KRAUTROCK Listening Klub! - New Albums Every Wednesday

I can think of few pieces of music lovelier than the title track of Sowiesoso.

Cosign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i5lwRjLd_4

Was just listening Soweisoso earlier today - absolutely love that record. And the first Faust is not my favorite Faust but it's still genius. I'm not at all familiar with the Gottsching so I'm hoping someone's got a link to that one.

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/album/E2+E4/4329331

thanks.

E2E4 is wonderful and i think its great its crossed over into the big canon in the past few years.

Not much of a fan of "E2-E4".

1st Faust isn't my favourite Faust either but still genius.

"Sowiesoso" - I got this, one lunchtime, in a little record shop called Casa in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. This was a shop which nobody seemed to buy anything out of, it appeared to be run by middle-aged women, their stock was ancient and mostly easy listening and Scottish folk music. This album was in a German folk music section (between the French and the Greek sections), alongside "Zero Set" by Moebius, Plank & Neumeier and "Double Cut" by Moebius & Beerbohm - hey, I don't know much about German folk music but I know what I like! So, yes, "Sowiesoso" is great, but not quite their best.

E2E4 does sound good. remember it being mentioned in the big observer article in, er, 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/apr/22/features.musicmonthly7

casa cassettes? I never did find out where that shop actually was! used to see it listed all the time though

That's it, Casa Cassettes! It's amazing they managed to stumble into the 1990s.

It started as Casa Cassettes then shortened to Casa. The same woman also had a shop at the traffic lights on Oswald St (I think it became the AA test centre or it was next door to it?).

listened to In den Gärten Pharaos this afternoon. cool record but I have to admit that I strongly prefer the title track to "vuh".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DON-CogKcfk

i love that first faust record. it contains just the right mix of silliness and experimentalism that in other albums doesn't quite balance. and that x-ray cover - just fab. kurt graupner is the most unsung 'member' of the group. he built the boxes that helped produce the great 'synth' sounds on all their early records and his engineering and mixing is superlative - that snare drum sound: i've never heard it anywhere else.

"E2-E4". no-one gotta nottaspotifya ?

stream it here

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/album/E2+E4/4329331

Streaming is nice, but..

whisky's quicker

krautrocks slower with liquor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqlx_8MtoSk

where's that from? couldn't see any credits and it's too long to be the recent(ish) bbc4 documentary.

26/05 - Neil S
2/06 - Tom D
9/06 - pfunkboy
16/06- GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ
23/06 - Von Kelson
30/06 - emil.y
7/07 - Matt #2
14/07 - Alan N

Neil are you primed?

Hope everyone's enjoyed my picks!

there wasnt much chat, was there?

Hey, Koogs, that youtube clip is from a film called Kraftwerk and The Electronic Revolution. It is available on DVD.
It's a doc about Kraftwerk that delves into the rest of the krautrock phenomenon with some detail.

thanks. dvd probably a better option than sneaking 18 10 minute segments whilst at work.

was something that covered similar ground on BBC4 at the end of last year. might be taken from the same sources though.

actually, amazon has recommended that to me before, but i'd thought it was a book 8)

Right, it's today!

Something coming shortly...

Then after that you will post this weeks albums?

It's a Michael Rother themed week this week- my favourite of Neu!'s unimpeachable run of first three records, a well-known collaboration with Cluster, and a perhaps less well known solo record.

Neu! - Neu!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IeVEawIpC_k/SaaJAf6N0bI/AAAAAAAAHYM/L9gkXYCWqj8/s320/neu_1235647396_crop_300x300.jpg

AMG review by Thom Jurek:

Fresh after leaving Kraftwerk in the fall of 1971 for what they perceived to be a lack of vision, guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger formed their own unit and changed the face of German rock forever -- eventually influencing their former employer, Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk. The 1974 album Autobahn was a genteel reconsideration of the music played here. Neu! created a sound that was literally made for cruising in an automobile. While here in the States people were flipping out over "Radar Love" by Golden Earring, if they'd known about this first Neu! disc, they would never have bothered. Dinger's mechanical, cut time drumming and Rother's two-note bass runs adorned with cleverly manipulated and dreamy guitar riffs and fills were the hallmarks of the "motorik" sound that would become the band's trademark.

