KRAUTROCK POLL

YOUR THREE FAVOURITE KRAUTROCK BANDS ARE?

  • Neu!

  • Faust

  • Kraftwerk

  • CAN

  • Cluster

  • Harmonia

  • Amón Duul II

  • Ash Ra Temple

  • Popol Vuh

  • Tangerine Dream

Results are only viewable after voting.
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Even the big names' stuff is quite patchy, neu for example, with a lot of filler. You could probably boil the whole genre down to maybe 10 great albums at a push?
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Haha.

All of the neu albums have only got like three really, really good tracks on them each, which is why I didn't vote for them.

I like the one on neu 75 that sounds like a motorik sex pistols!
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I have 2 of the obvious big 3 (Neu! + Can) plus Ash Ra Tempel, purely for their truly majestic first LP - side A is one of the greatest freeform psychedelic guitar jams ever done by anyone ever, in which they take the power trio vocabulary invented by Jimi, Blue Cheer, etc and launch it into the furthest reaches of outer/inner space, an avalanche of shrieking wailing feedback guitar and proto-motorik meets Tony Allen cymbal propulsion. Side B is the precursor/missing link between the hippie freeform jam era (Ash Ra, Amon Duul, Guru Guru, etc) and the immense analog soundscapes of the first few Tangerine Dream records (Zeit, Atem, etc) until about 2/3 thru an extended Gottsching guitar coda comes in, gently at first then building up to another frenetic climax.

The rest of Ash Ra Tempel isn't worth hearing tbf, esp the Timothy Leary record, which - like Leary himself - sounds much better on paper than it actually is

If I was going to do someone else as a 3rd it'd be TD for all those aforementioned immense analog soundscapes, tho everything once they get sequencers is - like the entire Berlin School - unlistenable tosh (except "Love On a Real Train", which is and always will be fucking jam)

After TD I'd put Faust, whose highs - It's a Rainy Day Sunshine Girl, Krautrock, etc - are very high indeed, but undermined by the excessive presence of whimsical hippie nonsense (see also: Barrett-era Floyd, where for every Interstellar Overdrive there are 8 songs about gnomes riding bicycles or whatever)
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
KW obv hugely important for a million reasons but the only thing by them I'd actually want to listen to is Autobahn. Tbh my favorite KW era is when Ralf (or Florian? don't remember) went back to school and for a hot minute KW was the Neu guys and Florian (or Ralf, whichever). I don't think they recorded anything but they have a live German TV thing on YT if you look for it. Tbf, it's basically just Neu + a flute and some electronics.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Cluster/Hamonia/etc just not my thing outside a couple tracks, if we're talking analog electronic pop of the era, give me Moroder et al by 1000 miles

I like some of Amon Duul I but I'm sure I have a higher tolerance for late 60s shambling hippie freakout nonsense than most people here. AD II for me is basically a lesser version of that great first Ash Ra Tempel record.

Popol Vuh had some transcendent moments esp before they abandoned synths, like a more mystical + organic but less cosmic (or kosmiche) early TD, but it descends into waffling New Age nonsense pretty quickly
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
That Ralf und Florian album is a good listen actually, the first two albums are a mess but Ruckzuck is good.

Tago Mago still towers over everything else for me when it comes to the more standard rock band set-up end of things.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Outside the big 10 a few of the "second tier" I'd mention are

Agitation Free
Gila
Sand - Golem
Brainticket (technically Belgian/Swiss but whatever)
Achim Reichel

It's true that if you don't know exactly what you're looking for it's very easy to blunder into waffling jazz fusion, dead standard blooze rawk, mediocre prog, under the "krautrock" label, I assume bc pre-Internet record dealers labeled everything German ca. 1968-76 or so as krautrock in other to sell overpriced schlock to collectors who couldn't just preview everything on YT
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Benny B said:
Tago Mago still towers over everything else for me when it comes to the more standard rock band set-up end of things.
Click to expand...
I personally prefer Mooney-era Can ("Are you waiting, for the streetcar") but I'd agree Tago Mago is the culmination and epitome of the "rock" part of krautrock

And you gave to include Kraftwerk. If it was just Trans Europe Express on I'd say no, but everything up to that is firmly rooted in a krautrock context.

And Ruckzuck is indeed the one
 
B

bun-u

Trumpet Police
Can and Kraftwerk were an easy top 2 choice and then it was between Neu, Faust and Cluster for the last berth. though Faust feel the least ’significant’ I plumped for them as I’d miss their records the most
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Benny B said:
Haha.

All of the neu albums have only got like three really, really good tracks on them each, which is why I didn't vote for them.

I like the one on neu 75 that sounds like a motorik sex pistols!
Click to expand...

One of them (Neu! 2) they ran out of money and the second side is just songs they had already made at different speeds.

Side 2 of the record caused consternation at the time. Neu! had quite simply run out of money to finish recording the album, so the second side consists entirely of their previously released single "Neuschnee/Super", manipulated at various playback speeds on a record player, or mangled in a cassette recorder. Critics at the time dismissed this as a cheap gimmick and a rip-off. While it was indeed an experiment born of desperation and necessity, it was entirely in keeping with Neu's pop art aesthetics, taking a "ready-made" sound object and re-presenting it with a series of stylized manipulations, and also quite in keeping with the way Neu's music deconstructed and pared down the form of rock music. Dinger subsequently pointed to side 2 as being a prototype of the now ubiquitous multiple remixes which typically accompany any pop single release.
Click to expand...
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Benny B said:
Haha.

All of the neu albums have only got like three really, really good tracks on them each, which is why I didn't vote for them.

I like the one on neu 75 that sounds like a motorik sex pistols!
Click to expand...
Listening to the Neu albums again tonight (well flicking through them) and I think I was being very generous here. You could really boil down their whole thing to just three great tracks - Hallogallo, Negativland and Hero. The rest is totally inessential, just more of the same but not as good, or dodgy half-formed experiments. I like Michael Rother with Harmonia though, deluxe is a great album
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Cluster, Kraftwerk and Can are the only ones to have a consistent string of great albums.

This run of albums is really impressive, and all so different from each other (dunno if I have the order right)

Cluster '71
Cluster II
Zuckerzeit
Sowiesoso
Music Von Harmonia
Deluxe
Cluster & Eno
 
M

martin

----
Benny B said:
Listening to the Neu albums again tonight (well flicking through them) and I think I was being very generous here. You could really boil down their whole thing to just three great tracks - Hallogallo, Negativland and Hero. The rest is totally inessential, just more of the same but not as good, or dodgy half-formed experiments. I like Michael Rother with Harmonia though, deluxe is a great album
Click to expand...
I've been listening to the first two tonight as well, sort of. Loads of album space wasted on stupid 'jokes' (presumably?) like that godawful closer on the first one, or the same song played at different speeds on the second one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top