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In the late 1960s, a wave of German
bands and musicians emerged intent on

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creating new sounds and exploring new
technologies.

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As an artist, you have to create
something new, your own will. You have

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to create your own art.

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We were pretty much aware that we
weren't raised in the Mississippi Delta,

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or we weren't raised in Liverpool.

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Our generation had to come up.

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with a counterpoint to that.

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If you want to come up with a new sound,
you want to touch new ground, you have

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to use new material or at least change
your perspective.

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Using machines, open up another door for
this new quality.

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This film not only explores the various
artists of this experimental movement,

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but also focuses on the group whose
music would influence so much of modern

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electronica, Kraftwerk.

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Obviously, the aesthetic investment was
into something completely different from

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what all the other bands were into. All
the other bands were into, with the most

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different means, but they were all into
experience.

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And Kraftwerk was not that. It was
obviously about distance to music.

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There was something conceptual, there
was something humorous, there was irony.

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The difference in Kraftwerk and the
other bands, and the other bands wish to

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totally disassociate themselves from the
past, from the German history.

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Carpet were different. They were willing
to embrace the past.

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In so doing, they actually, in the long
term, they invented a new kind of

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aesthetic that people around the world
could really relate to by using humor

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and experiment and brilliant
understanding of electronic sound.

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They basically remade German identity
and made it something to actually look

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at.

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The Second World War left Germany in
ruins.

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Over 9 million German soldiers and
civilians dead, numerous cities

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destroyed, and the country split into
zones occupied by both the Allied and

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Soviet military.

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By 1949, the country was divided into a
Soviet East and a capitalist West

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Germany. And where the East was a
socialist state, the West adopted a

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social market economy that by the 1950s
would see the country enjoy a steady

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period of growth.

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Despite this economic stability, the
youth of the country were born into a

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ruptured world in which their elders
were viewed with suspicion and in which

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a guilt over the very fact of being a
German was widespread.

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And so by the late 1950s, this new
generation began to embrace the youth

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culture of their allied occupiers.

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At that time, so in the 60s, he still
had the decisive positions everywhere.

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Not only at the top of society, as an
entrepreneur, politician, but also

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in the entire middle class as a teacher,
professor, judge, civil servant.

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Everywhere there was still the
generation that had participated in

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National Socialism.

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to a not very large percentage.

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For young workers, however, the new time
that came with all their occupations in

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the form of personal freedom,
consumption, it was a very economically

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prosperous time, was a great crime.

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The example of this was America.

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And we always, as young people in the
60s, with these old structures, this

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authoritarianism, which brought us from
the first day to subordination,

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to subordination and, if necessary, to
good soldiers or to good workers,

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depending on how the times were.

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Who was against it? For them it was this
music that came from the USA and from

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England.

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And Germany would play a pivotal part in
the early history of Western popular

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music. A number of clubs began to appear
in the major cities, and with UK bands

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more adept at imitating American acts
than the Germans, soon these clubs were

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full of British rock and roll groups.

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At the center of this was Hamburg, a
major port with a large entertainment

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district. Here, young rock bands played
to an audience of both German teenagers

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and Allied Navy crews.

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and it was here that the Beatles learned
their craft.

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Yet the German groups who began to
emerge were often simply imitating those

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British beat bands, and this theme would
have little in common with the movement

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that would eventually emerge.

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In terms of music, pop music, there was
not much, there was of course the

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Hamburg world, which was shaped by,
which was a vibrant music scene, and one

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that also would cross over to...

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to other arts but that was based mainly
on traveling British and American bands

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like The Beatles and other famous but
also like regulars were like bands like

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Ian and the Zodiacs or something like
that who were but then doing things like

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accompanying poetry readings by very
advanced poets so but it that's right

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there were basically no Germans doing
anything interesting musically with the

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exception of free jazz.

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Pre-jazz in Germany, I would go to the
legacy of people like Peter Brötzmann,

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who was involved with the Fluxus
movement in the early 60s. And in

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others, there was a free jazz movement
in Berlin happening around people like

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Alexander von Schlippenbach, Sven Arke
Johansson, who came from Sweden. And

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this was, of course, a completely unique
musical movement, and it was based on

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scenes in German cities.

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And out of the Berlin features movement,
for example, you had certain bands

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coming out who were close to the later
electronic scene.

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Like Sven Acker-Johansson had this band
Moderne Europäische Dorfmusik, Modern

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European Village Music, which was kind
of a...

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electronic avant-garde rock, free jazz
mixture, they recorded in the late 60s,

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I think two albums, and they played at
the same places where Early Tender and

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Dream played.

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And it was out of this new rock and jazz
culture that German variations of the

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Anglo-American musical model began to
take shape.

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By 1967, the German counterculture was
emerging, with students demonstrating

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and communes being formed.

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With political tensions heightened by
the death of student Benno Ohnesorg,

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Berlin in particular was a center for
unrest.

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And at the same time as this youth
movement was growing, new music from

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America was influencing the bands of
this scene.

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In 67, it was for the Berlin scene,
there was an ignition when the Mothers

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of Invention came to play.

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That was an interesting concert because,
well, all the students, the SDS went

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there, the pupils, all the political
scene went there. Well, it was about 10

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,000 people and I think most of the
scene was there and people had

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waited for a band like this to come to
Berlin. So it was like a swing from the

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nice...

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Jerry and the Pacemakers and Equals and
pop groups from Great Britain to the

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flower power hippie thing.

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And I think these are also the
influences which helped the German

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musicians develop their own style.

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But while much of the German musical
scene was simply intent on now mimicking

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a new kind of American music,
experimental musicians began to emerge

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who would shape a unique sound.

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Konrad Schnitzler, who had studied
sculpture under radical German artist

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Joseph Beuys in Dusseldorf, was central
to this new movement.

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Having relocated to Berlin in the
mid-60s, he was a trained artist and not

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a musician, but he began working with
colleagues Hans-Hakim Rodelius and Boris

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Schack on a new form of experimental
music that would eventually embrace

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electronics.

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My dream was always to make sounds and
music, but I couldn't because I wasn't a

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musician and never learned.

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And there were, you know, also before,
all these young people making

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this kind of hippie music with a drum
and flute and all this, and I was hating

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this.

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Anyway, I was never liking melodies
because a melody is like a worm in your

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head. You hear this melody and the whole
day it rattles in your head. I didn't

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want it. I want to have something that
goes in and you lost it already.

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And Boris and Achim said, oh no, not
this. I have another idea about

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making music.

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Only if you don't can play an
instrument, you can make free sounds.

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And I want to have, let's say, noise.
Noise sounds composed together in a way

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what is interesting.

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Like if the steam hammer goes here and
the bird pipes there and a car comes and

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the airplane goes over.

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If you are the director of it, then you
say, hey, stop, don't come now, you

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know. Now all together or whatever, you
know. This is the only philosophy.

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And the philosophy behind it, as an
artist, you have to create something

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new. It's a real beginning. I just
wanted to try what's going on when I use

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the flute or my voice or drums.

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How do I react on what I'm doing with
any sort of instrument or any sort of

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noise?

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So it was not music at all that
influenced me or not any style or not

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any trend.

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I just was so curious to work with noise
and sounds and tones

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to become aware what's that, what's
music, what has it, I

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mean, what's the ground in it.

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How should it be?

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And needing a rehearsal and performance
space, Schnitzler and Rodelius began to

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rent part of a theatre.

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This room eventually became the Zodiac
Free Arts Lab.

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We had this room and we made a lot of,
Boris and Achim, they bought some new

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instruments, you know, for now cashing,
for cashing later, because it was all so

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really fantastic.

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Yeah, we played there two, three days.
Nobody came.

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Of course not. We made no advertising
for nothing. Nobody knows us. Nobody

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knows what was going on there.

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So the first, what we, our group was
called Geräusche, means noises.

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And I had the small, tiny papers with a
stamp.

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And we, a hundred of... of these papers
we stamped and we give them as flying

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papers around and where was if there was
somewhere a concert

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of modern music like in the area of the
television station is

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it now yet radio SFB and the people
coming out and give them the paper

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or there was Emerson Lake in Palma
somewhere playing we put this Papers

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around, and it was really dark also
there, and you saw the papers flying.

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And so, afterwards, there was coming
people.

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And then we invite also other musicians,
groups, but not normal groups. Sometimes

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they want somebody who just played music
from other groups.

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We didn't want it. We wanted something
that was experimental.

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came like Schulze with his group came
and of course Edgar came back and I was

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with Edgar already in a connection you
know and he came with his group and so

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we had and it was full of equipment
everything you know we didn't remove

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this it was forever there and only the
groups who was then on the end in

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have the right to play there every
evening but means after the theater was

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to the end we because otherwise it was
too loud you know and the zodiac became

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a hive of activity where rock had
previously been the typical music

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emerging from the city now an
underground began to form that would

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draw the most daring musicians to it

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because this free jazz scene was very
influential and at the beginning it was

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mixed up.

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And that was expected in this club that
Konrad opened.

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People who played big names in
improvised jazz today, such as

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Brötzmann, Irene Schweitzer,
Schlippenbach, were playing in the

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Zodiac. Some people changed from one
genre to another, like Uli Trepte,

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everything was allowed even smoking
joints so nobody was really free free

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free atmosphere there were many projects
but the zodiac were the first nucleus of

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where everybody came together it was
sort of

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And out of the Zodiac, many, many
different groups really became aware of

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themselves. So all these guys, they
studied themselves

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in the Zodiac.

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I think in every city, it is like you're
always looking in a room where you can

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make loud music. And the Zodiac, it was
under a big theater.

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And there was also a pub.

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next to it.

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And there was a big room where the owner
said, you know, here you can play there,

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you know.

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And then we just, yeah, we played a
couple of bands like Kluster and

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Plus Minus was a big beginning where
Schnitzler was also there.

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And there was Tension Dream there, then
I was with my band, with Psy 3.

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But it was a nice kind of, let's say,
kind of a factory for bands.

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So then we got, let's say, a bit known
through that in Berlin.

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And then comes people from other clubs
and they said, can you play?

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The same thing in my club or in our
club.

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And so it started slowly, but we were
really like totally

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underground. Lowest underground, you
say, like this, you know.

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This experimentation was not only
occurring in Berlin, however.

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In Munich, radical art commune Amon Dool
was established in 67, and it quickly

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developed a reputation for its musical
performances.

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Like at the Zodiac, the emphasis was on
free-form structures and improvisation,

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and the Commune had a similar
perspective on artistic freedom, valuing

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enthusiasm and attitude over technical
ability.

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As they began to tour the country, it
became clear that Amandul were a very

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different proposition than the
Anglo-American-influenced pop bands.

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Amandul was already this myth and
legend, dairy

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band, when they existed.

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I mean, you had rumors all over Germany,
because if they played somewhere, this

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was so different. They came with their
children, they came with their wives.

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You never knew what the lineup is, if
they played with four people or with 20.

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They always had fights on stage, behind
stage.

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And this was nothing you really expected
from a city like Munich.

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The first music clubs...

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after the war and in the 60s, even when
already Armand Duhl started, have been

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American GI clubs where they played soul
and black

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music. So in Munich you had a huge
community of German musicians

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interpreting American soul.

223
00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:25,020
So, of course, this was a really break.

224
00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:28,520
I'm going to do that was really
completely different

225
00:18:57,230 --> 00:19:04,190
For me, it was like now we were starting
to build our own musical identity in

226
00:19:04,190 --> 00:19:09,190
Germany, taking influences from all
parts and also German influences.

227
00:19:09,490 --> 00:19:15,710
And Mondews always had a strange
affection to their Bavarian past to the

228
00:19:15,710 --> 00:19:18,890
end that they released an album in 74, I
think.

229
00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:26,100
where they posed in King Ludwig's habit
and things like that and sang about him

230
00:19:26,100 --> 00:19:32,160
and about the Bavarian past as a
kingdom. So in the late 60s, it was an

231
00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:37,000
alternative scene because they mixed
things and they did jazzy things, they

232
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:41,120
did very daring things, if I may say so.

233
00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:43,540
They didn't just copy anymore.

234
00:19:44,250 --> 00:19:49,870
Until 67 it was let's try to do a nice
beat band sound. Let's try to copy the

235
00:19:49,870 --> 00:19:53,570
the British band The

236
00:19:53,570 --> 00:20:00,410
big magazines picked up on

237
00:20:00,410 --> 00:20:05,170
them because of the wildness Yeah of the
image.

238
00:20:05,610 --> 00:20:10,070
It was really something very interesting
exotic

239
00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:15,380
And this new innovative approach to
music would spread through Germany.

240
00:20:16,060 --> 00:20:20,040
In the far west of the country, the
Rhein-Ruhr area comprising cities

241
00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:23,140
Cologne and Düsseldorf, yet another
scene began to emerge.

242
00:20:23,700 --> 00:20:28,060
Both cities had their fair share of beat
bands and cover acts, but they also had

243
00:20:28,060 --> 00:20:29,360
thriving artistic scenes.

244
00:20:29,740 --> 00:20:34,300
In Cologne, Cannes formed, a group who
would become one of the leading lights

245
00:20:34,300 --> 00:20:35,300
of the German movement.

