Kraftwerk (German for "power plant") is a German avant-garde musical group who has made significant contributions to the development of electronic music. The band was founded by Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter in 1970, but became widely known as a quartet consisting of Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos alongside the founding members.
The techniques Kraftwerk introduced, together with the equipment they developed, are now commonplace in modern music. In terms of their influence on the popular music of the latter half of the 20th century, Kraftwerk is comparable only to the Beatles.
History
Kraftwerk was founded in 1970 by Florian Schneider-Esleben (flute) and Ralf Hütter (keyboards), the pair setting up their Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf. The two had met as students in the late 1960s, and had already released one album (Tone Float) playing in a five-piece improvisation group called Organisation.
The early Kraftwerk line-ups (1970-1974) fluctuated, Hütter and Schneider working with around half a dozen other musicians over the course of recording four albums and sporadic live appearances - most notably guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger , who left to form Neu!.
The input, expertise and influence of producer/engineer Conny Plank was also significant. Plank worked with many other leading German acts (including members of Can, Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia) and largely as a result of his work with Kraftwerk, Plank's studio in Cologne (Köln) became one of the most sought-after studios in Europe in the late Seventies. Plank produced the first four Kraftwerk albums, but ceased working with them after the commerical success of Autobahn, apparently over a dispute about contracts.
Painter Emil Schult became a regular collaborator with the band beginning in 1973 (originally playing bass guitar and electric violin, then designing artwork and additional lyrics, and accompanying them on tour).
What is generally regarded as the classic Kraftwerk line-up formed in 1975, for the Autobahn tour. This saw the band presented as a electronic quartet, with Hütter and Schneider joined by Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos as electronic percussionists. This quartet would be the band's public persona for their classic output of the 1970s and 1980s. (Flür had joined the band in 1973 as a drummer, in prepartion for a television appearance to promote their third album. This show saw the public debut of the group's striking self-built electronic percussion pads, played by Flür.)
After years of withdrawal from live performance, Kraftwerk began to tour again more regularly in the late 1990s and in 2004. Up until 2003 they stated they were working on new material -- though speculation about release dates fell through several times. Like a number of other recording artists, Hütter and Schneider appear to have become increasingly perfectionist in their attitude towards recording and releasing their music.
The growing time between recordings, the rarity of live performances and the increasingly exacting and protracted nature of the recording process were major reasons behind the departure of Flür and especially Bartos, whose improvisations were an essential part of the earlier Kraftwerk recordings. Following the departure of Flür and Bartos, various Kling Klang studio personnel such as Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz have appeared in the Kraftwerk live line-up.
The single Expo 2000, their first new song in 13 years, was released in December 1999 , and was subsequently remixed by contemporary electronic musicians such as Orbital. An announcement by their record company of a July 22, 2003 release also fell through, with the perfectionists delaying again for several weeks. The new album, Tour de France Soundtracks, was finally released in August 2003, making it the first album of new Kraftwerk material since 1986's Electric Cafe.
Music
After several early experimental albums their breakthrough came in 1974 (1974 in music) with the Autobahn album and the 22-minute title track (see Autobahn selection.ogg), which was a worldwide hit and demonstrated their increasing reliance on synthesizers and electronics. This was followed by a trio of albums that were to exert a huge influence on popular music -- Radio-Activity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977) and the seminal The Man Machine (1978).
Kraftwerk's lyrics deal with postwar European urban life and technology—travelling by car on the Autobahn, travelling by train, using home computers and the like. The lyrics are usually very minimal, but reveal both an innocent celebration of, and a knowing caution about the modern world, as well as playing an integral role in the rhythmic structure of the songs. Many of Kraftwerk's songs express the paradoxical nature of modern urban life -- a strong sense of alienation existing side by side with a celebration of the joys of modern technology.
Kraftwerk were one of the first "pop" acts to record using pure electronic (or electronically processed) instruments and sounds exclusively. Many of the vocals in Kraftwerk songs are processed through a Vocoder, or generated using speech synthesis software -- a Speak & Spell was used on their 1981 album Computer World. They also pioneered the use of backing tracks that were generated by the electronic sequencing of purely synthetic sounds.
Notably, all of their albums from Trans-Europe Express onwards have been recorded in two separate versions: one with German vocals for sale in Germany, and one with English vocals for international sale. The single "Tour de France" featured lyrics in French.
Stage shows
Kraftwerk also pioneered the use of computer graphics as a backdrop for their shows. Their stage act involves the members standing behind minimalistic desks, controlling the various sequencers that drive the show. At times, mannequins built to look like the band members replace or accompany the live musicians, known simply as "the robots". They do however state that a reasonable fraction of the instrumentation is actually played live, and that they do improvise somewhat from show to show.
Influence
Kraftwerk have also been extensively sampled by some influential musicians and bands including Afrika Bambaataa, Beck, The Orb, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu/KLF, Madonna, Depeche Mode, De La Soul, Coldplay, R.E.M., Meat Beat Manifesto, Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, the Bloodhound Gang, and many more. Additionally, many popular techno DJs refer to them as one of their most important influences.
Their music has been recorded by the classical ensemble the Balanescu Quartet . Five songs were arranged for strings for their album Possessed. In 2000, electronic musician Uwe Schmidt, recording as Señor Coconut, released an album of Kraftwerk covers called El Baile Alemán. The tracks were cleverly reworked in a Latin American music style.
Kraftwerk have impinged on mainstream popular culture to the extent that they have been referenced in The Simpsons and Father Ted.
In 2002 Q magazine named Kraftwerk as one of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die".
See also: Krautrock
Discography
External links
Last updated: 08-21-2005 09:32:55
