The Krautrock Thread

If anyone's interested, here's a new addition to the Krautrock genre:

Aluk Todolo
With the goal to create a timeless, organic mix of krautrock’s strangeness and black metal’s coldness, combining Striborg with Faust, Burzum with This Heat, Svest with Paul Chain, or Ildjarn with Can, Aluk Todolo conjures rabid obsessive rhythms and abyssal disharmonic guitars, subliminal spiritualist vibrations and bizarre, magick summonings. By reducing psychedelic improvisation to a bare, telluric instrumentation, and basking in the archaic rawness of lo-fi production, the trio elaborates on an audio ritual meant to be monolithic and stabbing, hypnotic but unpredictable, minimalist yet teeming. Aluk Todolo features members from the legendary, underground black metal acts, Diamatregon (tUMULt) & Vediog Svaor (Paragon International).

Here's a sample of their debut:
http://www.publicguilt.com/at-disease.mp3


Its like Neu!, but darker, noisier and satanic.

Oh yeah, I forgot to post this earlier, but Heavy Christmas is great, my favorite X-mas album. 

Phallus Dei is my favorite, but the next three are close.  If you want something similar to Tanz, get Yeti (even more improv though), if you want something dark, very psychedelic, powerful, and brilliant get Phallus Dei.  And for something accessible, even catchy, yet still flowing with much talent and prog, get Wolf City.

Haven't heard Amon Duul I yet, seems even more drugged out, maybe overbearingly much so, but I'd like to get something.  Uschi Obermaier ist sehr heiss. :D

What about the twenty minute improv session?  

Okay, I finally got some Faust recently and it's so weird yet accessible (to me anyway).  Their debut, which I bought on vinyl (a reissue not the original pressing, still with original sleeve design though), is amazing.  Although I'm not a fan of the random talking-with-no-music-parts, which (miss)fortunately there isn't much of, the actual music is some of the most ahead-of-its-time and far out I've heard.  So Far isn't nearly as experimental or interesting, but still a great album.  I'd probably give the debut 4.5 stars and So Far 4. 

Next up is Faust Tapes (kind of hesitant towards that) and Faust IV.  I also finally ordered Cluster 71, another one of those new LP pressings, I'll post my thoughts on it later.  Lately I've strayed from prog and am getting into other genres.  VERY blasphemic, I know.

Edited by Bluesaga - January 06 2008 at 21:20

Maybe it's a good idea to shout out a Krautrock-related review we've just done on this thread.

I've just wrote up one for Musik von Harmonia (which only had 2 reviews previous to that).


Let's beef up the reviews for the kosmische komische Musik they and we affectionately call Krautrock

nightlamp wrote: Krautrock, as a musical genre tag, needs to die.  In its initial usage the term was largely geographical by nature, and had little if anything to do with musical style.  It was applied across the board to motorik trance-rock, noisy avant-garde-isms, jazz-rock fusion, heavy acid rock, folk-rock, progressive rock, space rock, and proto-ambient music; the only unifying characteristic was German origin.  Don't get me wrong, I love and enjoy a lot of this inspiring music; I just think that the label needs to be discarded.  One can look at American or British rock genres and point out certain stylistic similarities; if someone were to lump all Anglo-American rock music-- progressive and otherwise-- into a single category we all know what would happen.  There would be a tremendous outcry from the various camps (progressive, metal, psych, alt/indie, etc.), wailing and gnashing of teeth, etc.  Just look at how subdivided "progressive rock" is... Why can't the German bands be interfiled with their counterparts from the rest of the world?

You just lumped them all together in a single category - "all Anglo-American rock music".

I think everyone realises the wide range of differences within a genre (see the recent progressive metal split). Nobody's trying to say that Can sounds the same as Faust or that Amon Duul sounds like Neu! However, I haven't heard many non-German bands of the 70s that sound like Krautrock.

There's something about Krautrock bands which, to me, groups them together in a way similar to Italian Symphonic Prog bands, where there are enough differences to list them separately from other symphonic prog. 

Hmm...Krautrock as an offensive term?  I would be offended if called a Kraut by a stranger, so can well understand the initial outcry from some way back then...but not all German bands, or indeed fans, were offended.  There is a sense of alternative coolness some Germans feel when allowed to embrace a term in irony given to them in compliment by the English-speaking world.  It is a sense of recognition.

It certainly is interesting: Punk, Funk, Grunge, Gothic et al are genre names that represent an image.  Ambient, Progressive, Alternative, Folk are genre names that represent a style of music.  Kraut is...well...Kraut is either a cabbage or a disparaging term for a German person.

However, a lot of non-German peoples are interested in this music...and most non-German people can normally speak a bit of, or a lot of, English.  The term "Krautrock" is English-friendly, and is to-the-point.  Unlike "kosmische Musik", which sounds like it was invented by clever Englishmen, rarely used as it is by Germans.  Half the bands mostly sing in English anyway and would probably prefer "spacecake music" among dozens of other possible terms. 

The term "Krautrock" is useful in that it makes it easier to identify and discuss a scene: in my eyes Krautrock describes late 60's to mid 70's West-German experimental and avant garde music (not just rock) incorporating one or more of instruments such as: bass, guitars, keyboards, organs, drums, samplers, tapes, feedbacked mics etc.

I think for bands that originated from the 80's onwards that sound like Krautrock can not be classified as Krautrock simply because the scene is missing.  Krautrock was of its time and did not describe a style, or even genre, of music...but a localised scene within an era of time.


For the record I am still discovering music from this fascinating scene, so far my favourite albums are:

Can - Tago Mago (good fun vibes, groovy, likeable vocals)
Harmonia - Musik von Harmonia (infectious & evocative instrumental drives)

Am looking forward to checking out both Amon Düüls, Ash Ra Tempel and Neu!.

I would steer clear of the first Klaus Schulze (Irrlicht) unless you're a music history buff, there is nothing here apart from a drone that lasts one hour.

Krautrock, as a musical genre tag, needs to die.  In its initial usage the term was largely geographical by nature, and had little if anything to do with musical style.  It was applied across the board to motorik trance-rock, noisy avant-garde-isms, jazz-rock fusion, heavy acid rock, folk-rock, progressive rock, space rock, and proto-ambient music; the only unifying characteristic was German origin. 

Don't get me wrong, I love and enjoy a lot of this inspiring music; I just think that the label needs to be discarded.  One can look at American or British rock genres and point out certain stylistic similarities; if someone were to lump all Anglo-American rock music-- progressive and otherwise-- into a single category we all know what would happen.  There would be a tremendous outcry from the various camps (progressive, metal, psych, alt/indie, etc.), wailing and gnashing of teeth, etc.  Just look at how subdivided "progressive rock" is... Why can't the German bands be interfiled with their counterparts from the rest of the world?

Edited by nightlamp - December 21 2007 at 19:30