246
00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:39,860
And in Dusseldorf, future Kraftwerk
pioneers Ralph Hutter and Florian

247
00:20:39,860 --> 00:20:41,540
Schneider founded the organization.

248
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:48,760
I think of Kraftwerk and organization
and the whole scene around them, the

249
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:53,460
things that would come to my mind as
forerunners would not be in the field of

250
00:20:53,460 --> 00:20:57,120
music, but in the field of fine art,
visual art.

251
00:20:57,700 --> 00:21:04,580
I think the Dusseldorf scene at the 60s
was a very vibrant scene based around

252
00:21:04,580 --> 00:21:09,130
this. plays this club called Cream
Cheese, which was very important, which

253
00:21:09,130 --> 00:21:13,730
was a nightclub, a discotheque,
decorated and organized by people from

254
00:21:13,730 --> 00:21:19,410
the Zero Movement, which was a kind of
very important movement, and other

255
00:21:19,410 --> 00:21:20,289
artists around.

256
00:21:20,290 --> 00:21:25,550
The District of Art Academy was there,
where people like Joseph Beuys were

257
00:21:25,550 --> 00:21:27,010
teaching at that time.

258
00:21:27,250 --> 00:21:32,090
And this is far more, for me, the
culturally important background.

259
00:21:32,910 --> 00:21:36,770
Yet although there was a major influence
from the world of the visual arts, there

260
00:21:36,770 --> 00:21:38,890
was also a more academic element to
these bands.

261
00:21:39,770 --> 00:21:44,310
Unlike the various artists from the
Zodiac scene or those in Amon Dool, the

262
00:21:44,310 --> 00:21:48,630
organisations Florian Schneider and
Ralph Hutter and Cannes' Holger Schuchai

263
00:21:48,630 --> 00:21:50,990
and Ermin Schmidt were classically
trained musicians.

264
00:21:51,490 --> 00:21:55,490
And classical music itself had been
going through some radical changes since

265
00:21:55,490 --> 00:21:59,570
the 1930s, with various composers
striving to introduce an electronic

266
00:21:59,570 --> 00:22:00,690
component into it.

267
00:22:01,550 --> 00:22:05,450
A major figure in the introduction of
new sounds and electronic techniques in

268
00:22:05,450 --> 00:22:07,950
this area was Frenchman Pierre
Schaeffer.

269
00:22:08,630 --> 00:22:14,850
Pierre Schaeffer was important in France
because he had a studio in Radio France.

270
00:22:14,990 --> 00:22:20,810
Most of the early electronic studios
were in radio stations in the late

271
00:22:20,810 --> 00:22:25,670
1940s, mid-1950s because they had the
equipment. The equipment they were using

272
00:22:25,670 --> 00:22:30,430
was... basically tone generators,
oscillators, sine wave generators, very

273
00:22:30,430 --> 00:22:36,190
basic sound equipment that produced,
that changed sound waves.

274
00:22:36,430 --> 00:22:38,050
And then they didn't have tape.

275
00:22:38,390 --> 00:22:44,810
Pierre Schaeffer's early experiments
with music were discs

276
00:22:44,810 --> 00:22:45,890
from records.

277
00:22:46,250 --> 00:22:53,230
What he did was he actually got records,
78 of say train sounds,

278
00:22:53,490 --> 00:22:55,790
water sounds, crowd sounds.

279
00:22:56,300 --> 00:23:00,700
marching band and mixed them together
and invented this thing called music

280
00:23:00,700 --> 00:23:03,000
concrete or real music.

281
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:37,560
The main instrument that he used in the
beginning was a record player.

282
00:23:37,820 --> 00:23:43,900
And then when he was given access to a
tape recorder, it totally revolutionised

283
00:23:43,900 --> 00:23:44,879
the way he worked.

284
00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:51,640
And so he was one of the first people
really to use technology within

285
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:55,680
a musical system, as a really major part
of the musical system.

286
00:23:56,080 --> 00:24:02,220
And obviously this influenced many
students of his, such as Pierre Henry

287
00:24:02,220 --> 00:24:03,280
and people like that.

288
00:24:03,580 --> 00:24:05,140
and later on Stockhausen.

289
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:10,060
And it was this towering figure of
experimental music operating out of the

290
00:24:10,060 --> 00:24:14,000
Rhein-Ruhr area itself who would become
a pivotal influence on emerging

291
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:15,020
electronic musicians.

292
00:24:15,700 --> 00:24:19,260
Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, who had
collaborated with Pierre Schaeffer in

293
00:24:19,260 --> 00:24:23,280
the early 1950s, developed a music that
would not only incorporate concrete

294
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:25,360
elements, but also pure electronics.

295
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,660
The groundbreaking compositions that he
created while working at the WDR

296
00:24:30,660 --> 00:24:35,680
Broadcasting Centre's electronic studio
in Cologne during the 1950s and 60s

297
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:39,120
would dramatically change the shape of
late 20th century music.

298
00:24:40,020 --> 00:24:46,260
Stockhausen is by far the most important
composer of the 20th century in regards

299
00:24:46,260 --> 00:24:48,920
to electronic music because he invented
electronic music.

300
00:24:49,140 --> 00:24:53,280
Remember, before Stockhausen, there was
no proper electronic music.

301
00:24:54,260 --> 00:25:00,140
People did not think about making just
music electronically as a composition,

302
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:05,140
writing it out, scoring it, then
composing it in the studio and then

303
00:25:05,140 --> 00:25:06,880
presenting it through loudspeakers.

304
00:25:07,620 --> 00:25:10,820
Nobody had the gall to do that, but he
did.

305
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:17,160
And he would spend up to six months,
maybe a year, putting together a half-an

306
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:22,280
-hour piece or a 20-minute piece either
in Paris with Pierre Schaeffer.

307
00:25:22,970 --> 00:25:29,410
or in cologne where he worked in in this
studio there and stock hasn't had to

308
00:25:29,410 --> 00:25:34,030
start to get a lot of people following
him and after 1956 when he did gazang

309
00:25:34,030 --> 00:25:37,170
the union which is the song of the youth
and that was a massive international

310
00:25:37,170 --> 00:25:42,010
sensation because it was basically
loudspeakers on stage and him just

311
00:25:42,010 --> 00:25:48,010
playing a tape there was no there was no
musician this was scandalous this was

312
00:25:48,010 --> 00:25:51,290
ridiculous the class at the time said
this is crazy but just really caused a

313
00:25:51,290 --> 00:25:52,290
huge uproar

314
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:23,820
People were more interested, I think,
than they are today.

315
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:30,840
In this, let's say, serious electronic
music, people are interested in techno

316
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:31,840
and so on.

317
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:38,280
But I already had the feeling that
nobody knows that there is so

318
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:42,240
-called serious electronic music,
experimental music and so on.

319
00:26:44,120 --> 00:26:48,440
Yes, there was at least, that was often
a rejecting attitude.

320
00:26:49,130 --> 00:26:49,490
And

321
00:26:49,490 --> 00:26:56,410
at

322
00:26:56,410 --> 00:27:00,190
the Robert Schumann Academy, where both
Ralph Hutter and Florian Schneider were

323
00:27:00,190 --> 00:27:01,109
students,

324
00:27:01,110 --> 00:27:03,130
Stockhausen was a key part of the
curriculum.

325
00:27:03,910 --> 00:27:08,270
Future Kraftwerk member Karl Bartosz was
also introduced to the composer's work

326
00:27:08,270 --> 00:27:09,270
while a student here.

327
00:27:09,630 --> 00:27:14,410
I started my musical studies at the
Robert Schumann Institute in Düsseldorf,

328
00:27:14,470 --> 00:27:18,250
and then I got acquainted to all the
classical music.

329
00:27:19,020 --> 00:27:24,820
The idea about the electronic movement
was that the composer, and I was a

330
00:27:24,820 --> 00:27:29,840
composer also in that time, a classical
composer, as good as I could,

331
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:37,320
the idea was bypassing the
instrumentalist, bypassing

332
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:42,340
the orchestra, and composing directly
onto tape something.

333
00:27:42,820 --> 00:27:46,500
And the other movement at that time was
the so-called Musique Concrete.

334
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,580
coming from Pierre Schaeffer in Paris.

335
00:27:50,700 --> 00:27:57,380
And he was using found sounds, like
sounds of the environment,

336
00:27:57,540 --> 00:28:03,960
sounds of a tree, if you rattle it, or
anything that made

337
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:10,700
sound. And this is, it has always a lot
to do with Kraftwerk, with the Kraftwerk

338
00:28:10,700 --> 00:28:13,680
sounds, with the concrete and the
electronic approach.

339
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:18,480
While this movement around Cologne and
Düsseldorf was developing, in Berlin,

340
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,900
one of the key bands from the Zodiac
scene was preparing to record their

341
00:28:21,900 --> 00:28:22,900
first album.

342
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:27,660
Edgar Froese, the founder and only
constant member of Tangerine Dream, had

343
00:28:27,660 --> 00:28:30,820
been a prominent figure around West
Berlin since the mid-60s.

344
00:28:31,020 --> 00:28:34,980
And although he had decided upon his
group's name, the line-up was an ever

345
00:28:34,980 --> 00:28:35,980
-changing affair.

346
00:28:36,060 --> 00:28:40,720
For the debut release, Froese enlisted
Klaus Schulze from the band Psi Free as

347
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:41,579
his drummer.

348
00:28:41,580 --> 00:28:44,920
And Konrad Schnitzler was also asked to
join a group that he had originally

349
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:47,340
introduced to the Zodiac scene the
previous year.

350
00:28:48,220 --> 00:28:53,940
First they came because we asked them,
coming back to us, because we need

351
00:28:53,940 --> 00:28:58,620
special groups or special persons to
have public.

352
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:05,980
And so they don't need me. But later on,
when Edgar came and said, play with me,

353
00:29:06,060 --> 00:29:10,020
then he has already seen in the club
what...

354
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:17,140
I have done and so he was interested to
have this noise to it instead

355
00:29:17,140 --> 00:29:18,740
of having a normal pop group.

356
00:29:46,030 --> 00:29:49,510
He was not always happy with this, what
I did.

357
00:29:50,130 --> 00:29:55,710
But on the end, he said, no, no, it's
good. Do it. Don't ask me. Just do it,

358
00:29:55,730 --> 00:29:56,349
you know.

359
00:29:56,350 --> 00:29:58,450
And I was same loud like him.

360
00:29:58,810 --> 00:30:03,210
And Schultz sometimes had problems
because in this time we had no, in

361
00:30:03,210 --> 00:30:05,910
Schultz's drum, we had no mics.

362
00:30:06,430 --> 00:30:12,050
You know, he had not his own amp. He had
no echoes on it. He just was drumming.

363
00:30:12,070 --> 00:30:18,790
He was like a locomotion, you know,
like, just set him on his ass, and then

364
00:30:18,790 --> 00:30:25,050
he was drumming, you know. He was young,
18 or something like this. He had power

365
00:30:25,050 --> 00:30:27,070
over and over, you know.

366
00:30:27,350 --> 00:30:32,630
Released in 1970, electronic meditation
was a coarse yet significant work, the

367
00:30:32,630 --> 00:30:34,890
first artifact to emerge from the Zodiac
scene.

368
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:37,080
at a sign of the experiment to come.

369
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:49,040
We didn't like the existing music at
all, and we didn't want to copy English

370
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:50,320
or American music.

371
00:30:50,580 --> 00:30:56,080
We wanted to do kind of, later on we
would call it psychedelic music.

372
00:30:56,540 --> 00:31:00,600
It should be not nice, but it should be
special.

373
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:02,620
And that was the main thing.

374
00:31:03,100 --> 00:31:09,280
Today when I listen to it, if I dare to
listen to it, it's

375
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:13,680
rubbish. But it is important because

376
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,760
we...

377
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:23,280
We tried at least, you know, let's say
as a take off, what comes out later on,

378
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:28,440
nobody knew of this, you know, Tangerine
now went this way, I still went this

379
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,540
way, but for the breakthrough,

380
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:39,240
you know, it was very important, the
album, and also very inspiring for other

381
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:44,200
musicians, even if they don't do this.

382
00:31:44,750 --> 00:31:47,670
but at least they go another direction.

383
00:31:48,430 --> 00:31:52,250
By the time of the album's release,
however, the Zodiac Club was a distant

384
00:31:52,250 --> 00:31:55,350
memory, and the album's contributors had
gone their separate ways.

385
00:31:55,670 --> 00:31:59,950
Where Froese had continued to develop
Tangerine Dream, Konrad Schnitzler had

386
00:31:59,950 --> 00:32:04,070
joined his original collaborator, Achim
Rodelius, to form the group Cluster.

387
00:32:04,630 --> 00:32:09,230
Originally a two-piece, they recruited
Zodiac Club regular Dieter Mobius as the

388
00:32:09,230 --> 00:32:11,070
third member of their experimental
ensemble.

389
00:32:11,550 --> 00:32:13,590
Again, Schnitzler's philosophy
dominated.