Spotify link
Last.fm link

2. Harmonia - Musik Von Harmonia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/MusikVonHarmonia.jpg

AMG review by Ned Raggett:

The debut Harmonia album is at once a product of their source bands and a fine new twist on them, resulting in music that captures what for many is the Krautrock ideal, or more accurately, the motorik ideal. It's not Kraftwerk's all-synth, clean, clinical pulse, nor Neu!'s seemingly effortless glide, nor Can's stomping art world funk. Instead it's at once playful and murky, steady and mechanical, a supergroup of sorts who easily achieves and maintains such a seemingly overstated status by embracing a variety of approaches that work wonders. The players bring their usual multi-instrumental roles to the fore, ensuring that the end results achieve their own distinct sound -- this isn't simply Cluster with Rother's assistance or Rother trying for a solo record with Cluster's backing.

Last.fm link
Grooveshark link
(sorry, no Spotify!)

3. Michael Rother - Sterntaler

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_l3447Elf0wM/ScfqJZ-5rXI/AAAAAAAAAOE/ATs2YLqKS6M/s320/michael_rother_sterntaler_rem07.jpg

AMG review by Thom Jurek:

Sterntaler marked the beginning of Michael Rother's deep preoccupation with introspective melodies projected outward. Where Flammende Herzen was full of anthemic instrumental rock that was constructed to be just that, Sterntaler is more reflective even if its drive is as insistent and mechanically accurate. Again collaborating with producer Conny Plank and Can's drummer, Jaki Leibzeit, Rother set out with Sterntaler to create true electronic rock music -- even if what he came up with was the first real ambient trance music. Unlike his former bandmates in Kraftwerk and Harmonia who had wholeheartedly embraced electronic music as an end in and of itself, Rother was deeply entrenched in the idea that the entire idea for synthesizers and drum machines was to make rock & roll itself more futuristic. What's so odd about that notion is his method of composition.

Last.fm link
(sorry, no Spotify!)

All fairly "obvious" choices, but I hope people will have some strong views- I know that Michael Rother solo has already split opinion!

Obvious schmobvious. I like "Sterntaler" but I'm not sure that anything Rother did beyond the first three tracks of "Flammende Herzen" is particularly vital. It's nice, polite music but...

That was the objection upthread- it has the tendency to be too blissed out and polite. I think there's enough going on with Rother's guitar paying and the subtly changing motorik rhythyms to keep you interested, though.

Interested yes, excited no IMO... by the time you get to "Lust" (and he's ditched Jaki) you're not even interested

Love the first two albums you mentioned (though Neu! never quite did it for me like Neu! '75, which is their high water mark). I have not heard the Rother solo album, I'll have to check that one out...

Rother is a giant imo. I've heard all the Neu!/Harmonia stuff, Flammende Herzen and Sterntaler, but not the rest of the solo stuff.
It would be very nice to see the reunited Harmonia, but I that probably won't happen for me.
I wouldn't mind hearing other solo things, but even if they are bland beyond words, I'll still think he rules.

the harmonia albums are basically the pinnacle of krautrock for me

I bought all three Neu! albums in relatively quick succession a year or two ago, so in some ways they all blend together for me. None are pure genius front-to-back, but their highest points are transcendent, or nearly so.

I re-listened to the first album this morning on my way to work and it reminded me how varied Neu! could be from song to song, yet how myopic people's view of them (or of "krautrock") can be. I suppose we have Stereolab to thank for ripping off/shining the spotlight on "Hallogallo" - but what would this album be without "Sonderangebot" or "Im Gluck"? It needs those more abstract songs to make the others really shine, especially "Weissensee," in my opinion. (That said, the last track still sounds like Rother and Dinger were on drugs both when they recorded the song and when they listened to it and deemed it worthy of putting on the record.)

