A to Z of Classic German Prog

Something else, Paul, it seems to me like you could know more about the high spirit and ambitions of the Krautrock movement, 

even you might not like it so much from the political point of view.  

Hi,

They weren't. See the special, so you get a better idea. Even Renate states that for them it was more about "classical music" than anything else. Many of those folks explain what the creativity of "krautrock" was all about, very clearly. A new time, a new place ... and new music!

Sadly, it wasn't just a music scene. What happened in "krautrock" was also visible in film, theater and literature, and both Fassbender and Herzog are even mentioned, but Wenders should as well. But progressive music folks don't believe in the arts to appreciate what else was happening. Check out the beginning of the "my friend" film by Herzog, and you can see Klaus Kinski ad libbing in front of an audience. That's not film! It's an "attitude" that helped create what became known as "krautrock" in more than one area of the arts.

                  

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: I tend to agree with Pedro that the German scene was completely separate from what was going on in the UK, they had their own zeitgeist and lived by their own rules. They were all the better for it.

A lot of early Pink Floyd influence can be heard in much early German prog. Also for sure they didn't only know the Beatles, also they paid attention. "Separation" can always only go so far in music.

You may be interested to know there are fifteen British Krautrock bands listed on PA, including Amon Duul, and also The Utopia Strong featuring snooker player and Mick Hucknall lookalike, Steve "Interesting" Davis, where the choice of colours is Simply Red. 

Anyway, a quite good guide to the 1970s German Krautrock movement is Krautrock: Cosmic Rock And Its Legacy (Black Dog 

Publishing 2009).

Edit: It has to be noted though that in the opinion of the publisher, Krautrock never was "a genre or a movement per se" 

- meaning, it's more of a mental construction.

18 KARAT GOLD     A golden nugget of Krautrock if ever there was one with their one and only Pop-tastic All-Bumm. 

A.R. & MACHINES     Welcome to the Machine! Vorsprung durch technik, as we say in England. Achim Reichel (Gesundheit!) is the man behind A.R. & Machines - a spacey Krautrock artist from Germany. Where else!? 

Hi,

This is a fun album, and it is well done, but sadly it was never really appreciated and its availability in those days was horrible. It had a lot of neat stuff, a couple things that ended up showing up later with AD2.

This was, Lothar Meid's solo album ... and it was nice, despite it being a bunch of songs. 

"If My Guru Would KNow ... " ... lots of fun stuff in that album.

None of the AD2 folks that had solo albums made a mark. Chris Karrer had several albums, almost none available anywhere, one with Mani Neumeier. My feeling was that the band was so weird together that any chance of any of them being able to do something cohesive was difficult. Lothar Meid ended up doing a few songs, considering what a monster bass player he was in improvisation in the early days, this was a bit out of the norm, and likely designed/defined by someone else. Chris' solo albums are very different, and they tend to highlight his Sufi abilities with his instruments. No one else, that I am aware of had solo albums, and Renate would have been one for sure, but I think she was better at INTERPRETING what was in front of her than she was at trying to find her own idea and thought. I imagine an album of hers would be all over and too crazy for us all fans, but it could/should have had a sentiment of her voice that was used within a classical context in YETI ... but it would require a long piece, and I'm not sure that AD2 had the ability to do long pieces anymore after 1980 ... it became all songs, and even in the few videos found their ability to do longer stuff sounded bored and not wanting to be there. So they concentrated on the stuff that was better known instead.