Navigating through Krautrock

please, someone, find me a genre this isn't true of.

following a lengthy, drunken and immensely enjoyable chat with my biopsychology tutor, during which i explained how my knowledge of krautrock is patchy as fuck, he presented me with a CD on wednesday containing the following albums:

amon düül II: yeti
ash ra tempel: seven up
can: future days
cluster: zuckerzeit
harmonia: deluxe
klaus schulze: blackdance
la düsseldorf: la düsseldorf
michael rother: radio (singles)
tangerine dream: poland (warsaw concert)

it is blowing my little mind. zuckerzeit ... i can't believe that was 1974. 1974! and right now i'm grooving happily, privately to michael rother.

i didn't realise how richly melodic so much of this was; i've always thought, aye, krautrock, chugga-CHUGGA-chugga-CHUGGA, nice one. but really, i feel whole new musical vistas are opening up here. surprisingly, the one i engaged with the least (which doesn't mean i didn't enjoy it; just that it didn't captivate me as much) was future days.

not listened to the acid-drenched ash ra tempel thing yet: really looking forward to that.

All those albums on one CD?

-rom, then. smartarse ;)

(although it did confuse the shit out of me at first when i looked at the tracklisting: he said he'd do me a krautrock sampler, and i thought it was going to be a mix.)

You should get the top 50 albums in julian copes list then get the rest!

"Future Days" isn't in his Top 50

Along with some other kanonikal albums

"Future Days" isn't in his Top 50

Part of me wonders if Jaki Liebezeit had never made that comment about not being a fan of Future Days whether it would just be universally regarded as their best album.

I don't. It wouldn't.

Perhaps because you've been completely taken with the narrative that it's somehow a "weaker" entry in their catalogue. It's not.

I can't imagine how Future Days can be considered a weaker album.

Exactly.

agreed

it's the album I listen to most these (not so future) days

Perhaps because you've been completely taken with the narrative that it's somehow a "weaker" entry in their catalogue. It's not.

But it isn't, it's probably the single most celebrated album in their catalogue! I've been saying here for years that it's overrated and I think about three people have agreed with me in as many years!

It is? Over Monster Movie and Tago Mago?

I must have missed that conference.

I don't know what won the poll here, it might even have been "Ege Bamyasi", but "Future Days" tends to have the most rhapsodic bollocks written about it

Anyway Jaki might not like "Future Days" but Holger does - FITE!

Tago Mago is amazing, also Monster Movie and Soundtracks

But it isn't, it's probably the single most celebrated album in their catalogue!

Well...it probably was in the early 1990's. But Future Days is not even close to being the most celebrated in their catalogue at this point. Once Liebezeit's quote got out there, and Cope didn't even include it among the essential Can records (the single biggest oversight in Krautrocksampler), it really took a backseat to Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi.

Tell me a bit more about that Cluster album, grimly. There's a fantastic track on the new Optimo mix which has made me want to investigate further.

future days is only their most celebrated because it makes a nice t-shirt. Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi are by far more critically (and fan) favored. But Future Days is my fave.

Hear hear

"future days is only their most celebrated because it makes a nice t-shirt. "

truthbomb

"ege bamyasi makes a nice stew with bits of beef and carrots and that..."

has anyone read this article by Klaus D. Mueller from Perfect Sound Forever?

http://www.furious.com/perfect/krautrock.html

totally dismissive of a lot of things- what a crabby dude. but i do agree with his opinions re: julian cope/krautrocksampler, that guy does an awful lot of blathering about mediocre records

re: mueller, it seemed like pretty standard "I CAST DOWN YOUR IDOLS THUSLY!" contrarian bullshit in 1997, it still does now.

but you are all missing the point here, having to pick between different CAN albums (at least Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi and Future Days) is like having to pick between one's children. there is such a thing as loving them just as much for different reasons. I think.

i have no problem picking tago mago. the other two are good, but neither has anything like the first two sides of tago mago. not that anyone else does either

wasn't suggesting the article was new, just surprised there was no mention of it anywhere on this thread, especially with all that cope-talk

I just read it: It doesn't seem so far from anything, really.

Imagine somebody from Germany writing a fanbook about UK punk (1976-1978), and going off to ask Vini Reilly about it.

For all that both are personal opinions, (the Cope book and the mueller article, I don't have the other books), neither states that the other should not exist.

It's like the recent thread about the 'critically reviled by musicians, but loved by the hipsters' thread. Or was that the other way around?

Wish that Crack in the Cosmic Egg book mentioned was available - been out of print for over ten years. Met one of the Freemans recently. Nice guy and great record store - Ultima Thule.

there's a half-arsed version online.

also this:
http://tmachine.chat.ru/germ/progrtop.htm

though asbjornsen is wrong about 75% of the time, that's a sort of reliability.

I've got that one! The daft Norwegian one, that is!

future days is only their most celebrated because it makes a nice t-shirt. Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi are by far more critically (and fan) favored.

I'd much rather have a Tago Mago T-shirt.

visit the spoon records site and you can have one!

http://euros.spoonrecords.com/images/tago_t-shirt200.jpg

For anyone like me who doesn't actually have the Julian Cope book and doesn't want to shell out $200 on ebay for it, this guy put up two pdfs of every page from the book. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

I've got it, I didn't know it was worth any money!

underrated = Guru Guru's Kanguru

I don't think that was in Krautrocksampler either, and it's their best album

When Cope's book came out in the 90s, a lot of that stuff was nearly impossible to find. Since then a lot of it has been reissued domestically (seemingly all but Känguru, argh). I wonder if more of it will creep up peoples' all-time lists. 47 have made my top 1000.

http://www.fastnbulbous.com/krautrocksampler.htm

Does anyone here know much about Michael Bundt? On the basis of two tracks I found on different compilations (La Chasse Aux Microbes and The Brain of Oskar Panizza) he sounds fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHIuweZBc_A

I'd like to put in a word for Ash Ra Tempel, especially the 1st 2 records. Massive.

Yeah that Michael Bundt track was the greatest find on that Soul Jazz comp, for me. Don't know much more about him than what's provided in the booklet. The album's hard to find, expensive and dubious bootlegs a plenty - good news is that it will be reissued shortly!

Oh it's already out! :)

I'm throwing a pool party and am also going to DJ. It's going to have funk and disco songs, some classic rock deep cuts and synth pop ditties. ould like to spice it up with a few tracks of the "Kraut" genre, but what would you recommend that is accessible / shorter in length - something for chill out time? Seriously.

I'm So Green or Moonshake by Can are two glaringly obvious choices.

Neu!

"Isi" (5:05) - perfect sound forever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiMQ5r5y78g