390
00:32:14,330 --> 00:32:18,370
Using conventional instruments filtered
through various electronic devices, they

391
00:32:18,370 --> 00:32:21,530
would strive to create something both
unfamiliar and esoteric.

392
00:32:43,180 --> 00:32:49,940
showed me the stuff they had everything
for me ready for to be played and next

393
00:32:49,940 --> 00:32:56,940
after day after two days i think we had
our first show in the gallery we made

394
00:32:56,940 --> 00:33:03,640
a 12 hours non-stop show and and two
days later we left

395
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:10,400
berlin forever in a big yellow post
truck and we tried to make our

396
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:15,640
living with the music which was in the
beginning really very hard.

397
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:23,040
We went with the post bus from Berlin in
69 and stayed on the road

398
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:28,600
for about two years, wandering from one
city to another, knocking at museum

399
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:33,780
stores and saying, here we are, we want
to do something. Are you aware of us?

400
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,240
No. So you will be aware if you let us
play.

401
00:33:37,580 --> 00:33:39,140
And it worked.

402
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:41,040
In these years, it worked.

403
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:43,480
We just could survive.

404
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:47,340
That was all. But we had big fun. It was
a great experience.

405
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:54,280
We met a lot of people, and we made our
audience by this way, just traveling

406
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:55,440
from one city to another.

407
00:33:55,920 --> 00:34:02,740
From the north, from Oslo down to
Ljubljana, Cluster was really

408
00:34:02,740 --> 00:34:08,440
lucky to be able to do this way, to work
this way, even so we...

409
00:34:09,260 --> 00:34:11,100
We were very much in our life.

410
00:34:41,420 --> 00:34:45,080
We were not able to be a normal rock
band, of course.

411
00:34:45,900 --> 00:34:52,860
Couldn't play guitar riffs or real bass
or play real

412
00:34:52,860 --> 00:34:53,860
drum.

413
00:34:54,980 --> 00:35:01,460
So we had to invent, if we want to
realize that kind of music, we had to

414
00:35:01,460 --> 00:35:05,500
invent a new kind of music in a way.

415
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:11,420
Or, because we were not able to make
music, we

416
00:35:11,420 --> 00:35:17,940
had to do what we did or we couldn't
make music.

417
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:51,080
Once we had the start of this kind of
music we did,

418
00:35:51,260 --> 00:35:57,680
we couldn't stop anymore. We had to go
on this way and we wanted to go on this

419
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:02,980
way. It was not really our philosophy to
not make rock.

420
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:10,420
It was our philosophy to work with what
we had and what we could do with

421
00:36:10,420 --> 00:36:11,420
our hands.

422
00:36:13,770 --> 00:36:20,750
And to, of course, to get better in

423
00:36:20,750 --> 00:36:22,530
doing what we were doing.

424
00:36:22,950 --> 00:36:27,430
And this is working automatically in a
way.

425
00:36:28,450 --> 00:36:35,450
Cluster with a K made what I would call
early industrial music in a way. They

426
00:36:35,450 --> 00:36:36,450
were very harsh.

427
00:36:36,940 --> 00:36:38,600
The sounds were very metallic.

428
00:36:38,820 --> 00:36:39,820
They were very ringing.

429
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:43,420
There was a lot of, there was the sounds
of machinery, but they were also almost

430
00:36:43,420 --> 00:36:47,580
like the sound of industrial equipment
being heaved in and out of the studio.

431
00:36:48,100 --> 00:36:52,000
You know, if they were sort of dragging
concrete mixers in, revving them up, you

432
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:54,760
could kind of understand it. Kind of
like Einstein's under Neubauten or

433
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:55,760
something.

434
00:36:55,780 --> 00:36:58,200
But obviously much earlier.

435
00:36:58,820 --> 00:37:02,320
And they were interested in noise, I
think, more than anything else. The idea

436
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:04,620
of noise and how to manipulate noise.

437
00:37:06,500 --> 00:37:11,600
noise would, you know, be ignored for
quite a long time.

438
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:16,560
And, you know, it's just really
resurfaced over the past few years with

439
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:22,580
the American noise scene, like Wolf Eyes
and people like that, a whole load of

440
00:37:22,580 --> 00:37:26,980
bands that are involved in just creating
complete noise. And then there's the

441
00:37:26,980 --> 00:37:29,020
Japanese noise scene with Mertzbo.

442
00:37:29,820 --> 00:37:34,120
So they were sort of the precursors of
this entire noise scene, in my opinion.

443
00:37:34,340 --> 00:37:35,460
And I hear...

444
00:37:35,790 --> 00:37:41,050
Clustered with a K, I hear noise, and
beautiful noise, you know, noises that

445
00:37:41,050 --> 00:37:47,870
are interesting, that are... that have
been, you know, just to say, Schaefer

446
00:37:47,870 --> 00:37:52,190
would or Stockhausen would have been
composed and put together as a piece of

447
00:37:52,190 --> 00:37:56,170
music. As the Berlin bands were
beginning to branch out and the growth

448
00:37:56,170 --> 00:37:59,970
of experimental German music started to
appear more like a movement than a set

449
00:37:59,970 --> 00:38:04,490
of isolated individuals and collectives,
Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, the

450
00:38:04,490 --> 00:38:05,490
organisation,

451
00:38:05,690 --> 00:38:08,810
recorded their first and only LP, Tone
Float.

452
00:38:09,770 --> 00:38:14,410
Behind the desk for the album was Connie
Plank, a young producer and engineer who

453
00:38:14,410 --> 00:38:18,910
had recently completed work with Cluster
on their debut Klopp-Reichen and who had

454
00:38:18,910 --> 00:38:22,990
set up his own company, Rainbow
Productions, to record new German music.

455
00:38:23,410 --> 00:38:28,350
Tone Float was for both the organisation
and for Plank an experiment, a testing

456
00:38:28,350 --> 00:38:29,510
ground for new ideas.

457
00:38:30,290 --> 00:38:33,950
Tone Float is an album that is...

458
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:38,160
completely different from, say, what
happened with Kraftwerk eventually,

459
00:38:38,420 --> 00:38:40,620
mainly because it is more
percussive-based.

460
00:38:40,820 --> 00:38:42,340
There's a lot of percussion on it.

461
00:38:43,020 --> 00:38:47,660
Percussion, flute, and sort of a lot of
warbling in a way.

462
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:54,060
If it could be seen as a success, I
don't know if it can be seen as a

463
00:38:54,060 --> 00:38:57,820
success. I think it's more of an
experimentation, really. It's a way of

464
00:38:57,820 --> 00:39:02,320
them sort of like finding their own
feet, really, in a way, you know,

465
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:03,400
finding what they could do.

466
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:08,820
as this band and trying to see where
they could take it.

467
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:14,860
At that point, electronics played very
little part in their sound.

468
00:39:15,220 --> 00:39:20,480
It was mostly acoustical instruments,
you know what I mean?

469
00:39:20,700 --> 00:39:27,480
So it sounds a bit like a sort of ethnic
recording in a way, believe it or not,

470
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:29,140
like a German ethnic recording.

471
00:39:29,790 --> 00:39:35,970
But you hear it today, and it is an
extraordinary sort of example of early

472
00:39:35,970 --> 00:39:37,210
kraut rock.

473
00:40:26,650 --> 00:40:32,530
Before there was Kraftwerk, there was
the organisation, the album Tonefloat.

474
00:40:32,530 --> 00:40:36,630
Now, they're really using synthesizers
on that, and they're part of a sort of

475
00:40:36,630 --> 00:40:38,610
larger ensemble, as it were.

476
00:40:38,970 --> 00:40:44,950
But there are hints. First of all, in
the very name, the organisation, with

477
00:40:44,950 --> 00:40:50,610
that kind of obviously very pointed
formality, indicates the kind of rather

478
00:40:50,610 --> 00:40:53,530
conceptual, schematic way in which they
would intend to work.

479
00:40:54,750 --> 00:40:57,590
which is obviously very antithetical to
far more informal things you get with

480
00:40:57,590 --> 00:40:58,590
people like Alan Dool.

481
00:40:59,330 --> 00:41:03,270
So there was that, and also I think
there's a strong emphasis on a kind of,

482
00:41:03,270 --> 00:41:06,750
there's a sort of strong sort of
percussive, sort of minimal percussive

483
00:41:06,750 --> 00:41:10,750
line to it, which clearly would then
sort of, as it were, snake through the

484
00:41:10,750 --> 00:41:11,990
rest of Kraftwerk's career.

485
00:41:12,490 --> 00:41:16,350
The record was eventually taken by
producer Connie Plank to Britain, where

486
00:41:16,350 --> 00:41:18,490
he managed to secure it a release
through RCA.

487
00:41:19,410 --> 00:41:21,810
In Germany, however, the album was
unavailable.

488
00:41:22,220 --> 00:41:25,620
and thus failed to get Hutter and
Schneider any real success in their own

489
00:41:25,620 --> 00:41:30,300
country. Yet during 1970, the German
scene significantly developed.

490
00:41:30,660 --> 00:41:35,160
With their commune having now divided
into two separate musical groups, the

491
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:38,540
more accomplished Amon Dool Mark II
released their seminal double album

492
00:41:38,540 --> 00:41:42,700
Yeti, Cannes completed the line-up that
would cement their reputation with the

493
00:41:42,700 --> 00:41:47,100
recruitment of singer Deimo Suzuki, and
Klaus Schulze joined forces with

494
00:41:47,100 --> 00:41:49,940
guitarist Manuel Gottsching to form
Ashrar Temple.

495
00:41:51,150 --> 00:41:54,850
Yet it was a release from an enigmatic
band from Munich that pushed the musical

496
00:41:54,850 --> 00:41:59,930
language of the new German scene towards
pure electronics Popol Vuh were a trio

497
00:41:59,930 --> 00:42:04,370
fronted by the reclusive Florian Fricke
and their debut record Affenstund

498
00:42:04,370 --> 00:42:10,390
introduced new technologies and
extraterrestrial sounds Popol Vuh was

499
00:42:10,390 --> 00:42:15,850
actually the band of Florian Fricke and
he was

500
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,600
Not a close friend of mine, but he was a
friend already.

501
00:42:21,660 --> 00:42:26,260
And he lived outside of Munich in this
little village, Miesbach.

502
00:42:26,780 --> 00:42:33,360
And I got to know him through Eberhard
Schöner, which was a classical

503
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:39,480
conductor and classical trained
musician, which became as well an

504
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:40,700
electronic musician.

505
00:42:41,060 --> 00:42:46,240
And their houses in the countryside in
this village have been...

506
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:48,780
maybe five minutes from each other.

507
00:42:49,260 --> 00:42:56,040
And it was 69 when I again visited
Eberhard Schöner in

508
00:42:56,040 --> 00:43:00,620
Miesbach. We very often met there at the
weekends.

509
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:07,920
And the bus I took broke down, so I had
to walk up this hill.

510
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:10,480
Miesbach is up on a hill, yeah?

511
00:43:11,100 --> 00:43:13,340
Beautiful Bavarian landscape.

512
00:43:14,230 --> 00:43:15,970
And I heard these strange sounds.

513
00:43:16,610 --> 00:43:17,730
So strange.

514
00:43:18,090 --> 00:43:22,410
I heard a lot of this experimental music
on tapes.

515
00:43:23,190 --> 00:43:28,850
Eberhard as well as Florian Fricke with
Popol Vuh tried and he did all this with

516
00:43:28,850 --> 00:43:32,850
flutes and acoustically things. But this
was different.

517
00:43:33,150 --> 00:43:39,110
I never heard a sound like this. I never
heard sounds like this. It was like,

518
00:43:39,290 --> 00:43:40,370
well...

519
00:43:41,330 --> 00:43:43,910
somewhere out of space, from the moon.

520
00:43:44,490 --> 00:43:49,170
I couldn't figure out what it was, and
it was a bit spooky as well.

521
00:43:49,750 --> 00:43:56,490
And I walked toward the house of Florian
Fricke, and it became louder and louder,

522
00:43:56,530 --> 00:44:02,750
and suddenly I knocked at the door, and
his wife opened and she said, Psst!

523
00:44:04,710 --> 00:44:07,190
He has a new instrument.

524
00:44:07,830 --> 00:44:08,830
I said, Oh?

525
00:44:09,470 --> 00:44:10,890
What is that called?

526
00:44:11,590 --> 00:44:13,870
MOOC. I said, MOOC?

527
00:44:14,430 --> 00:44:16,070
It's a synthesizer.

528
00:44:16,290 --> 00:44:20,150
And this was in the house of Florian.

529
00:44:20,730 --> 00:44:26,210
He had a shack behind the house filled
with this MOOC synthesizer because the

530
00:44:26,210 --> 00:44:28,610
first MOOC synthesizer was as big as a
house.

531
00:44:29,170 --> 00:44:32,110
And all these cables and all these...

532
00:44:32,780 --> 00:44:39,600
strange knobs and it was staining there.
It was like really

533
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:44,240
I saw a sorcerer from Mars or something
like that.

534
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:46,880
He did the sounds with that.

535
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,120
I liked Florian Frick. I met him.

