeners, while nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s, pollution
Pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...
, and war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
inspired protests and activism. Avant-garde music had taken a turn towards the electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
in the mid-1950s. The avant-garde minimalist music
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
current which emerged in the beginning of the 60s with the works of Americans La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
and Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
using drones and loops (often with synthesizers and tapes) in a kind of psychedelic and space-oriented music.
These factors all laid the scene for the explosion in what came to be termed krautrock, which arose at the first major German rock
German rock
Although German rock music didn't come into its own until the late 1960s, it spawned many innovative and influential bands spanning genres such as krautrock, New Wave, heavy metal, punk, and industrial....
festival
Music festival
A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines,...
in 1968 in Essen. Like their American, British and international counterparts, German rock musicians played a kind of psychedelic music
Psychedelic music
Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the...
. In contrast, however, there was no attempt to reproduce the effects of drugs, but rather an innovative fusion of jazz, free-jazz and the electronic avant-garde, and 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
Zodiak Free Arts Lab
The Zodiak Free Arts Lab, sometimes known as the "Zodiak Club" or "Zodiac Club," was a short-lived but highly influential experimental live music venue, founded in the then West Berlin in late 1967 by German artists/musicians Conrad Schnitzler and Hans-Joachim Roedelius The Zodiak Free Arts Lab,...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Conrad Schnitzler
Conrad Schnitzler
Conrad Schnitzler was a prolific German experimental musician.Schnitzler was born in Düsseldorf. He was an early member of Tangerine Dream and a founder of the band Kluster. He left Kluster in 1971, first working with his group Eruption and then focusing on solo works...
, 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
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
formed by two former students of Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
, adding jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
to the mix (and in that way the krautrock scene can be seen to parallel the emerging Canterbury scene
Canterbury Scene
The Canterbury scene is a term used to loosely describe the group of progressive rock, avant-garde and jazz musicians, many of whom were based around the city of Canterbury, Kent, England during the late 1960s and early 1970s...
in England at the same time), while the following year saw Kluster
Cluster (band)
Cluster is a German experimental musical 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 has been...
(later Cluster) begin recording keyboard
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
-based electronic instrumental music with an emphasis on static drones
Drone (music)
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
. In 1970, Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh (German band)
Popol Vuh was a German electronic avantgarde band, in the mainstream-media so called Krautrock, founded by pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969 together with Holger Trülzsch and Frank Fiedler...
became the first krautrock group to use an electronic synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
, to create what would be known as "kosmische musik". By 1971, the bands Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German 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...
and Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
began to use electronic synthesizers and advanced production. The term Kosmische musik dates from that period. The bands Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German 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...
, Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel are a German krautrock group of the 1970s, and are an example of cosmic or space rock.-History:The group was originally founded by guitarist Manuel Göttsching, keyboardist/drummer Klaus Schulze, and bassist Hartmut Enke in 1971. All three founding members had previously played...
, Sand (Golem album) and Cosmic Jokers
Cosmic Jokers
The Cosmic Jokers were a German krautrock supergroup, and a primary example of space rock.-History:The Cosmic Jokers was never an ensemble, per se; its members did not play together as Cosmic Jokers, and in fact were not even asked to join the group. Their music was created from sessions put...
(all linked by collaboration with Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze is a German electronic music composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before launching a solo career consisting of more than 60 albums released across five decades.-1970s:In...
), would follow suit in the years to come. Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
also made use of synthesizers and tape manipulation in a way foreshadowing the noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
of the future.
In 1972, two albums incorporated European rock and electronic psychedelia with Asian sounds: Popol Vuh's In den Gärten Pharaos
In den Gärten Pharaos
In den Gärten Pharaos is the second album by Popol Vuh. It was originally released in 1971 on the label Pilz. In 2004 SPV re-released the album with two bonus tracks.- Track listing :...
and Deuter
Deuter
Deuter is a German New Age instrumentalist and recording artist known for his meditative style that blends Eastern and Western musical styles.- Biography :...
's Aum
Aum
Om or Aum Om or Aum Om or Aum (also , written in Devanāgari as and as , in Sanskrit known as (lit. "to sound out loudly"), ', or ' (also as ') (lit. "Auṃ form/syllable"), is a sacred/mystical syllable in the Dharmic or Indian religions, i.e...
