1970's German Experimental Rock ~ Kraftwerk ( Their Early Years )

The boys from Dusseldorf, Ralf Hutter and Florian Schnieder were both in a group called Organisation before they formed Kraftwerk in 1969. But the electronic pioneers that we now know and love were quite a different beast in the early 1970's, and its not just in their haircuts and choice of clothes. Hutter appears now to acknowledges this difference by refusing to allow the re-release of their first three albums, or even include them in Kraftwerk's discography. So if you want to hear their early work it can only be found in bootleg versions and the ubiquitous You Tube videos.

What you find if you venture your ears into these albums is a treasure trove of  exploratory music struggling to find its true form. Kraftwerk in 1970 fit into a style of progressive rock performance common in the twilight of the hippie era. A loose collective of individuals hang out and play long semi-improvised pieces, probably in abandoned buildings taken over for the event. However, there is also something out of the musical ordinary going on here. First, its purely instrumental no vocals, no lyrics, no musical warmth to embrace. They play real instruments:flutes, Hammond Organs and guitars, but these are electronically adjusted and phase sounds and drones weave into the overall sound they make. Kraftwerk appear to never have been too concerned with returning back to nature or averse to technological advances, they've always idealised, embraced and celebrated the modern world as it is, or as it could be re-imagined

Here's a live performance recorded in 1970 of Ruck Zuck the opening track of Kraftwerk's first album. Schnieder plays a  muti-tracked flute which lends it a folky air of 'Jethro Tull' . Every now and then you'll recognise a particular music cadence or rising tone sequence on the flute that you realise gets re-used in later Kraftwerk. The band also features Klaus Dinger on drums who is the originator of  German 'motorik' drum beat.

On first hearing they are hard to define This isn't really trad rock but neither is it avante garde modernism. The final track on Kraftwerk 1 is Vom Himmel Hoch its an altogether darker doom laden affair that bears comparison with the bleak industrial sound of early Cluster.

By the time Kraftwerk 2 (1971) arrived the band personel had been through seismic change. For some reason Ralf Hutter leaves the band. Schnieder and Klaus Dinger remain and are joined by Micheal Rother on guitar. You Tube videos are all that's left to record this short lived triumvirate. Before Kraftwerk 2 was recorded, Dinger and Rother leave Kraftwerk to form Neu! Whether this is what prompts Hutter to return is unknown. but all this joining, leaving and returning perhaps indicates there may have been some sort of conflicts over personality or musical direction. However, Kraftwerk is re-conceived and will never be quite the same again. Hutter, so myth reports, had seen an exhibition of Gilbert & George and something about these two identically besuited gentleman with their working premise of making peoples art accessible to all, lodges in his mind. For the next two albums it will be just the dynamic duo of Hutter and Schneider playing everything.

As a second album it is admittedly a strange one.  It opens with the track KingKlang ( later to be the name of their studio) which starts with an oblique percussive overture of ringing bell noises similar to a Stockhausen piece, which then it settles into a groove that has hints of the future Kraftwerk, but its sparser and often veers closer to minimalism than a piece of pure pop music.



The album comes across as though its a series of exercises in paring down musical structures. Its all getting rather arid and conceptual, even down to re-referencing the Warhol inspired road cone on the cover, this time in green. They use no pure synthesiser sound, every sound continues to be generated from actual instruments electronically treated. No rhythms from conventional drums and still no vocals.  On this album Hutter & Schnieder sound like two men in search of a fresh direction, but not finding it.

But then comes their third album Ralf & Florian (1973) and from the cover you can sense something of the Kraftwerk visual and musical style is beginning to click into place.  Here they are photographed like people from the 1950's. Schnieder in a suit, tie and slicked back hair. Hutter, still with long hair, but parted and pulled back, and wearing a strange half repaired pair of spectacles. In a way it provides a visual metaphor for a band that can almost, but not quite, see its way forward yet. There are still a few more indiosyncrasies to iron out. Like the Kraftwerk road cone that still remains, though  much smaller, on the record cover.

The album is though full of rather delightful informal gems, and with these they begin to catch the attention and influencing of other musicians. David Bowie citied R & F as one of the influences he drew on for his Berlin trilogy. Brian Eno borrows ideas from it, on Discreet Music, made two years later, he uses a very similar taped looped tonal sequenc as Heimatklange the fourth track on the album. They remain just Hutter & Schnieder, they still don't have a drummer and often settle for flicking the rhythm switch of an electric organ on. However, the album does feature on Ananas Symphonie their first use of a proto-type voice vocoder.  It is with the fifth track Tanzmusik that you get the first appearance of a piece of music that can be considered the genuine progenitor of the future classic Kraftwerk sound. Slightly sloppier in its rhythm section, with wobbly ethereal backing vocals, but a real charmer nonetheless.



Its unusual in popular music for a band to find their signature sound so late. A third album is usually where they achieve their most fully realised and polished version of it, which they struggle thereafter to quite match or exceed. Kraftwerk seemed to have to get all their hippie and arty pretensions out of their system before they were able to create that definitive album. Autobahn (1974) is a record that is really worthy of being called groundbreaking and proved to be the starting gun for a whole new chapter in popular music.

So what happened to resolve all those conflicting ideas and bring this accelerated rate of change about? No one really knows except Hutter & Schnieder I guess, and they're not saying much that is enlightening about this period. Hutter does appear to be in control of everything now, the past and future of Kraftwerk, and everyone else are just 'music workers'. If, however, you're looking for external influences I'll point you in the direction of the track Hallogallo from 1971 by Neu! who are Klaus Dinger & Micheal Rother remember, both ex-Kraftwerk collaborators. that's been featured on a previous post.

Even on Autobahn there is still the odd bit of fluffy flute around, but the direction was now set. Here is a music with a distinct individual vision behind it. Gone are most of their self-indulgent exercises in arty farty notions. Kraftwerk's sound becomes more and more stylistically and electronically pure, with its simple, almost Bach like, melodies gliding over a backing track that is crystal clear with not one single note out of place. Plus vocals ' Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der autobahn' with lyrics. But then words were never their strong point.