536
00:45:30,900 --> 00:45:32,600
He lived near Munich.

537
00:45:32,980 --> 00:45:36,620
He had his first MOOC synthesizer, this
big thing.

538
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:43,520
Oh, he was part of the scene, but away
from it as well, at the same time, I

539
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:44,499
think.

540
00:45:44,500 --> 00:45:49,680
He behaved like this as well, I think.
He didn't like too much people around

541
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:50,680
himself.

542
00:45:52,980 --> 00:45:55,780
He was a real mystic, mystic people.

543
00:45:57,290 --> 00:46:01,570
He was wealthy enough to be able to buy
a Moog synthesizer in 1969.

544
00:46:02,030 --> 00:46:04,710
I mean, a Moog synthesizer then would
have cost a lot of money.

545
00:46:05,650 --> 00:46:10,650
And he basically would have come in
various modules being sent to him from

546
00:46:10,650 --> 00:46:13,230
America, and he would have had to put it
together at the cost of all this.

547
00:46:13,530 --> 00:46:19,430
And he had 64 keys, his one, and he
spent a lot of time working on it.

548
00:46:19,550 --> 00:46:22,630
Remember that with a Moog, each key has
to be tuned.

549
00:46:23,390 --> 00:46:26,090
If you want to make a sound, you have to
tune each key.

550
00:46:26,310 --> 00:46:30,130
It's a very laborious process. There's
an awful lot of wiring to be done.

551
00:46:30,690 --> 00:46:35,970
I think he had this Moog synthesizer and
they used it to get recognition.

552
00:46:37,730 --> 00:46:43,450
But remember, the synthesizer was a key
to the German scene.

553
00:46:43,650 --> 00:46:47,970
They really seized on it, driven by
Stockhausen and all the other people.

554
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:52,560
They seized on instruments in a way
that, you know, other cultures didn't

555
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:53,560
seize on them.

556
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:59,480
I mean, in America, you had records
coming out like Wendy Carlos and Morton

557
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:02,000
Sabotnick, which were driven by
commercials.

558
00:47:02,300 --> 00:47:05,060
Let's make it literally commercials.

559
00:47:05,500 --> 00:47:11,220
You had Wendy Carlos playing back on,
which was an enormous feat to do on an

560
00:47:11,220 --> 00:47:13,660
early Moog, a prototype Moog.

561
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,260
But the Germans weren't interested in
that. I mean, they could...

562
00:47:40,420 --> 00:47:44,080
Electronic music is a music without
tradition.

563
00:47:44,990 --> 00:47:51,010
The things that were made there were
only known to a very small audience in

564
00:47:51,010 --> 00:47:52,010
the 60s.

565
00:47:52,830 --> 00:47:59,710
You think of Stockhausen, that would be
the great-grandfather or people like

566
00:47:59,710 --> 00:48:00,710
Pierre Schäffer.

567
00:48:00,810 --> 00:48:04,390
They were names that only very few
people knew.

568
00:48:06,070 --> 00:48:11,230
Or the early experiments with
electronics by people like Luigi Nono.

569
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:19,800
That was a high culture avant

570
00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:26,680
-garde insider group that knew that. For
the 16 or 18-year-old

571
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:32,020
young people, access to electronic music
was completely different.

572
00:48:32,380 --> 00:48:36,520
The tradition that existed was that of
the science fiction film.

573
00:48:58,380 --> 00:49:03,880
I think in many music biographies of
people, where the age roughly belongs,

574
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:08,560
one finds Forbidden Planet as the film
that was the first to await a complete

575
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:11,300
electronic soundtrack.

576
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:20,640
It's not just that these film musics
were something completely new all of a

577
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:21,640
sudden.

578
00:49:22,300 --> 00:49:25,340
This film genre was rejoicing at that
time.

579
00:49:27,290 --> 00:49:33,190
and more than the film, the films, the
corresponding literature.

580
00:49:33,650 --> 00:49:38,190
Lars, the young worker, read science
fiction novels and dreamed of another

581
00:49:38,190 --> 00:49:41,130
and hopefully better world.

582
00:49:41,550 --> 00:49:47,850
And the soundtrack for it, after seeing
these films, like Forbidden Planet,

583
00:49:48,110 --> 00:49:51,110
you also knew what this future would
sound like.

584
00:50:06,350 --> 00:50:13,030
The view went into the future and one
chose a music

585
00:50:13,030 --> 00:50:18,810
that sounded completely not only

586
00:50:18,810 --> 00:50:24,510
not from this country, but also not from
this world.

587
00:50:25,470 --> 00:50:32,370
And at the same time when the need for
it was there, the technical means

588
00:50:32,370 --> 00:50:33,870
for it were also created.

589
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:55,140
In the 60s, exactly these means of sound
design came,

590
00:50:55,140 --> 00:50:58,320
which have something to do with space.

591
00:50:59,300 --> 00:51:06,040
Resonance, echo, so everything that
creates artificial spaces that sound to

592
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:08,900
you immediately says, here we are
somewhere else.

593
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,540
And then this mood just fits.

594
00:51:23,940 --> 00:51:29,680
And it was within this climate of a
developing electronic music scene that

595
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:30,680
Kraftwerk appeared.

596
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:33,820
Having been dropped from their label
after the failure of the organisation

597
00:51:33,820 --> 00:51:38,220
record, Ralph Hutter and Florian
Schneider regrouped and renamed their

598
00:51:38,220 --> 00:51:40,940
outfit. Literally translated as
Powerplant.

599
00:51:41,390 --> 00:51:44,550
Kraftwerk were one of the few groups
within the scene that had chosen a

600
00:51:44,550 --> 00:51:47,870
German name, and it perfectly summed up
their aesthetic goals.

601
00:51:48,590 --> 00:51:52,470
A major city situated in the heart of
Germany's main industrial area,

602
00:51:53,050 --> 00:51:56,210
Dusseldorf itself provided a key
influence for Hütte and Schneider.

603
00:51:56,650 --> 00:52:00,290
Since the war, the area had been
developed and renovated, and this

604
00:52:00,290 --> 00:52:04,110
progressive, modern industrial world
would be reflected in Kraftwerk's music.

605
00:52:04,830 --> 00:52:09,010
Featuring the twin drumming of Andreas
Hohmann and future Neue member Klaus

606
00:52:09,010 --> 00:52:13,500
Dinger, Kraftwerk once again called on
Conny Plank to record their self-titled

607
00:52:13,500 --> 00:52:17,460
debut in August 1970, assisted by
engineer Klaus Lohmer.

608
00:52:25,930 --> 00:52:29,250
They had a drum set up, it was a
children's drum set, where they played.

609
00:52:29,510 --> 00:52:34,170
We did a soundcheck and tried it out.
One day there was a grill in the studio,

610
00:52:34,210 --> 00:52:35,210
it was a huge studio.

611
00:52:35,410 --> 00:52:39,610
Then we drove up there with a big violin
and made a song, I don't know if it's on

612
00:52:39,610 --> 00:52:43,250
the CD or on the album, a song with a
grill.

613
00:52:43,650 --> 00:52:45,230
But it was live in the studio.

614
00:52:45,930 --> 00:52:49,810
And that was always great, you always
tried it out. Of course, it was a bit

615
00:52:49,810 --> 00:52:53,690
like that, sometimes in a rush, that was
part of it back then.

616
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:55,820
And that's how it all started.

617
00:52:56,920 --> 00:53:01,400
He was open to everything. He also
produced the Blackfields, a group of

618
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:02,400
people from Cologne who were doing
carnival.

619
00:53:03,380 --> 00:53:04,820
Gianna Nannini came here.

620
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:11,360
He was just a guy who could approach
people, he could tick out what they had.

621
00:53:11,980 --> 00:53:13,540
There was a specialist in it.

622
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:17,920
And the peace itself, if someone
couldn't do it, it was completely in

623
00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:21,200
peace, completely relaxed. Again and
again, and then we do that again.

624
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:23,840
He really put a lot of effort into it.

625
00:53:26,180 --> 00:53:29,480
They could play quite well, but they
actually only tried.

626
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:33,240
That's how I remember it. That was a
long time ago.

627
00:53:34,160 --> 00:53:38,680
They couldn't play technically well, but
they had great ideas. And with the few

628
00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:42,200
of them, you can compare with the
guitarist of Procol Harum. He had

629
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:45,540
nothing on it, but the few notes he
played, they sat.

630
00:53:45,860 --> 00:53:46,860
It was the same with them.

631
00:53:48,460 --> 00:53:53,480
Kraftwerk's self-titled debut was issued
in late 1970 on the Philips label, only

632
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:55,480
months after the release of Tone Float.

633
00:53:55,860 --> 00:53:59,700
With both accessible and highly
experimental material contained across

634
00:53:59,700 --> 00:54:03,660
its four tracks, it went on to sell
60,000 copies in Germany.

635
00:54:04,620 --> 00:54:10,560
It was distinguished by the use of the
flute. I mean, the flute and very light

636
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:13,320
keyboards and this lovely...

637
00:54:13,900 --> 00:54:17,220
patina of percussion that they were
generating from the bass keys of the

638
00:54:17,220 --> 00:54:18,220
keyboard.

639
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:20,100
And there was a lightness to it.

640
00:54:21,020 --> 00:54:24,980
And there was a clarity to it that was
very different.

641
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:27,880
They were going for a much more
minimalistic sound.

642
00:54:28,300 --> 00:54:33,380
It wasn't a huge band improvising in a
studio. It wasn't loud and noisy and

643
00:54:33,380 --> 00:54:40,120
hitting you over the head. It was
basically sound and

644
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:43,080
music that was very well organised.

645
00:55:16,150 --> 00:55:17,470
Musically, that's still great.

646
00:55:18,090 --> 00:55:23,270
With the ruck-zuck, when we recorded it,
we were so excited that we had to listen

647
00:55:23,270 --> 00:55:26,810
to it again and again and worked on it
all the time. Then you knew, that's it,

648
00:55:26,990 --> 00:55:28,550
you can feel it.

649
00:55:29,310 --> 00:55:33,450
There are different situations in the
studio, when you suddenly want to hear

650
00:55:33,450 --> 00:55:36,310
it again and again, what you recorded,
then there's something to it.

651
00:55:52,970 --> 00:55:59,550
Rugbook was a track that was solidly
based on building rhythms

652
00:55:59,550 --> 00:56:05,750
and putting them together in a way that
would become memorable and danceable to,

653
00:56:05,850 --> 00:56:06,749
I should imagine.

654
00:56:06,750 --> 00:56:13,270
So they were interested in compressing
their sound in a way and

655
00:56:13,270 --> 00:56:18,390
creating a rhythmic stride to it that
would...

656
00:56:19,860 --> 00:56:23,180
appeal, I should imagine. They were
trying to be appealing as well as, you

657
00:56:23,180 --> 00:56:24,840
know, revolutionary.

658
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:31,460
The thing about Kraftwerk 1 is that it
ends with this track von Himmel hoch, or

659
00:56:31,460 --> 00:56:32,660
coming down from the heavens.

660
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:37,180
And it just sounds like falling bombs
coming down on top of you and exploding.

661
00:56:37,720 --> 00:56:41,940
And that would be very pertinent to the
German experience.

662
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:45,780
The difference in Kraftwerk and the
other bands, and the other bands wished

663
00:56:45,780 --> 00:56:49,880
to totally disassociate themselves from
the past, from the German history.

664
00:56:50,740 --> 00:56:55,860
And they also wished to actually make a
totally new, using the hippie ideal of

665
00:56:55,860 --> 00:56:59,000
free-form improvisation. But Kraftwerk
were different. They were willing to

666
00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:00,000
embrace the past.

667
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:05,380
And in so doing, they actually, in the
long term, they invented a new kind of

668
00:57:05,380 --> 00:57:10,360
aesthetic that people around the world
could really relate to by using humour.

669
00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:15,000
and experiment and brilliant
understanding of electronic sound

670
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:20,120
they've made their own they made they
were basically remade german identity

671
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:25,320
and made it something to actually look
at and you can feel it in on carpet one

672
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:29,060
they're actually willing to embrace the
fact that a lot of bombs were both

673
00:57:29,060 --> 00:57:33,960
dropped on and by germany and this is an
experience that let's say stockhausen

674
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:37,480
had gone through first hand being a
stretcher bearer in the second world war

675
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:39,580
he a lot of bombs were dropped on him he
escaped

676
00:57:40,570 --> 00:57:43,870
And so this was a very brave thing to do
in some ways.

677
00:57:44,110 --> 00:57:48,330
And it was obviously going to, they
weren't going to shun the path.

678
00:58:28,490 --> 00:58:34,570
I missed the organisation record and I
think whole Germany missed it because it

679
00:58:34,570 --> 00:58:35,930
was not released here.

680
00:58:36,250 --> 00:58:40,070
So it started really with the first
Kraftwerk here.

681
00:58:41,290 --> 00:58:46,630
Well, again, people made jokes and said,

682
00:58:46,770 --> 00:58:52,810
it's like, well, are they with the tape?

683
00:58:53,900 --> 00:58:57,380
in a noisy house, what do they do?