. Meanwhile, kosmische musik saw the release of two double album
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....
s, Klaus Schulze's Cyborg
Cyborg (album)
-External links:* at the official site of Klaus Schulze...
and Tangerine Dream's Zeit
Zeit
Zeit is the third album by the German electronic music group Tangerine Dream. A double LP, it was the first release featuring Peter Baumann, who joined Chris Franke and Edgar Froese.-Overview:...
(produced by Dieter Dierks
Dieter Dierks
Dieter Dierks is a German record producer mostly known for his collaboration with the rock band Scorpions.- Youth :...
), while a band called Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
began to play highly rhythmic music. By the middle of the decade, one of the best-known German bands, Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
, had released albums like Autobahn
Autobahn (album)
Autobahn is the fourth studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released in November 1974. The 22-minute title track "Autobahn" was edited to about 3 minutes for single release and reached number 25 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and performed even higher around Europe, including...
and Radioaktivität
Radio-Activity
Radio-Activity is the fifth studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released in October 1975. Unlike Kraftwerk's later albums, which featured language-specific lyrics, only the titles differ between the English and German editions...
("Radio-Activity" in English), which laid the foundation for the British 1980s synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
/new wave music
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
, electro
Electro (music)
Electro is a genre of electronic dance music directly influenced by the use of TR-808 drum machines, Moog keytar synthesizers and funk sampling...
, techno and other styles later in the century.
The release of Tangerine Dream's Phaedra
Phaedra (album)
-Personnel:* Edgar Froese – producer, Mellotron, guitar, bass, VCS 3 synthesizer, organ* Christopher Franke – Moog synthesizer, VCS 3 synthesizer* Peter Baumann – Organ, electric piano, VCS 3 synthesizer, flute-Chart performance:-References:*...
in 1974 marked a divergence of that group from krautrock to a more melodic sequencer
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
-driven sound that was later termed Berlin School
Berlin School of electronic music
The Berlin School of electronic music, or just Berlin School, was a development of electronic music in the 1970s, shaped by Berlin-based artists like Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and Ashra....
. In that same year Klaus Schulze delivered one more LP of pure krautrock, Blackdance, and then began to release a more expansive version of the kind of music that TD was making.
By the mid-late 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
onward the terms electronic rock, electronic music, new instrumental music and new age have been used more often than Krautrock and Kosmische Musik, though the early scene continues still today to be regarded as a style in and of itself.
East Germany
By the early 1970s experimental West German rock styles had crossed the border into East Germany, and influenced the creation of an East German rock movement referred to as OstrockOstrock
Ostrock is rock music from the formerly communist East Germany. The word derives from the German word "ost" , and "rock" .-Notable ostrock bands:* City* Feeling B* Gerhard Gundermann* Nina Hagen* Karat* Keimzeit* Lift...
. On the other side of the Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, these bands tended to be stylistically more conservative than in the West, to have more reserved engineering, and often to include more classical and traditional structures (such as those developed by Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
and Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
in their 1920s Berlin theatre songs). These groups sang in German, often featuring poetic lyrics loaded with indirect double-meanings and deeply philosophical challenges to the status quo. The best-known bands representing these styles in the GDR were The Puhdys
Puhdys
The Puhdys are a veteran German rock band, formed in Oranienburg , in what was then the German Democratic Republic, in 1969, although they had been performing together, with various lineups, as the Puhdys since 1965. They continue to record and tour...
and Karat. Krautrock must generally be regarded, however, as a primarily West German phenomenon; the East German musical avant-garde may be argued to have been more genuinely represented by, for example, political singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann
Wolf Biermann
Karl Wolf Biermann is a German singer-songwriter and former East German dissident.-Early life:Biermann's father, who worked on the Hamburg docks, was a German Jew and a member of the German Resistance....
, whose work more aptly bears comparison to Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
or early Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
than to any progressive rock artists.
Influence on later generations
Krautrock was highly influential on the development of post-punkPost-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
, notably artists such as The Fall, Joy Division
Joy Division
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
, and This Heat
This Heat
This Heat were a British experimental music group formed in early 1976 in Camberwell, London by multi-instrumentalists Charles Bullen , Charles Hayward and Gareth Williams .This Heat were active in the ascendancy of British progressive rock and punk rock, but stood apart...
. The genre was also a strong influence to David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
's Station to Station
Station to Station
Station to Station is the tenth studio album by English musician David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1976. Commonly regarded as one of his most significant works, Station to Station is also notable as the vehicle for Bowie's last great 'character', The Thin White Duke...
