Krautrock

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 kirk782 wrote:

Is krautrock a valid genre or more an umbrella term for all kinds of sounds coming from bands from West Germany in the 70s? It has both the eclectic style of Can, the electronic hymn of Kraftwerk, the motorik beat in Neu! and La Dusseldorf, the experimental nature of Harmonia and Faust, the guitar based Guru Guru and so on. 

With everything from meditative sitars [like Yath Sidhra ] to Cluster to Ammon Duu; isn't this too vast an umbrella term?

Hi,

It is a vast umbrella, specially as this did not just happen in rock music(and some jazz) in that country. Film, Theater and Literature were also a part of the whole thing, and I guess we never saw/heard Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders filming some of this stuff way back when, and then using actors in complete improvisational ways just like a lot of the early music ... it lost this improvisation later as it got more commercially accepted and started selling.

The tough part is folks not realizing that this was not just a music thing ... and I'm not sure that this "thing" will get respect as long as the rest of it is denied. 

I often say that there is little difference between Damo Suzuki and Klaus Kinski (specially early days!!!) ... in their work ... they got into it and went on non-stop with some scary stories by Werner Herzog in the film "My Friend" about KK. 

It's tough to think of the idea that folks in Germany were too stupid to not know what the rest of the arts were doing at the same time. And they were all their friends, and neighbors ... !!!

Edited by moshkito - January 17 2025 at 19:33