684
00:58:57,620 --> 00:59:04,180
This is not music. Maybe it's
experimental music, yes. We can accept

685
00:59:04,180 --> 00:59:09,420
that. But it has nothing to do with the
underground scene, with the alternative

686
00:59:09,420 --> 00:59:11,000
scene, with the rock scene.

687
00:59:11,580 --> 00:59:12,580
Okay,

688
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:18,000
it might be interesting, but it is
something for a very limited audience.

689
00:59:19,420 --> 00:59:21,600
For the art people or something.

690
00:59:22,670 --> 00:59:26,810
Indeed, Kraftwerk promoted the album
with a tour not of rock clubs, but of

691
00:59:26,810 --> 00:59:28,950
universities, parties and art galleries.

692
00:59:29,630 --> 00:59:33,990
A modest success, and released only
domestically, it nevertheless introduced

693
00:59:33,990 --> 00:59:36,770
the band to new listeners and placed
them on the musical map.

694
00:59:37,210 --> 00:59:41,650
During the first half of 1971, however,
the band underwent many dramatic

695
00:59:41,650 --> 00:59:46,850
changes. Ralph Hutter unexpectedly quit,
leaving Florian Schneider to lead a

696
00:59:46,850 --> 00:59:48,130
perpetually changing ensemble.

697
00:59:49,090 --> 00:59:52,450
Eventually, guitarist Michael Rother
joined the band, with Klaus Dinger the

698
00:59:52,450 --> 00:59:53,408
lone drummer.

699
00:59:53,410 --> 00:59:57,210
Although this line-up did record several
tracks with Connie Plank and made a TV

700
00:59:57,210 --> 00:59:58,970
appearance, it was not to last.

701
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:47,620
Yet the German scene itself was proving
that it did have staying power, with

702
01:00:47,620 --> 01:00:52,000
Ashraa Temple's groundbreaking
self-titled debut Unleashed in June, and

703
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:56,100
both Cluster and Popple Voo's second
albums faring well with the critics, and

704
01:00:56,100 --> 01:00:58,560
ensuring that they kept their small but
secure audiences.

705
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:03,060
Festivals and performances featuring the
scene's leading lights continued to

706
01:01:03,060 --> 01:01:06,700
introduce the various bands to new
listeners, and the release of Cannes'

707
01:01:06,720 --> 01:01:10,680
seminal Tego Mago proved that
experimental German music was alive and

708
01:01:10,680 --> 01:01:11,680
well in the new decade.

709
01:01:13,130 --> 01:01:17,350
Many of these acts, including Kraftwerk,
were now releasing music that was

710
01:01:17,350 --> 01:01:20,430
totally unlike anything produced
anywhere else in the world.

711
01:01:20,670 --> 01:01:25,690
We were pretty much aware that we
weren't raised in the Mississippi Delta,

712
01:01:25,910 --> 01:01:32,550
or we weren't raised in Liverpool, and
it was certainly not our identity.

713
01:01:33,610 --> 01:01:39,010
And having an artistic mind somehow,
probably I didn't know at that time,

714
01:01:41,870 --> 01:01:48,650
I think our generation had to come up
with a counterpoint to that.

715
01:01:49,630 --> 01:01:55,810
It doesn't make sense really to

716
01:01:55,810 --> 01:02:00,150
play the music you really love, you
really like.

717
01:02:00,790 --> 01:02:06,830
It's one thing, but coming up with an
own genuine idea and

718
01:02:06,830 --> 01:02:12,320
by defining your own your own

719
01:02:12,320 --> 01:02:18,420
reality and your own culture, you have
to come up with some other thing.

720
01:02:37,900 --> 01:02:42,420
So it's not like you say, okay, we can't
play rock'n'roll, so we'll invent

721
01:02:42,420 --> 01:02:43,420
something else.

722
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:47,800
So it's as if there was a discussion and
a plan.

723
01:02:48,820 --> 01:02:51,120
It happened by itself.

724
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:25,320
I would compare it a little bit to the
psychedelic explosion in San Francisco,

725
01:03:25,460 --> 01:03:31,520
where it was just one area in America
where suddenly, yeah, it was the scene,

726
01:03:31,680 --> 01:03:34,400
yeah. And suddenly you had the feeling.

727
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:39,200
So many musicians, so many bands, so
many influences.

728
01:03:40,160 --> 01:03:46,700
This just can happen once, I think. It
was the

729
01:03:46,700 --> 01:03:53,440
blooming of German music at its peak.

730
01:03:54,040 --> 01:03:58,740
By September 1971, work began on
Kraftwerk's second album.

731
01:03:59,260 --> 01:04:03,020
Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger had by
now departed to form Neu.

732
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:06,320
who would become one of the most
influential bands on the German scene,

733
01:04:06,520 --> 01:04:09,140
and Hütter and Schneider were now
reduced to a duo.

734
01:04:10,040 --> 01:04:14,440
Having begun work on the construction of
a personal studio the previous year, the

735
01:04:14,440 --> 01:04:18,020
pair recorded their fresh compositions
both at this newly built location in

736
01:04:18,020 --> 01:04:20,660
Dusseldorf and at Connie Plank's studio
in Hamburg.

737
01:04:21,340 --> 01:04:24,480
The result of their labours was the
album Craftwork II.

738
01:04:25,120 --> 01:04:28,600
I think with each subsequent Craftwork
album, they...

739
01:04:29,690 --> 01:04:32,570
stripping back something a little bit
more and more, but of course it's filled

740
01:04:32,570 --> 01:04:35,710
with a stage of craftwork. They are
still using what you might call

741
01:04:35,710 --> 01:04:39,970
conventional instruments, but using them
almost as if they were electronic

742
01:04:39,970 --> 01:04:44,310
instruments in some ways, and they are
experimenting with laying down different

743
01:04:44,310 --> 01:04:47,970
configurations, different patterns,
working with repetitions, almost using

744
01:04:47,970 --> 01:04:51,630
instruments as a thing in itself,
exploring textures, as it were, rather

745
01:04:51,630 --> 01:04:54,030
than text, still reluctant to introduce.

746
01:04:55,200 --> 01:05:00,720
vocals and so it is you know looking
back at the time they disavowed those

747
01:05:00,720 --> 01:05:03,680
albums of Kraftwerk they don't really
want people to hear them they'd rather

748
01:05:03,680 --> 01:05:07,260
that the year zero of Kraftwerk occurred
a little bit further down the line in

749
01:05:07,260 --> 01:05:11,080
the mid 70s somewhere but you can you
know these albums are actually eminently

750
01:05:11,080 --> 01:05:14,760
listenable in their own right and you
can see the direction they're heading in

751
01:05:14,760 --> 01:05:18,180
to be honest a lot of the tracks on
Kraftwerk for one and two are basically

752
01:05:18,180 --> 01:05:21,020
experiments there's not many

753
01:05:21,970 --> 01:05:26,870
on those albums which are that melodic
with the exception of Sing Clang on the

754
01:05:26,870 --> 01:05:32,190
second record, which is a defining
moment in Kraftwerk's where they

755
01:05:32,190 --> 01:05:37,950
actually come up with this glacial
motoric beat and then the glacial

756
01:05:37,950 --> 01:05:41,570
keyboards and flutes over the top, which
is their

757
01:05:43,710 --> 01:05:46,850
their trademark and this is what
happened on Tlingit land. I think they

758
01:05:46,850 --> 01:05:50,070
probably came upon that and this would
be the sound that would define them

759
01:05:50,070 --> 01:05:52,770
because obviously they couldn't keep on
just doing experiments.

760
01:06:41,480 --> 01:06:43,820
The wonderful feature of that, and the
things that you're just not hearing

761
01:06:43,820 --> 01:06:47,580
anywhere else, first of all, the
synthesizer, it synthesizes the

762
01:06:47,580 --> 01:06:48,800
fountain, that form, the basis.

763
01:06:49,680 --> 01:06:53,780
They're directing it, they're leading
it, they're shaping it, and there are no

764
01:06:53,780 --> 01:06:54,780
vocals.

765
01:06:55,420 --> 01:06:59,200
You've got instruments like flute just
playing a kind of very supplementary

766
01:06:59,200 --> 01:07:02,180
role, kind of filling in, adding color
here and there. And in fact, they would

767
01:07:02,180 --> 01:07:04,660
use electronics to create that kind of
effect later on.

768
01:07:05,880 --> 01:07:10,360
They've got these wonderful little very
speedy effects going on as well.

769
01:07:11,120 --> 01:07:14,240
And in a sense, with that album,
particularly that track, they are kind

770
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:19,040
of setting the tone for what they're
going to do the rest of their career,

771
01:07:19,140 --> 01:07:23,920
that kind of futuristic yet serene, you
know, the equivalent of a painter like

772
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:27,880
Fernand Leger with his kind of friendly
robots handing out flowers that, you

773
01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:31,540
know, the future, new technology, need
not be something that mankind would be

774
01:07:31,540 --> 01:07:32,540
at odds with.

775
01:07:33,220 --> 01:07:35,900
But the rest of the album doesn't really
tie in with that. The rest of the album

776
01:07:35,900 --> 01:07:37,120
is more kind of...

777
01:07:37,930 --> 01:07:41,470
it's more kind of fragmented
experimentation and ideas that they

778
01:07:41,470 --> 01:07:43,510
would eventually dispense with.

779
01:08:02,090 --> 01:08:05,990
There's a precision about Kraftwerk
which is not really.

780
01:08:06,860 --> 01:08:11,400
Their music is more about concision.
Whereas the other albums where you get

781
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:15,640
these double Amundul and double Asherah
Temple albums.

782
01:08:16,399 --> 01:08:20,819
I used to pick up the needle in the
record shop I worked in Dublin. I used

783
01:08:20,819 --> 01:08:26,880
to put it down anywhere and it would be
just like... Flip it over and put it

784
01:08:26,880 --> 01:08:30,180
down the middle of the track and it
would be just a load of stuff. Forget

785
01:08:30,180 --> 01:08:34,300
it. But with Kraftwerk you wanted to
listen to each track because it had some

786
01:08:34,300 --> 01:08:35,300
kind of structure.

787
01:08:35,640 --> 01:08:38,399
where there wasn't any structure on the
early Armand II.

788
01:08:39,300 --> 01:08:46,260
My favorite Kraftwerk track of all time
is this piece called Strom, where

789
01:08:46,260 --> 01:08:51,000
they were just demonstrating the
electric guitar, an instrument that was

790
01:08:51,000 --> 01:08:52,000
not very important for them.

791
01:08:52,279 --> 01:08:58,240
That was already so obvious that they
had a completely different attitude

792
01:08:58,240 --> 01:08:59,240
towards...

793
01:09:00,970 --> 01:09:06,310
The instruments were not instruments in
the sense of instrumental for production

794
01:09:06,310 --> 01:09:10,189
of something that has been conceived
elsewhere, but they had a life of their

795
01:09:10,189 --> 01:09:12,930
own. You put on an electric guitar,
let's see what it does.

796
01:09:48,319 --> 01:09:52,460
Obviously, the aesthetic investment was
into something completely different from

797
01:09:52,460 --> 01:09:57,360
what all the other bands were into. All
the other bands were into, with the most

798
01:09:57,360 --> 01:09:59,540
different means, but they were all into
experience.

799
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:02,980
Everything was about having an
experience with music.

800
01:10:03,180 --> 01:10:07,060
And Kraftwerk was not that. It was
obviously about distance to music. There

801
01:10:07,060 --> 01:10:10,640
was something conceptual, there was
something humorous, there was irony.

802
01:10:11,040 --> 01:10:15,480
But on the other hand, it was not
comedy. It was not openly ironic.

803
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:21,940
It was not the Bonsodog Duda band or
something like that. So that was, even

804
01:10:21,940 --> 01:10:25,200
for me as a search engineer, clearly
different from anything else.

805
01:10:26,220 --> 01:10:29,960
Yet during 1972, the scene continued to
diversify.

806
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:34,560
Bands such as Cannes, who followed up
the landmark Teg Omega with the equally

807
01:10:34,560 --> 01:10:38,700
successful Yig Bamiyazi, persevered in
their exploration of the extreme

808
01:10:38,700 --> 01:10:42,460
possibilities of rock music while the
electronic field continued to evolve.

809
01:10:43,130 --> 01:10:47,390
Edgar Froese's Tangerine Dream had
released the albums Alpha Centauri and

810
01:10:47,390 --> 01:10:51,250
Light, in which the band had progressed
from the experimental psychedelia of

811
01:10:51,250 --> 01:10:54,750
electronic meditation into an
atmospheric sound that Froese himself

812
01:10:54,750 --> 01:10:56,450
termed cosmic music.

813
01:10:56,750 --> 01:11:00,930
And former member Klaus Schulzler, who
had also been testing the boundaries of

814
01:11:00,930 --> 01:11:04,550
psychedelic rock with Ashra Temple,
emerged as a prominent electronic

815
01:11:04,550 --> 01:11:07,970
musician in his own right with his debut
solo record, Ehrlich.