(1976) and this kind of experimentation led him go to his 'Berlin Trilogy
Berlin Trilogy
The Berlin Trilogy is a series of David Bowie albums recorded in collaboration with Brian Eno in the 1970s. The three albums are Low, "Heroes" and Lodger....
'. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the resurgence of electronic music and a new generation rediscovering much of the early German music, krautrock came to be considered a style in and of itself. Artists such as Stereolab
Stereolab
Stereolab are an alternative music band formed in 1990 in London, England. The band originally comprised songwriting team Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier , both of whom remained at the helm across many lineup changes...
, John Frusciante
John Frusciante
John Anthony Frusciante is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, record and film producer. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom he had been for a number of years and recorded five studio albums...
, The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta is a Grammy award winning American progressive rock band from El Paso, Texas. Founded in 2001 by guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López and vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala, the band incorporates various influences including progressive rock, krautrock, jazz fusion, Latin American music, and...
, Deerhunter
Deerhunter
Deerhunter is an American four-piece indie rock group originating from Atlanta, Georgia. The band, consisting of Bradford Cox, Moses Archuleta, Josh Fauver, and Lockett Pundt, have described themselves as "ambient punk," though they incorporate a wide range of genres, including noise rock, art...
, Wilco
Wilco
Wilco is an American alternative rock band based in Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo following singer Jay Farrar's departure. Wilco's lineup has changed frequently, with only singer Jeff Tweedy and bassist John...
, Laika
Laika (band)
Laika is a British alternative rock band founded in 1993 by ex-Moonshake members Margaret Fiedler and John Frenett, and producer/engineer Guy Fixsen. The band was named after the first animal to orbit the earth, the Russian dog Laika.-Sound:...
, Mouse on Mars
Mouse on Mars
Mouse on Mars is a duo from Germany who have been making electronic music since 1993. Their music is a sometimes quirky blend of IDM, krautrock, disco, and ambient with a heavy dollop of analog synth sounds and cross-frequency modulation...
, Bowery Electric
Bowery Electric
Bowery Electric was an American indie band formed in New York's East Village in 1992 by Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener.-Music:Bowery Electric's music defies easy classification...
, I Am Spoonbender
I Am Spoonbender
I Am Spoonbender is an American/Canadian multimedia group formed in San Francisco in early 1997 by composer/multi-instrumentalist/producer Dustin Donaldson, with Brian Jackson and cub guitarist Robynn Iwata I Am Spoonbender is an American/Canadian multimedia group formed in San Francisco in early...
, Tortoise
Tortoise (band)
Tortoise is an American post-rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1990.-Music:Tortoise's almost entirely instrumental music defies easy categorization, and the group gained significant attention from their early career. The members have roots in Chicago's fertile music scene, playing in...
, Coil
Coil (band)
Coil were an English cross-genre, experimental music group formed in 1982 by John Balance—later credited as "Jhonn Balance"—and his partner Peter Christopherson, aka "Sleazy". The duo worked together on a series of releases before Balance chose the name Coil, which he claimed to be...
, and Fujiya & Miyagi
Fujiya & Miyagi
Fujiya & Miyagi are an English band formed in Brighton in 2000. They are currently signed to Full Time Hobby Records in the United Kingdom.-Career:...
working under the post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
and electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
rubric
Rubric
A rubric is a word or section of text which is traditionally written or printed in red ink to highlight it. The word derives from the , meaning red ochre or red chalk, and originates in Medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th century or earlier...
s have often cited bands in the krautrock canon as being among their more significant influences.
Krautrock has also been an influence on Hawkwind
Hawkwind
Hawkwind are an English rock band, one of the earliest space rock groups. Their lyrics favour urban and science fiction themes. They are also a noted precursor to punk rock and now are considered a link between the hippie and punk cultures....
, in particular Dave Brock
Dave Brock
David Anthony "Dave" Brock is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He plays electric guitar, synthesizer, bass and oscillators. He is best known as being one of the founders and musical focus of the English space rock group Hawkwind...
who supposedly penned the sleeve notes for the British edition of Neu!'s first album
Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
has covered Can's song "Thief" and cite Can, Faust, and Neu! among their influences, while The Secret Machines
The Secret Machines
The Secret Machines are a three-piece American alternative rock band. Originally from Dallas, Texas before moving to New York City, they describe their band as space rock. The original lineup consisted of two brothers, Brandon and Benjamin Curtis, and Josh Garza...
not only covered Harmonia
Harmonia (band)
Harmonia is a Krautrock supergroup from Germany. They formed as a collaboration between Michael Rother of Neu! and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Möbius of Cluster and later included the British musician Brian Eno.-Musical style:...
