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Krautrock (also called kosmische Musik, German for "cosmic music" [9] [10] [11]) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. [10] It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electronic music, among other eclectic sources ...
- Can – “Father Cannot Yell”
- Amon Düül II – “Archangels Thunderbird”
- Embryo – “You Don’T Know What’s Happening”
- Guru Guru – “Girl Call”
- Kraftwerk – “K2
- Eiliff – “Gammeloni”
- Ibliss – “Margah”
- Ash Ra Tempel – “Suche and Liebe”
- Faust – “Jennifer”
- Agitation Free – “Laila, Part 2″
1968 apparently wasn’t ready for Can: When they shopped a session they cut that year, Prepared To Meet Thy Pnoom (eventually released in 1981 as Delay 1968), it was rejected by every label they gave it to. That their “more commercial compromise” of a debut turned out to be Monster Movie— an album with an entire side two dedicated to “Yoo Doo Right,...
Amon Düül originally formed as a commune of radical leftist artists based in Munich, taking on the name of an Egyptian god a la Sun Ra (though the “Düül” part was less immediately definable) and working to invent a new German identity as a clean break from everything, especially war, that had come before it. But their refusal to be influenced by ma...
Krautrock’s stylistic breadth meant that even a contentious genre name wasn’t nearly enough to make bands in the scene easy to pigeonhole. Munich group Embryo, led by soul-jazz organist turned worldbeat eclecticist Christian Burchard, were happy to make sure of that. As much a jazz-rock band in the ballpark of Mahavishnu Orchestra or Soft Machine a...
A band that leavened its spacey, jam-heavy tendencies with an unholy guitar squall worthy of Paranoid or Fun House, Guru Guru’s first album hit the same year as those epochal Sabbath and Stooges LPs and damn near outdid them in pure chaos and noise. (When a song called “Der LSD-Marsch” is one of the more conventional songs on a record, for the love...
Autobahn cemented them as pioneers in electronic pop, but that was Kraftwerk’s fourth LP — one that came five years after the earliest collaborative efforts between Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter in the band Organisation. Meanwhile, the first three Kraftwerk albums are halfway memory-holed, with the initial two “traffic cone” records and 1973’s ...
While Embryo eventually expanded outward from fusion influences to more international hybrids, there were other German groups of the ’70s that stuck a bit closer to the jazz-rock category. Over their brief two-album career, Eiliff combined proggy elaboration and powerhouse drumming, and debut-album cut “Gammeloni” is one of their most breathtaking ...
Exploring the outer reaches of music and tying that exploration into the search for a postwar German identity could lead to some remarkable places, even if only briefly. Ibliss was a one-off group with a rhythmic tandem — drummer Andreas Hohmann and percussionist Basil Hammoudi — previously associated with Kraftwerk and Organisation, respectively. ...
For all this playlist’s emphasis on percussively intense and/or lock-groove hypnotic pieces, krautrock’s best bands could capture more meditative, contemplative feelings with just as much nuance and openness. Manuel Göttsching’s ear for ambient beauty and intricate guitar playing made him one of the era’s more prescient artists — he’s been credited...
In their own weird way, Faust became one of the biggest public faces of krautrock for two reasons. One, and most notoriously, was their fateful role in the early history of Virgin Records, which sold 60,000 copies of their not-particularly-accessible cut-and-paste chaos suite The Faust Tapes for half a quid in the UK in 1973 — an LP for the price o...
Formed in 1967 and comparable to early Pink Floyd in their propensity for experimental mixed-media light shows, Agitation Free might have been fated to be eclipsed by other bands right from the start. They wound up having to add the “Free” to their name when it turned out there was another band named Agitation, and they lost far more than their nam...
- Association. Earwax. (Munich,1970) A highly obscure LP, of which I have only ever seen two copies – including this one! This record is a heady brew of distorted guitars, avant-garde free jazz and off-kilter keys.
- Tangerine dream. Zeit. (Ohr, 1972) When a good friend of mine made the transition from punk rock and skateboards to quiet, subdued conversations and sneaky, private ‘Tang’ sessions, I was worried.
- Embryo. Rocksession. (Brain, 1972) Another of my all-time favourite kraut bands, Embryo celebrate everything that gets me excited about this music. ‘ Rocksession’ is straight up, no messin’ space-rock.
- Gomorrha. Trauma. BASF/Comet, 1970. Originally recorded in 1969 for Gomorrha’s self-titled LP but re-recorded a year later with English vocals and released as ‘Trauma’, this was transformed from average pseudo-pyschedelia into heavy freak rock by legendary producer Conny Plank.
Nov 24, 2021 · Krautrock runs a truly revolutionary gamut from avant-garde dance to proggy space rock to minimalist electronica and beyond – and these are its best albums. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Born out of a radical time in the history of post-war Germany, this loosely connected group of artists – including Neu!, Can, Kraftwerk, Faust, Tangerine Dream and Amon Düül II – created a...
Krautrock is that wonderful, cosmic expression of music that emerges in the late 1960s. One of those interesting tributaries that feed into that oceanic swe...
- 22 min
- 20.5K
- Classic Album Review
From the ashes of World War II arose one of the most original and influential movements in musical history, Krautrock. A generation of German musicians embraced their country's cultural blank...
- 30 min
- 797.8K
- Noisey