816
01:11:10,440 --> 01:11:15,280
I want to do at this time 100%
electronic music, not the compromise

817
01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:22,100
with, let's say, conventional
instruments creating new

818
01:11:22,100 --> 01:11:27,740
sounds. I said, why don't we start with
a synthesizer and make a new sound

819
01:11:27,740 --> 01:11:31,440
instead of playing a guitar backwards or
whatever.

820
01:11:32,940 --> 01:11:39,420
But they still want to have it as an
instrument.

821
01:11:39,400 --> 01:11:44,100
important part of this music they want
to have traditional drums and

822
01:11:44,100 --> 01:11:49,920
traditional guitar okay they have some
they give let's say in one hour they

823
01:11:49,920 --> 01:11:54,940
give you five minutes to just freak out
with this but then we have to come back

824
01:11:54,940 --> 01:12:00,820
to this and this i was really fed up i
said no i i do it alone because at this

825
01:12:00,820 --> 01:12:04,940
time i was parallel also doing also
during tangerine time

826
01:12:06,540 --> 01:12:11,920
I was doing at home, experimenting with
a tape recorder, a little bit like a

827
01:12:11,920 --> 01:12:17,720
music concrete, but because at this time
we had no synthesizer, because they came

828
01:12:17,720 --> 01:12:23,000
quite late to Europe, and also they were
incredibly expensive at this time.

829
01:12:23,240 --> 01:12:25,820
Today you can have a studio for that,
you know.

830
01:12:26,200 --> 01:12:28,920
I didn't even know where I'm going
alone.

831
01:12:29,780 --> 01:12:34,620
But like in the beginning with
Electronic Meditation or with First

832
01:12:34,620 --> 01:12:40,100
Ashram, if it would not work, I would
probably be a painter or a teacher or

833
01:12:40,100 --> 01:12:46,920
whatever. But it worked relatively fast
because when

834
01:12:46,920 --> 01:12:53,580
I released Ehrlich, it was, I think half
a year later, it was kind of a top ten

835
01:12:53,580 --> 01:12:54,700
album in France.

836
01:13:26,510 --> 01:13:32,330
Clive Schulzer is an interesting case,
and Elif is, again, an album which not

837
01:13:32,330 --> 01:13:35,210
only connects with some of the sort of,
like, minimalist things, you know,

838
01:13:35,290 --> 01:13:39,270
people like, in some ways, Bill Nivlock
to a certain extent, although it's much

839
01:13:39,270 --> 01:13:44,210
more accessible than his work, and to
the kind of more sort of drone-based

840
01:13:44,210 --> 01:13:47,130
experimental electronica of the 21st
century.

841
01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:54,100
So, yes, he peels away from Tangerine
Dream, as it were, and he does establish

842
01:13:54,100 --> 01:13:56,180
this kind of very individual furrow.

843
01:13:56,500 --> 01:14:00,800
Klaus Schulz's Airlift is a sort of
precursor to drone music.

844
01:14:01,540 --> 01:14:07,920
It sort of straddles what Sun Ra was
doing and, say, what the

845
01:14:07,920 --> 01:14:14,000
drone rock bands like Sun and people
like that are doing in the 90s and

846
01:14:14,000 --> 01:14:16,900
onwards. But it has a very cosmic feel
to it.

847
01:14:17,150 --> 01:14:21,130
but a very dark edge cosmic field.
You're on the dark side of the moon, if

848
01:14:21,130 --> 01:14:22,130
you know what I mean.

849
01:14:22,650 --> 01:14:24,250
You're in dark space.

850
01:14:25,330 --> 01:14:27,130
It's pretty bleak out there.

851
01:15:03,139 --> 01:15:06,800
Illich is also a kind of early
minimalism as well.

852
01:15:07,120 --> 01:15:13,680
It's stripping everything down to the
bare essentials of what the entire crap

853
01:15:13,680 --> 01:15:17,840
rock movement, particularly what
Tangerine Dream were doing and what

854
01:15:17,840 --> 01:15:22,220
Ashwar Temple were doing, down to the
very minimum. I think he's sort of honed

855
01:15:22,220 --> 01:15:26,900
it right down so that you're hearing the
very essence of what...

856
01:15:27,260 --> 01:15:29,380
he was trying to do within those two
groups.

857
01:15:29,720 --> 01:15:33,760
He was this Einzelgänger, this solo
person.

858
01:15:35,480 --> 01:15:41,100
Not really introvert like Florian
Fricke, much more open-minded,

859
01:15:41,180 --> 01:15:46,500
but I think he was a person who had to
do everything under control.

860
01:15:47,080 --> 01:15:53,280
There was a part of journalists and
media who took him very serious from the

861
01:15:53,280 --> 01:15:55,800
beginning. It was mostly from the
classical department.

862
01:15:56,890 --> 01:16:03,750
The classical departments in radio and
media found this

863
01:16:03,750 --> 01:16:05,110
is new classic.

864
01:16:07,050 --> 01:16:09,290
And I think they are right.

865
01:16:09,570 --> 01:16:10,710
He still is.

866
01:16:11,470 --> 01:16:16,410
I know myself that it's a very simple
structured album, Ehrlich.

867
01:16:16,710 --> 01:16:22,750
But it is a groundbreaking album in
terms of

868
01:16:22,750 --> 01:16:26,990
aesthetic. not from playing and all
this.

869
01:16:27,270 --> 01:16:30,050
And this has an importance.

870
01:16:30,850 --> 01:16:33,390
And then I said, oh yeah, it worked.

871
01:16:33,610 --> 01:16:40,250
And then I made one record after
another, nearly hundreds till now.

872
01:16:41,690 --> 01:16:45,950
While artists such as Schulze and Neu
were establishing their reputation as

873
01:16:45,950 --> 01:16:50,010
key figures in the German movement,
Kraftwerk laid low during 1972.

874
01:16:50,760 --> 01:16:54,200
performing few concert dates and working
further on developing their studio.

875
01:16:54,540 --> 01:16:58,980
Their first two albums were repackaged
as a double LP in the UK, but the

876
01:16:58,980 --> 01:17:02,180
release did little to spread awareness
of the duo outside of their homeland.

877
01:17:02,660 --> 01:17:07,600
After performing their first concerts
outside of Germany in early 1973, two

878
01:17:07,600 --> 01:17:11,680
French shows which were very favourably
reviewed by the local press, they once

879
01:17:11,680 --> 01:17:15,620
again enlisted Connie Plank to engineer
the sessions for their next album, Ralph

880
01:17:15,620 --> 01:17:16,620
and Florian.

881
01:17:16,920 --> 01:17:20,290
Released at the end of the year, It was
a notable progression from their

882
01:17:20,290 --> 01:17:21,290
previous two records.

883
01:17:21,770 --> 01:17:26,130
Ralph and Florian, I think, is a
breakthrough album for Kraftwerk. It's a

884
01:17:26,130 --> 01:17:27,410
1973 album.

885
01:17:27,670 --> 01:17:33,170
It's extremely melodic, it's extremely
confident, it has wonderful tracks on

886
01:17:33,170 --> 01:17:38,250
it. Some of the tracks could be
electronic classical music.

887
01:17:39,490 --> 01:17:44,690
There's a track called Dance With It,
which if you put it on now, it sounds

888
01:17:44,690 --> 01:17:45,690
like it was made yesterday.

889
01:18:09,500 --> 01:18:13,960
There's a thickness to the percussion
sounds, which gives it that depth, that

890
01:18:13,960 --> 01:18:14,959
real depth.

891
01:18:14,960 --> 01:18:20,660
And there's a crisp clarity to the
keyboard sounds and the flute sounds.

892
01:18:20,940 --> 01:18:25,240
But also this strong, wistful
romanticism is coming in, the kind of

893
01:18:25,240 --> 01:18:29,220
Malarian, Wagnerian thing is coming in.
And they're bringing that into the

894
01:18:29,220 --> 01:18:30,420
music. And there's this kind of...

895
01:18:33,240 --> 01:18:38,360
strange kind of nostalgia even. I think
Eno called it a strange nostalgia for

896
01:18:38,360 --> 01:18:39,360
the future.

897
01:18:39,680 --> 01:18:43,620
There's a strange nostalgia in that for
a future, but also that reflects the

898
01:18:43,620 --> 01:18:46,880
past. And then there's the humour, of
course, calling something a pineapple

899
01:18:46,880 --> 01:18:47,880
symphony.

900
01:18:49,000 --> 01:18:53,520
As an album, it's a wonderful album.
Also, it's a very ambient album in

901
01:18:53,520 --> 01:18:55,840
parts. Some parts are very quiet.

902
01:18:56,060 --> 01:19:01,640
And none of it has any noise or loudness
to it. And there's no...

903
01:19:02,170 --> 01:19:04,610
There's no like screaming rock guitars
on it.

904
01:19:05,030 --> 01:19:08,990
But there's elements of psychedelia
there. There's treated guitars, but

905
01:19:08,990 --> 01:19:12,570
there isn't like... There is a wonderful
record. It's a beautiful record

906
01:19:12,570 --> 01:19:13,570
actually.

907
01:19:40,970 --> 01:19:45,930
I do like Ruff and Flora, and Alan
O'Simpson in particular is a track which

908
01:19:45,930 --> 01:19:48,390
could have easily been made in the last
10 years.

909
01:19:50,850 --> 01:19:55,310
You could have been made by something
like The Orb or whatever, something like

910
01:19:55,310 --> 01:19:59,510
that. It's quite astonishingly ahead of
its time, and it's exploring quite a lot

911
01:19:59,510 --> 01:20:03,490
of ideas, which in fact Kraftwerk
themselves eventually dispensed with.

912
01:20:04,630 --> 01:20:06,470
But again, it has this kind of...

913
01:20:07,150 --> 01:20:11,730
Things like those Hawaiian guitars and
waves gently crashing against the sea. I

914
01:20:11,730 --> 01:20:16,090
suppose what they're doing there is
they're establishing this aspect of

915
01:20:16,090 --> 01:20:19,490
serenity, which I think is key to
Kraftwerk, which they use in a slightly

916
01:20:19,490 --> 01:20:21,930
different way later on.

917
01:20:22,190 --> 01:20:26,710
But it actually isn't just a stepping
stone on the way to Autobahn and Man

918
01:20:26,710 --> 01:20:29,350
Machine. It is a wonderfully listenable
album in its own right.

919
01:20:30,810 --> 01:20:34,230
As well as introducing more serene
elements into the album's musical

920
01:20:34,230 --> 01:20:38,080
content, With Ralph and Florian,
Kraftwerk began to assume a very

921
01:20:38,080 --> 01:20:39,440
particular visual identity.

922
01:20:39,900 --> 01:20:44,820
In 1973, Schneider and Hutter had met
violinist and artist Emil Schultz.

923
01:20:45,080 --> 01:20:49,620
Initially simply a musical collaborator,
Schultz's extensive studies in the arts

924
01:20:49,620 --> 01:20:53,440
at Dusseldorf Academy would lead him to
become a pivotal background figure in

925
01:20:53,440 --> 01:20:54,840
the overall Kraftwerk setup.

926
01:20:55,220 --> 01:20:59,700
The album not only included a bizarre
comic book conceived and illustrated by

927
01:20:59,700 --> 01:21:03,140
Schultz, but he also played a key part
in the overall cover design.

928
01:21:03,560 --> 01:21:07,440
in which the names Ralph and Florian
were written in a distinctively German

929
01:21:07,440 --> 01:21:11,300
typeface, and which featured a photo of
the pair looking less like rock

930
01:21:11,300 --> 01:21:13,100
musicians and more like scientists.

931
01:21:14,280 --> 01:21:18,260
Here, Ralph and Florian were not only
the musicians, but also the very

932
01:21:18,260 --> 01:21:22,380
abstracted subject of the record, and
this development of a unique and clearly

933
01:21:22,380 --> 01:21:26,640
German visual identity would play a
vital role in the future of the band.

934
01:21:27,220 --> 01:21:31,640
The idea they had of themselves was much
more of being kind of an artist in a

935
01:21:31,640 --> 01:21:38,540
sense. a type of artist that emerged in
the visual art world at that time

936
01:21:38,540 --> 01:21:42,420
after Warhol and Gilbert and George, who
were also very important, I think, for

937
01:21:42,420 --> 01:21:46,960
Graf Berg. This kind of artist that was
not longer just working in one field or

938
01:21:46,960 --> 01:21:51,940
around one problem or one question, but
tried to produce an entire artificial

939
01:21:51,940 --> 01:21:56,160
character that would be changeable
between different worlds, that could be

940
01:21:56,160 --> 01:21:59,440
used on a records cover as well as on
a...

941
01:22:00,040 --> 01:22:05,680
as in an exhibition place or on a stage.
This kind of mobility of an image is

942
01:22:05,680 --> 01:22:09,900
something that comes from pop music and
it has been adopted by the visual arts

943
01:22:09,900 --> 01:22:15,020
in a more professional or in a more
conceptual way in the 60s. And I think

944
01:22:15,020 --> 01:22:18,600
that was something that Kraftwerk
adopted.

945
01:22:18,880 --> 01:22:24,160
That was one thing. I think one thing
was the camp aspect that we are not...