's "(De Luxe) Immer Wieder" on their The Road Leads Where It's Led
The Road Leads Where It's Led
The Road Leads Where It's Led is The Secret Machines' second EP, released in 2005. In addition to the title-track, a single from their debut album Now Here Is Nowhere, the EP features several covers and a new song called "Better Bring Your Friends."-Track listing:#"The Road Leads Where...
EP, but have also played live with Michael Rother
Michael Rother
Michael Rother is a German experimental Krautrock musician and composer.- Early life and education :Born in 1950, Rother went to school in Munich, Wilmslow , Karachi, and Düsseldorf. He also lived in Pakistan in the early 1960s where he was exposed to Pakistani music that would influence his own...
. Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree is a progressive rock band formed by Steven Wilson in 1987 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Their music is difficult to categorise, being associated with both psychedelic rock and progressive rock, yet having been influenced by trance, krautrock and ambient due to Steven...
has also covered Neu!'s "Hallogallo" as a demo for their album Signify
Signify
Signify is the fourth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in September 1996. It was the first album that frontman Steven Wilson recorded with a full group of musicians on board from the beginning. Previously he had been recording albums primarily as a...
. The band Wilco
Wilco
Wilco is an American alternative rock band based in Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo following singer Jay Farrar's departure. Wilco's lineup has changed frequently, with only singer Jeff Tweedy and bassist John...
has shown a growing krautrock influence in their music, specifically on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the fourth album by Chicago-based rock band Wilco. The album was completed in 2001, but Reprise Records, a Warner Music Group label, refused to release it. Wilco acquired the rights to the album when they left the label. In September 2001, Wilco streamed the entire album...
and several songs on A Ghost Is Born
A Ghost Is Born
A Ghost Is Born is the fifth studio album by Chicago-based alternative rock band Wilco. Released on June 22, 2004, it features singer Jeff Tweedy on lead guitar more than any previous Wilco album...
, especially "Spiders (Kidsmoke)." In interviews Jeff Tweedy
Jeff Tweedy
Jeffrey Scot "Jeff" Tweedy is an American songwriter, musician and leader of the band Wilco. Tweedy joined rockabilly band The Plebes with high school friend Jay Farrar in the early 1980s, but Tweedy's musical interests caused one of Farrar's brothers to quit...
has often spoken of his admiration for Can and Neu!. Current 93 covered Sand's "When the May Rain Comes" on their album Thunder Perfect Mind. Julian Cope
Julian Cope
Julian Cope is a British rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator...
has always cited krautrock as an influence, and wrote the book Krautrocksampler on the subject. The Kosmische Club was founded in London at his suggestion in 1996, with the motto "Music from the Future", and did much to promote the genre on the underground music scene, including promoting gigs featuring many of the original German musicians and through a weekly radio show on Resonance FM
Resonance FM
Resonance 104.4 FM is a London based non-profit community radio station run by the London Musicians' Collective .The station is staffed by four permanent staff members, including programme controller Ed Baxter and over 300 volunteer technical and production staff.Until September 2007, ResonanceFM...
since 2002.
The Legendary Pink Dots
The Legendary Pink Dots
The Legendary Pink Dots are an Anglo-Dutch experimental rock band formed in London in August 1980. Although far outside the mainstream , LPD have released more than 40 albums, have a devoted worldwide following, and tour frequently.-Overview:The Legendary Pink Dots formed in August 1980 in London...
claim heavy influence from krautrock—naming in particular Can, Faust and Neu!—with one of their few cover songs being Neu!'s "Super" on the Cleopatra Records
Cleopatra Records
Cleopatra Records is a Los Angeles-based independent record label.- History :Founded in 1992 by Brian Perera, it specializes in gothic rock, hard rock, heavy metal and reissues of out-of-print music...
album A Homage to NEU!, which featured covers and remixes by bands including Autechre
Autechre
Autechre are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both natives of Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most prominent acts signed to Warp Records, a label known for its pioneering electronic music and through which all Autechre albums...