I have De-Luxe, which I like, though I've yet to hear the first Harmonia album - need to find time to listen to it this week. I do know the song "Watussi" which I think is genius.

As with Neu!, I came across Rother's first three albums all at once, so it's taken some time for me to tell them apart. After the other day's Rother debate (upthread), I went back and listened to his album Katzenmusik, which I actually realized I liked! I'm still unconvinced about Sterntaler though. One of the things I like so much about Rother's playing on the first Neu! album is how textural it often is. Those albums are so rhythm-oriented with Rother providing an almost abstract backdrop. Sterntaler on the other hand is extremely melodic, and I'm not really certain that melody was Rother's strongest point. I'll listen to the album again this week, however, just to be sure I'm not totally misguided. (I'm sure you'll all tell me if I am.)

Nice thoughts Scott.

I need to get hold of Deluxe. The rest of Musik... doesn't quite live up to the incredibly high standard of "Watussi" (like Cluster's Zuckerzeit a pre-figuration of huge swathes of electronic music that followed it), but is still excellent.

Just listened to Sterntaler again... taken as a whole I think it's mostly pleasant and inoffensive, but never truly awesome. Kinda reminds me of Brian May's guitar tone without the epic-ness of Queen's songwriting. Also, "Lichter von Kairo" is truly dreck... god, that synth! That one song nearly torpedos the whole record!

Lichter von Kairo is a bonus track from circa '93. That might explain its awfulness.

Original tracklist is
A1 Sonnenrad 6:01
A2 Blauer Regen 3:09
A3 Stromlinien 8:11
B1 Sterntaler 6:46
B2 Fontana Di Luna 6:39
B3 Orchestrion 3:40

I need to get hold of Deluxe.

Title track is one the greatest things I've ever heard in my life. I prefer that album to the first.

^what he said

Okay, will be having a look for that in Fopp this lunchtime.

Re. Lichter von Kairo: that track sounds like a poor Enigma out-take, and ruins the end of that album.

I've been checking up if my albums for next week are on Spotify, I hate the idea that people might think that bonus tracks have anything to do with the orignal albums!

oh yeah, those bonus tracks are straight-up garbage!

I knew the last dance remix was a bonus, but not the others. That definitely makes this a better album than I'd realized. (Still not my favorite though.)

Gonna chip in a weekend bonus album here since it kinda ties in with this weeks choices as he was once in a band with Michael Rother (And Wolfgang Flur)

RIECHMANN - wunderbar
http://shopbase.finetunes.net/shopserver/BinaryCacheServlet?albumid=1237809461132&datatype=fc300

Reissued from the vaults of the legendary Sky Records, Wunderbar was the first, and sadly only solo album by Wolfgang Riechmann, whose life was tragically cut short after a knife attack in 1978, just three weeks before this record was released. Riechmann's musical background stretched back to the late sixties when he met Michael Rother (of Harmonia and Neu!) and Wolfgang Flur (of Kraftwerk) with whom he formed the band Spirits Of Sound. Through the mid-seventies Riechmann played with the popular group Phonix, who released two albums on the Streetmark label, but once they disbanded in 1977 he devoted all his energies into this oft-overlooked classic of synthesizer music, recalling the sounds of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze in addition to the Dusseldorf school from which he emerged. In the most literal sense of the word, there's a mercurial feel to this music - the album brimming with a slippery, metallic quality thanks to the sweeping synth motions running through tracks like 'Silberland' and 'Abendlicht'. Wonderful stuff, and highly recommended to fans of both pioneers like Cluster to more recent exponents like Emeralds.

Hope you all enjoy!

Again, mit der bonuses! Dude was murdered, by the way, else killed in a bar room brawl