946
01:22:24,800 --> 01:22:28,360
saying explicitly what we want, but we
are leaving it up to you and we give you

947
01:22:28,360 --> 01:22:34,220
all kind of material to project on. The
second was this idea of an artist that

948
01:22:34,220 --> 01:22:36,660
they had basically taken from the visual
arts.

949
01:22:36,920 --> 01:22:41,680
And the third thing was that they at one
point discovered this idea of German

950
01:22:41,680 --> 01:22:46,940
-ness as some kind of artificial idea
that was not connected to some kind of

951
01:22:46,940 --> 01:22:53,910
German nationalism or ideas of
German-ness that that existed

952
01:22:53,910 --> 01:22:57,510
historically, and they've all been
tainted, of course, by National

953
01:22:57,510 --> 01:23:03,870
Socialism or by the Nazis. So it was
something new, and I think these three

954
01:23:03,870 --> 01:23:08,330
ideas came together, and that made this
uniqueness.

955
01:23:09,130 --> 01:23:15,410
Because all the subjects after Ralph and
Florian were somehow coded as German.

956
01:23:16,290 --> 01:23:20,010
While Ralph and Florian were busy
developing their own unique brand in

957
01:23:20,010 --> 01:23:24,390
Dusseldorf, 1973 was a breakthrough year
for many of the German bands.

958
01:23:24,910 --> 01:23:29,230
In England, Richard Branson's Virgin
Records, a newly established independent

959
01:23:29,230 --> 01:23:33,490
label, was on the lookout for new
signings after the worldwide success of

960
01:23:33,490 --> 01:23:36,170
Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, their
first release.

961
01:23:37,210 --> 01:23:40,930
Virgin had originally been a small
record shop specialising in prog rock

962
01:23:40,930 --> 01:23:44,670
and imports from the German scene, and
Branson decided to bring some of the

963
01:23:44,670 --> 01:23:46,650
more prominent artists to a UK audience.

964
01:23:47,280 --> 01:23:52,820
The first thing where we, let's say,
made some money, which was nearly

965
01:23:52,820 --> 01:23:56,020
nothing, was in France over a couple of
years.

966
01:23:56,240 --> 01:24:01,160
And then Richard Branson there liked it,
this kind of German music he liked. He

967
01:24:01,160 --> 01:24:07,000
signed Cairn, he signed Faust, he signed
Tension Dream, Asher Temple, myself.

968
01:24:07,500 --> 01:24:12,300
And so, and through that, I think
through Virgin Records in the beginning,

969
01:24:12,380 --> 01:24:16,040
this kind of...

970
01:24:16,640 --> 01:24:18,520
Music was really successful.

971
01:24:18,960 --> 01:24:21,680
He must have a special feeling for it.

972
01:24:22,820 --> 01:24:28,680
Or maybe he just said it's such a freaky
music that nobody would dare to do such

973
01:24:28,680 --> 01:24:31,880
shit. I don't know what he was thinking
at this time.

974
01:24:32,360 --> 01:24:36,200
The only thing which I know is that
definitely he never listened to the

975
01:24:36,200 --> 01:24:37,200
music.

976
01:24:37,940 --> 01:24:41,540
By far the most noteworthy of his
findings was Tangerine Dream.

977
01:24:42,000 --> 01:24:46,080
With the release of their 1973 LP Atom,
they had already gained essential

978
01:24:46,080 --> 01:24:50,560
publicity in the UK when the record was
championed by pioneering DJ John Peel,

979
01:24:50,680 --> 01:24:52,940
who went on to name it his album of the
year.

980
01:24:53,560 --> 01:24:57,420
In their native Germany and in France,
Frozer's group had been both

981
01:24:57,420 --> 01:25:01,380
commercially and critically successful,
and their signing to Virgin propelled

982
01:25:01,380 --> 01:25:02,480
them onto the global stage.

983
01:25:02,980 --> 01:25:08,600
Their debut Virgin release, Phaedra, hit
the UK top 20 in 1974 and achieved six

984
01:25:08,600 --> 01:25:09,600
-figure sales.

985
01:25:09,930 --> 01:25:13,190
It also departed from the more
experimental sound of their previous

986
01:25:13,190 --> 01:25:17,030
records and introduced what would become
their trademark sequencer-driven

987
01:25:17,030 --> 01:25:18,030
soundscapes.

988
01:25:18,970 --> 01:25:22,890
Edgar Froese did approach Branson and he
had a very good deal.

989
01:25:23,450 --> 01:25:28,590
for Branson. He said that we make a lot
of music so you can put out music by

990
01:25:28,590 --> 01:25:32,410
Tangerine Dream and music by us the solo
musicians as well. You can put out two

991
01:25:32,410 --> 01:25:36,230
or three albums a year and we can give
you this for you know very little money

992
01:25:36,230 --> 01:25:39,870
as long as you get the mogs over and you
help us with it. And they were getting a

993
01:25:39,870 --> 01:25:41,570
lot of demand for a performance.

994
01:25:41,930 --> 01:25:46,810
They had a massive reputation as a great
live act and that live they were

995
01:25:46,810 --> 01:25:47,810
awesome.

996
01:25:48,280 --> 01:25:52,560
And they built a great reputation from
touring endlessly in Germany. I think

997
01:25:52,560 --> 01:25:55,480
probably those kind of things would have
been just different. He would have seen

998
01:25:55,480 --> 01:25:59,120
the figures, seen the amount of people.
So obviously there's an audience here.

999
01:25:59,280 --> 01:26:02,880
And he wasn't wrong. I mean, because
their albums were a massive hit in the

1000
01:26:02,880 --> 01:26:03,880
UK.

1001
01:26:39,850 --> 01:26:44,970
The thing about Tangerine Dream, unlike
other German bands, was that when you

1002
01:26:44,970 --> 01:26:48,550
heard the records, you did not feel that
human beings were playing them.

1003
01:26:49,170 --> 01:26:55,290
You didn't feel that these records were
being kind of pushed forward by human

1004
01:26:55,290 --> 01:26:58,830
beings. It was as if the actual
instruments had a life of their own. The

1005
01:26:58,830 --> 01:27:00,450
instruments were actually playing
themselves.

1006
01:27:01,050 --> 01:27:04,310
And they were making all these
incredible sounds. And they were very

1007
01:27:04,310 --> 01:27:05,310
good at texture.

1008
01:27:06,000 --> 01:27:09,760
Everything to meld into each other. And
it also had a very strong rhythmic

1009
01:27:09,760 --> 01:27:10,760
content.

1010
01:27:11,080 --> 01:27:17,980
And it was different. It didn't have the
random sounds of a lot of the

1011
01:27:17,980 --> 01:27:18,980
experimental music.

1012
01:27:19,180 --> 01:27:25,360
And it didn't have the kind of noise
side of, say, Noi or those bands or

1013
01:27:25,360 --> 01:27:29,760
even Kraftwerk. It was very melodic and
very, very...

1014
01:27:31,230 --> 01:27:35,010
continent very complete but it was as if
the instrument was playing itself and he

1015
01:27:35,010 --> 01:27:40,410
had these wonderful burbling bubbling
seasons bubbling music coming over and

1016
01:27:40,410 --> 01:27:43,650
of course you know richard branson sees
that they bring them over to england and

1017
01:27:43,650 --> 01:27:49,130
they can record it here and it was a
huge huge hit and it was enormously

1018
01:27:49,130 --> 01:27:53,090
influential so i don't think tangerine
dream because they took their name from

1019
01:27:53,090 --> 01:27:58,630
a beatles song um they were um lucy and
skyward diamond i think

1020
01:27:59,620 --> 01:28:02,740
In a lot of ways, they weren't actually
even seen as a German band.

1021
01:28:03,800 --> 01:28:07,440
And when they'd play, of course, you
couldn't see them. You didn't know what

1022
01:28:07,440 --> 01:28:10,800
they looked like. There were no pictures
on the album. They were just psychedelic

1023
01:28:10,800 --> 01:28:14,040
-looking covers or a blue cover with
something melting in it.

1024
01:28:14,380 --> 01:28:17,580
And when you went to a Times Between
concert, all you got was these banks of

1025
01:28:17,580 --> 01:28:23,620
flickering lights and there were three
people in front of them with their backs

1026
01:28:23,620 --> 01:28:24,900
to the audience playing them.

1027
01:28:25,400 --> 01:28:29,260
But you never saw their faces. He didn't
care about it because the music was just

1028
01:28:29,260 --> 01:28:32,240
pouring out and it was very, very
influential.

1029
01:29:34,309 --> 01:29:41,190
Phaedra was the first record that they
released on Virgin and in a way Phaedra

1030
01:29:41,190 --> 01:29:45,470
is the last great Tangerine Dream
record.

1031
01:29:45,790 --> 01:29:50,750
It's kind of boring in a way what he did
after Phaedra. He just made the whole

1032
01:29:50,750 --> 01:29:55,270
thing kind of sound like hard work
really.

1033
01:29:57,150 --> 01:30:00,890
But I think he was more and more
interested in the commercial aspects of

1034
01:30:00,890 --> 01:30:02,550
his sound than

1035
01:30:03,730 --> 01:30:04,730
experimentation anymore.

1036
01:30:05,450 --> 01:30:11,070
I think he was interested in perfection
and cleaning it up to the point where

1037
01:30:11,070 --> 01:30:14,670
all the guts had been washed out of it.

1038
01:30:15,590 --> 01:30:19,510
Tantrum and Dream, that kind of
inflection, really,

1039
01:30:20,390 --> 01:30:23,590
genuinely, a very interesting
proposition in that music has this kind

1040
01:30:23,590 --> 01:30:27,470
of very rich, very sort of roiling
quality. You never know quite what it's

1041
01:30:27,470 --> 01:30:30,030
going to become, what it's in the
process of becoming, where they might

1042
01:30:30,030 --> 01:30:31,030
take it.

1043
01:30:32,220 --> 01:30:36,940
In the end, I find Tangerine Dream in a
kind of mid-period rather disappointing.

1044
01:30:36,940 --> 01:30:39,480
You go back and listen to some of those
albums, while they might well have

1045
01:30:39,480 --> 01:30:43,540
seemed tremendously impressive at times,
especially with the latest stereophonic

1046
01:30:43,540 --> 01:30:48,520
equipment or whatever, they really don't
sound all that hot. I mean, they remind

1047
01:30:48,520 --> 01:30:52,420
you of, like, I don't know, the sort of
soundtrack, TV soundtrack music we get

1048
01:30:52,420 --> 01:30:56,780
to kind of horses, helicopter shots of
horses running along the cliff edges and

1049
01:30:56,780 --> 01:30:59,460
things like that. They're kind of
scampering sequences of a quality.

1050
01:31:00,340 --> 01:31:03,440
I always think it's a tremendous shame,
and I think they are one of the examples

1051
01:31:03,440 --> 01:31:08,500
of, like, Krautrock's kind of sort of
curiosity, its phonic curiosity, its

1052
01:31:08,500 --> 01:31:13,480
embracing of, like, electronics and the
science or whatever, being taken up a

1053
01:31:13,480 --> 01:31:17,320
rather sort of disproportionately
orthodox and functional path, which is

1054
01:31:17,320 --> 01:31:22,240
mostly, you know, a kind of
mock-grandiose sort of quality or simply

1055
01:31:22,240 --> 01:31:24,460
music that's just good soundtrack music.

1056
01:31:25,660 --> 01:31:30,000
While Tangerine Dream were busy making
their presence felt in the UK, Kraftwerk

1057
01:31:30,000 --> 01:31:32,860
were preparing to make their own
impression on the international market.

1058
01:31:33,320 --> 01:31:37,660
Having pared down their operations for
the past two albums, Ralph and Florian

1059
01:31:37,660 --> 01:31:41,100
decided to introduce new musicians to
the mix when they began recording at

1060
01:31:41,100 --> 01:31:42,980
their studios in the summer of 1974.

1061
01:31:44,300 --> 01:31:48,720
They drafted in percussionist Wolfgang
Flöhr and multi-instrumentalist Klaus

1062
01:31:48,720 --> 01:31:51,240
Röder to add new elements to the
Kraftwerk sound.

1063
01:31:58,640 --> 01:32:04,760
And the two... Ralf and Florian will
definitely do something.

1064
01:32:05,300 --> 01:32:08,500
We often didn't know what was going on.
Wolfgang didn't either.

1065
01:32:08,980 --> 01:32:13,900
Kraftwerk is Ralf and Florian. The other
was always just additional.

1066
01:32:14,420 --> 01:32:18,400
They then hired people almost like paid
musicians.

1067
01:32:19,700 --> 01:32:21,860
These musicians didn't always like that.

1068
01:32:22,560 --> 01:32:25,460
But I personally thought it was okay.

1069
01:32:34,790 --> 01:32:39,010
Hutter and Schneider's studio in
Düsseldorf, now named Klingklang, was

1070
01:32:39,010 --> 01:32:40,750
the locus of Kraftwerk's operations.