, Dead Voices On Air
Dead Voices on Air
Dead Voices on Air is Mark Spybey's Experimental and Industrial project formed after his departure from Zoviet France. Many people classify a large portion of his works as Ambient, but Spybey insists his music is not ambient music of any sort and calls it "music for the eyes"...
, Khan, System 7
System 7 (band)
System 7 are a British ambient dance band. Due to the existence of another band called System Seven, they were initially marketed as 777 in North America...
, James Plotkin
James Plotkin
James Plotkin is an American guitarist and producer, famous for his role in bands such as Khanate and OLD, but with an extensive catalogue outside these bands. He has performed guitar duties for bands Phantomsmasher and Scorn and continues to remix tracks for bands such as KK Null, Nadja, Sunn...
, as well as an original track from Michael Rother.
Other artists
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Floh de Cologne Floh de Cologne is a German band, active from 1966 to 1983, regarded as a pioneer of Krautrock. Despite of an importing success at the beginning of the 70's, the band separated in 1983.-History:... Edgar Froese Edgar Wilmar Froese is a German artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group, Tangerine Dream. Although his solo and group recordings prior to 2003 name him as "Edgar Froese", his solo albums from 2003 onward bear the artist name "Edgar W. Froese".Froese... Frumpy (band) Frumpy was a German progressive rock band based in Hamburg, which was active between 1970–1972 and 1990–1995. Formed after the break-up of folk rockers The City Preachers, Frumpy released four albums between 1970–1973 and achieved considerable commercial success... Manuel Göttsching Manuel Göttsching is a German musician and composer.As the leader of the group Ash Ra Tempel or Ashra, one of the most notable German groups of the 1970s and 80s, as well as a solo artist, he is one of the most important guitarists of the Kosmische Musik genre. He also participated in the Cosmic... Gila (band) Gila was a German progressive rock band, best known as one of the early and most important contributors to the Krautrock movement in the late-60s and early-70s.- Biography :... Grobschnitt Grobschnitt was a West German rock band which existed between 1970 and 1989. Their style evolved as time passed, beginning with psychedelic rock in the early 1970s before transitioning into symphonic progressive rock, NDW and finally pop rock in the mid-1980s... Guru Guru Guru Guru is a German Krautrock band formed in 1968 as The Guru Guru Groove by Mani Neumeier , Uli Trepte and Eddy Naegeli later replaced by American Jim Kennedy... |
Jean Ven Robert Hal Jean Ven Robert Hal, stage name for Roberto D'Agostino Vendola born 11 May 1970 is an Italian musician, composer of Electronic Music, Kosmische Musik, Space music, Progressive, Ambient, Jazz, Synth pop and Orchestral music.-Biography:... Peter Michael Hamel Peter Michael Hamel is a German composer. His works have been associated with the Minimalist style of composition, and in the late 1970s with the New Simplicity movement.... Hoelderlin Hoelderlin is a German progressive rock band that was formed in 1970 as Hölderlin by Joachim and Christian von Grumbkow with Nanny de Ruig. They are influenced by rock, jazz, and folk music... Jane (band) Jane is a German Progressive Rock Krautrock band that was formed in October 1970 in Hanover, Germany.-Band history:Their debut album 'Together' is considered by fans to be one of the most iconic German Progressive Rock albums of all time... Kin Ping Meh Kin Ping Meh is a German rock band originally active from 1970 to 1977, and reformed in 2005. Their name is derived from the Franz Kuhn's, German translation of the Chinese novel, Jin Ping Mei.-Albums:*Kin Ping Meh *No. 2... Kraan Kraan is a German band based in Ulm and formed in 1970. It had several minor hits through the 1970s and 1980s. After a break of ten years, the group reunited in 2000... La Düsseldorf La Düsseldorf was a German band, consisting of onetime Kraftwerk drummer and Neu! multi-instrumentalist Klaus Dinger and occasional Neu! collaborators Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe. La Düsseldorf was formed after Neu! disbanded following the release of their Neu! '75 record... |
