Sneer

I'm negligent, to say the least, with my input on this... But yeah, I wrote a feature on the history of Krautrock recently. I know it has a relatively small but enthusiastic following on here, so maybe some of you know everything I've written already. If not, hope you find it vaguely interesting...



Germany, wincing its way through the late 1940s and into the 1950s, was a country suffocating amid the debris left behind following World War II. A nation razed to the ground, its slate had effectively been wiped clean.

With an injection of US dollars, slowly the fallen powerhouse began to sift its way through the rubble, mobilizing efforts to rebuild a fallen society. Yet, far from signaling the dawning of a new, exciting future, a tangible sense of stagnancy crackled and hissed beneath the façade of progress.

The new civic stratum of lawyers, doctors, politicians and teachers; assigned the task of driving forward this new Germany, had only a few years previously composed the ranks of those who had been ardent followers of Hitler’s Nazi regime. Seemingly devoid of any remorse for the past crimes committed by them or in their name, they shuttled towards the 1960s adorned with power, the Third Reich being gradually swallowed by a cloud of dulled, frozen apathy.

For the generation of German nationals entering adulthood during the onset of the 60s, the stench oozing from the rotting resin that clasped Germany’s past to its present was hard to stomach. Born after the war and thus unaffected by Nazi ideology, they looked back upon their country’s immediate past with repugnance. To them, the people teaching, treating and governing the masses were quietly complicit in the atrocities that had tarinshed their nation – change was needed.

Galvanized by the burgeoning wave of radicalism sweeping through America and Europe during the mid to late 60s, the German youth were becoming increasingly politicized. Absorbing the ideologies filtered through countercultural dissent and the arts, a young and angry movement began to surface throughout the country – its modus operandi being to forge a new cultural identity, independent of the past. For scores of youths, Germany found itself at year zero, the future being its blank canvas.

A byproduct of the student revolution careering through mainland Europe was the dispersion of Anglo-American culture. Bands such as The Mothers of Invention, Pink Floyd, Captain Beefheart, The Velvet Underground and MC5 were lighting fires in the minds of students disenchanted with life in post-war Germany. To these youths, the exotic sounds of psychedelia and the avant-garde represented the precipice beyond which lay a kaleidoscopic world of freedom and endless possibility.

However, for this new Germany, simply imitating the countercultural exports of countries whose troops still occupied their towns and cities would not suffice. Influenced by the pioneering sonic explorations of electronic composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, a generation stung by the profound sense of a shattered self-identity would abscond the constraints of convention, and pursue new, unexplored paths of musical terrain.

Amidst a highly politicized social landscape, bands began to form in communes and art labs detached from mass culture. Bundling together fragments from the past and present, acts such as Amon Duul (later to become Amon Duul II) and Guru Guru surfaced from radical student groups, playing a brand psychedelic rock that expressed the retrofitted utopianism prevalent throughout the communities of alienated intellectuals and stoned outcasts composing their audience.

Germany was awash with the esoteric, beguiling sounds of a new Avant Garde. Can, with their introspective, mystically-tinged sonic explorations into the deepest, darkest realms of innerspace, drank on the spirit of transgression brewed by their mentor, Stockhausen, whilst NEU! and their Motorik beat began challenging the very concept of music with relentless hammer-blows of rhythmical repetition. Concurrently, the likes of Popol Vuh, Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel were creating ambient drone soundscapes, pieces of music that summoned images of a distant, ethereal universe.

Latched onto by the British music press, this Kosmische Musik was given the condescending tag of Krautrock. Germany? That vanquished nation? The hub for a new, revolutionary movement of experimental music? It just would not wash with the press, which was gorging itself on a diet of bands such as Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and Genesis. Betrothed to a sense of xenophobia, Krautrock was cast aside as a novelty.

The original ‘scene’ was relatively short lived, spanning from only the late 60s to the mid-70s. Yet, as the years have trickled into decades, its legacy has gradually grown. Its influence reverberates through the recordings of Post Punk acts such Public Image Ltd, Swell Maps and The Fall, whilst today, bands such as Animal Collective, Battles, Stereolab and Yo La Tengo continue to create music with the same, willfully experimental verve that underpinned the works of Faust, Limbus and Agitation Free.

Brian Eno, with his effusive praise and collaborations with electronic boundary-busters such as Cluster and Harmonia, as well as the success of David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, have proliferated its popularity further, with Kraftwerk, perhaps the most known of all Krautrock bands, enjoying considerable chart success on both sides of the Atlantic.

Meander away from the centre and you’ll find a plethora of bands feeding off the sonic explorations of these German pioneers. Krautrock reset the rhythms, enhanced the palette, and tore gaping holes through the smothering sheet of contemporary musical convention. For this, it deserves a great deal of respect.

Five essential Krautrock albums:

Can – Tago Mago
Amon Duul II – Yeti
Neu! – Neu!
Tangerine Dream – Zeit
Faust – Faust IV

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