Lucifer's Friend Lucifer's Friend was a 1970s German Rock band. Allmusic author, Eduardo Rivadavia, noted the group as, "early practitioners of heavy metal and progressive rock." They also incorporated elements of jazz into their music. The band have also been cited as one of the pioneers of doom metal.-History:The... Mythos (band) Mythos was a German band formed in Berlin by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Stephan Kaske, bassist Harold Weiße and drummer Thomas Hildebrand in 1969. All high school dropouts, the self-taught musicians released their eponymous debut in 1971... Nektar Nektar is a 1970s English progressive rock band originally based in Germany.- History :The band formed in Hamburg, Germany in 1969, members included Englishmen Roye Albrighton on guitars and vocals, Allan "Taff" Freeman on keyboards, Derek "Mo" Moore on bass, Ron Howden on drums, and Mick Brockett... Night Sun Night Sun were a German heavy prog/metal band consisting of Bruno Schaab , Walter Kirchgassner , Knut Rossler and Ulrich Staudt .... Novalis (band) Novalis was a 1970s Krautrock group formed in Germany. Their best-known albums include Sommerabend and Wer Schmetterlinge lachen hört.-Band history:... Organisation (band) Organisation was an experimental Krautrock band, that was the immediate predecessor of the band Kraftwerk. In addition to the founding members of Kraftwerk, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben, Organisation consisted of Basil Hammoudi, Butch Hauf and Alfred "Fred" Mönicks.Charly Weiss, Peter... Eberhard Schoener Eberhard Schoener is a German composer, conductor, arranger, and keyboard player."My message is the music. The goal of my life is to create an original form of contemporary music in which the opera, jazz, ethnical and electronic music melt together... |
Stern-Combo Meißen Stern-Combo Meißen is a German rock band founded in 1964 in Meißen, East Germany. - External links :* * *... Thirsty Moon Thirsty Moon is a German Krautrock band. The band was founded in the early seventies in Bremen and plays progressive rock with strong jazz influences. Band members were the brothers Jürgen and Norbert Drogies, Michael Kobs, Harald Konietzko, Erwin Noack, Willi Pape and Siegfried Pisalla, although... Ton Steine Scherben Ton Steine Scherben was one of the first and most influential German language rock bands of the 1970s and early 1980s. Well-known for the highly political and emotional lyrics of vocalist Rio Reiser, they became a musical mouthpiece of new left movements, such as the squatting movement, during... Wallenstein (band) The band Wallenstein, founded in Viersen in Lower Rhineland, later based in Mönchengladbach, was a German rock band from 1971 to 1982, which was later ascribed to the so-called Krautrock of the 70s.-History:... Walter Wegmüller Walter Wegmüller is a Swiss painter and musician. He is probably best known for the Krautrock album Tarot, which was released on the Cosmic Couriers label in 1973.-References:... Xhol Caravan Xhol Caravan, known first as Soul Caravan and later as simply Xhol, was one of the first bands participating in the launch of the Krautrock movement in Germany in the late 1960s. Their music draws from varied influences and fuses rhythm and blues and free jazz with a psychedelic rock sensibility... |
See also
- Space musicSpace musicSpace music, also called spacemusic, is an umbrella term, synonymous with a segment of New Age Music and Ambient Music, used to describe music that evokes a feeling of contemplative spaciousness. Space music can be found within a wide range of genres. It is particularly associated with ambient, New...
- Ambient musicAmbient musicAmbient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
- Berlin School of electronic musicBerlin School of electronic musicThe Berlin School of electronic music, or just Berlin School, was a development of electronic music in the 1970s, shaped by Berlin-based artists like Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and Ashra....
- Electronic art music
- Electronic musicElectronic musicElectronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
- Experimental musicExperimental musicExperimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
- German rockGerman rockAlthough German rock music didn't come into its own until the late 1960s, it spawned many innovative and influential bands spanning genres such as krautrock, New Wave, heavy metal, punk, and industrial....
- Kosmische KuriereCosmic CouriersCosmic Couriers was a German experimental/space-rock label set up by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser in 1973 following his association with Ohr and Pilz...
- Space rockSpace rockSpace rock is a subgenre of rock music; the term originally referred to a group of early, mostly British, 1970s progressive and psychedelic rock bands such as Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, characterised by slow, lengthy instrumental passages dominated by electric organs, synthesizers, experimental...
External links
- Introduction to German Krautrock
- The Kosmische Club
- The Crack In The Cosmic Egg Krautrock Encyclopedia
- Krautrocksite - Online-Magazin from Germany
- Krautrock Album Database
- Krautrock-World - Krautrock WebRadio from Germany
- Krautrock or Kosmische Musik?
- das plumpe denken website on Krautrock (in English)