1071
01:32:41,150 --> 01:32:45,250
And since its inception, the pair had
been continually developing it, adding

1072
01:32:45,250 --> 01:32:48,770
new instruments and designing new
equipment that would help them realize

1073
01:32:48,770 --> 01:32:49,770
their sound.

1074
01:32:53,450 --> 01:32:59,650
In the backyard, a larger room, maybe
once a factory room, I think.

1075
01:33:00,710 --> 01:33:05,170
It was completely covered with a roll
door.

1076
01:33:05,410 --> 01:33:09,750
The famous roll door, I think, when I
came there for the first time, there was

1077
01:33:09,750 --> 01:33:14,370
suddenly, I rang and then a very heavy
roll door opened.

1078
01:33:15,350 --> 01:33:20,910
Then you went in through such a corridor
and then you came into this room, it was

1079
01:33:20,910 --> 01:33:21,910
pretty big.

1080
01:33:22,140 --> 01:33:25,660
It was not tinkered.

1081
01:33:26,460 --> 01:33:31,980
And then there was a huge horn speaker.

1082
01:33:32,400 --> 01:33:33,400
It was self-built.

1083
01:33:33,560 --> 01:33:34,820
I think Florian did that once.

1084
01:33:35,300 --> 01:33:38,580
Or they let themselves be built. They
let themselves be built a lot by

1085
01:33:38,580 --> 01:33:39,580
friends.

1086
01:33:40,520 --> 01:33:44,720
Then there were these electronic drums.
There weren't any yet, but there were

1087
01:33:44,720 --> 01:33:45,599
different ones.

1088
01:33:45,600 --> 01:33:50,440
different devices that were self-made
and then also these simple synthesizers

1089
01:33:50,440 --> 01:33:56,100
that you had back then, the Synth-EA was
there and then there was Ralf and

1090
01:33:56,100 --> 01:34:01,360
Florian with neon, that was all nicely
built up, that's pretty well known, I

1091
01:34:01,360 --> 01:34:07,580
think, this writing made of neon, they
also had a company that did it for them.

1092
01:34:08,940 --> 01:34:13,360
Ralf and Florian always had the right
friends who knew exactly how

1093
01:34:14,570 --> 01:34:15,570
who mastered the technique.

1094
01:34:17,330 --> 01:34:20,330
Conny was also part of that. Conny was
important in the studio and to make

1095
01:34:20,330 --> 01:34:21,330
everything perfect.

1096
01:34:22,050 --> 01:34:27,650
I assume that later it was done just as
well, but at that time Conny was very

1097
01:34:27,650 --> 01:34:28,650
important for the recordings.

1098
01:34:30,070 --> 01:34:35,910
And Ralf and Florian always had these
acquaintances or studio people and also

1099
01:34:35,910 --> 01:34:42,890
craftsmen who made this technique the
way they needed it. That went so far.

1100
01:34:57,320 --> 01:35:04,040
The result of their labours was the
album Autobahn.

1101
01:35:04,540 --> 01:35:09,520
Released in Germany and the UK at the
tail end of 1974, it was the last LP

1102
01:35:09,520 --> 01:35:12,440
that Ralph and Florian would record with
producer Conny Plank.

1103
01:35:12,840 --> 01:35:15,840
and it was the album that catapulted
them onto the international stage.

1104
01:35:16,520 --> 01:35:21,040
At its center was the title track, a
20-minute opus that took up the whole of

1105
01:35:21,040 --> 01:35:22,120
the record's first side.

1106
01:35:22,760 --> 01:35:26,940
The duo would eventually dismiss their
first three albums, and they chose to

1107
01:35:26,940 --> 01:35:29,440
reimagine this record as Kraftwerk Year
Zero.

1108
01:35:29,880 --> 01:35:35,100
The ideal thing was that in Autobahn, it
really had a subject matter that

1109
01:35:35,100 --> 01:35:37,380
combined all the ideas they were
thinking of.

1110
01:35:38,590 --> 01:35:44,030
That was the genius thing about it, that
all of a sudden they had a subject

1111
01:35:44,030 --> 01:35:49,010
matter. So far, these conceptualists
were thinking about ideas of how to be

1112
01:35:49,010 --> 01:35:53,790
an artist or how to be a musician in the
pop world with all these visual artist

1113
01:35:53,790 --> 01:35:57,690
concepts around, but they didn't have a
concept matter. They didn't have a

1114
01:35:57,690 --> 01:35:58,349
subject matter.

1115
01:35:58,350 --> 01:36:02,530
And then the idea of the German-ness was
the next thing, but it was still

1116
01:36:02,530 --> 01:36:06,790
something that had to be concretized
every time in a specific way.

1117
01:36:07,200 --> 01:36:10,420
And here they had everything together.
They had a highly musical subject

1118
01:36:10,420 --> 01:36:11,420
matter, the road.

1119
01:36:12,240 --> 01:36:17,000
Then the specific German version of it,
with the problematic thing, you know,

1120
01:36:17,040 --> 01:36:23,080
the proverbial achievement of the
fascists, that is always this kind of

1121
01:36:23,080 --> 01:36:24,080
proverbial talk.

1122
01:36:24,240 --> 01:36:30,000
The Germans after the Second World War
said, yeah, Hitler wasn't so bad after

1123
01:36:30,000 --> 01:36:33,420
all. I mean, he shouldn't have done this
with the Jews.

1124
01:36:34,730 --> 01:36:39,650
At least he built the Autobahn. So
Autobahn means this too.

1125
01:36:40,050 --> 01:36:44,870
And then, of course, it's the musical
aesthetic of that.

1126
01:36:45,110 --> 01:36:50,510
Something that takes from minimalism the
unfinishedness of music. Music that has

1127
01:36:50,510 --> 01:36:54,630
a structure that's not saying there's a
climax, at one point we come to an end,

1128
01:36:54,670 --> 01:36:55,870
but it's possibly endless.

1129
01:36:56,110 --> 01:36:59,690
All this together was a great moment.

1130
01:37:22,320 --> 01:37:26,760
Out of Barn is, I think Ralph Butcher
has said, that he was very much

1131
01:37:26,760 --> 01:37:29,540
influenced by the Beach Boys, and in
this particular case, he said that the

1132
01:37:29,540 --> 01:37:32,900
Beach Boys, to him, made music that
sounded like America, and he wanted a

1133
01:37:32,900 --> 01:37:35,800
music that sounded like Germany, that he
was going to make, and it's a kind of

1134
01:37:35,800 --> 01:37:39,920
tone poem, and it's a very sort of
picturesque piece of music, and there is

1135
01:37:39,920 --> 01:37:44,720
this kind of conscious homage to the
Beach Boys, Farn, Farn, Farn.

1136
01:37:45,040 --> 01:37:49,060
It's like... which we travel, travel,
travel, you know, slightly awkward

1137
01:37:49,060 --> 01:37:53,060
German, like fun, fun, fun, until Daddy
takes the T-Bird away. So there's that

1138
01:37:53,060 --> 01:37:54,860
kind of conscious allusion to the Beach
Boys.

1139
01:37:56,160 --> 01:37:58,760
But what's wonderful about the main
piece, and I think that really is the

1140
01:37:58,760 --> 01:38:05,000
essence of the album, the 17, 18 minutes
or whatever, is that you just get this,

1141
01:38:05,000 --> 01:38:09,120
it's like a sonic transcription of a car
journey, from the kind of ignition and

1142
01:38:09,120 --> 01:38:12,880
setting off, and then kind of bowling
sort of nicely along the road, then

1143
01:38:12,880 --> 01:38:13,980
hitting heavy traffic.

1144
01:38:14,880 --> 01:38:18,740
It would have seemed perhaps a very odd
subject matter to some of the people

1145
01:38:18,740 --> 01:38:21,100
that had maybe followed sort of
Kraftwerk generally or sort of the

1146
01:38:21,100 --> 01:38:24,800
alternative German rock scene for
somebody to be kind of offering a hymn

1147
01:38:24,800 --> 01:38:26,720
of praise to something like a motorway.

1148
01:38:27,160 --> 01:38:28,340
But Kraftwerk...

1149
01:38:28,600 --> 01:38:31,040
They do these things with a very wry
smile.

1150
01:38:31,420 --> 01:38:34,140
They're probably kind of aware of the
kind of hackles they're raising when

1151
01:38:34,140 --> 01:38:36,400
they do these things and they kind of
pose. They're looking slightly

1152
01:38:36,400 --> 01:38:38,440
effeminate and very un-rock and roll.

1153
01:38:38,760 --> 01:38:45,260
But as well as being an exquisite piece
of music, it's very cleverly provocative

1154
01:38:45,260 --> 01:38:46,260
as well.

1155
01:39:10,710 --> 01:39:15,530
What was happening with all the bands
was that the actual... Before, when you

1156
01:39:15,530 --> 01:39:18,610
heard the sounds, you knew it was coming
from a source.

1157
01:39:19,350 --> 01:39:23,630
And that somebody was trying to make a
sound coming from a source. And that's a

1158
01:39:23,630 --> 01:39:26,830
tree, a guitar, or that's an oscillator,
or that's a keyboard.

1159
01:39:27,470 --> 01:39:32,130
With Autobahn, you sort of forgot about
what the instruments sound like. I just

1160
01:39:32,130 --> 01:39:38,670
sort of more, just completely caught up
in this motoric melody and this

1161
01:39:38,670 --> 01:39:43,250
driving motoric rhythm and then this
melody and then the voice going Autobahn

1162
01:39:43,250 --> 01:39:47,170
over. And the whole thing gelled into
what you call music, where you actually

1163
01:39:47,170 --> 01:39:49,970
forget about the instruments and you
just listen to the music itself and

1164
01:39:49,970 --> 01:39:54,010
you're brought along with the music. I
think certainly the first side of

1165
01:39:54,010 --> 01:39:56,330
Autobahn, they become really great
musicians.

1166
01:39:56,880 --> 01:40:00,740
But then the second side of all the bad,
for some reason, they go back to

1167
01:40:00,740 --> 01:40:03,880
experiment. Whether these experiments
were experiments that were lying around

1168
01:40:03,880 --> 01:40:06,400
or stuff that was old stuff that they
hadn't finished.

1169
01:40:06,760 --> 01:40:09,900
But really the second side is probably a
side that people don't listen to.

1170
01:40:10,520 --> 01:40:13,520
Because it's going back to the Kraftwerk
one and two experiments.

1171
01:40:14,260 --> 01:40:18,140
But certainly the first side made them
international at the time, pop stars.

1172
01:40:54,000 --> 01:40:56,740
The main point was played by Conny
Plank.

1173
01:40:57,280 --> 01:41:03,180
The main role was that he actually mixed
everything and really put individual

1174
01:41:03,180 --> 01:41:04,260
parts together.

1175
01:41:04,880 --> 01:41:08,200
And afterwards the piece was made.

1176
01:41:08,940 --> 01:41:15,920
And I think that was even the last time
that Conny did that. And he also said to

1177
01:41:15,920 --> 01:41:20,480
me, he doesn't know exactly what a
Kraftwerk sounds like if he doesn't do

1178
01:41:20,480 --> 01:41:21,318
it anymore.

1179
01:41:21,320 --> 01:41:22,720
That was also very important.

1180
01:41:23,420 --> 01:41:30,400
I'm quite sure that the idea was making
a

1181
01:41:30,400 --> 01:41:36,140
statement on the realm of pop music, but
with our German identity.

1182
01:41:37,300 --> 01:41:43,820
And if you listen closely to the first
two records of Ralph and Florian, they

1183
01:41:43,820 --> 01:41:46,480
really came from this classical angle.

1184
01:41:47,620 --> 01:41:49,120
That's how I see it.

1185
01:41:49,440 --> 01:41:53,320
And then they moved towards pop music,
of course, by adding lyrics.

1186
01:41:53,620 --> 01:41:56,680
There's no pop music without lyrics,
apparently.

1187
01:41:57,120 --> 01:42:03,960
And by using the German lyrics and using
this word fun, which could be

1188
01:42:03,960 --> 01:42:09,860
understood in the English language as
fun, and you had this connection to the

1189
01:42:09,860 --> 01:42:15,120
Beach Boys, to fun on the Autobahn, and
using some of these German idioms

1190
01:42:15,120 --> 01:42:19,840
like... Autobahn and stuff like that,
using the picture of the Volkswagen and

1191
01:42:19,840 --> 01:42:23,740
the Mercedes-Benz, that opened up a
door, a new door.

1192
01:42:23,980 --> 01:42:30,940
And I think that's part of the success
of Autobahn,

1193
01:42:30,960 --> 01:42:34,820
of the first worldwide-selling Kraftwerk
record, actually.

1194
01:42:35,700 --> 01:42:40,440
This articulation of German identity was
not only a key ingredient of the track's

1195
01:42:40,440 --> 01:42:44,120
success abroad, but also restated
Kraftwerk's difference to their

1196
01:42:44,120 --> 01:42:48,240
contemporaries. While the other German
bands were keen to distance themselves

1197
01:42:48,240 --> 01:42:52,620
from their homeland, Kraftwerk's use of
lyrics sung in their native tongue would

1198
01:42:52,620 --> 01:42:55,480
be a real rarity not only on the UK and
US charts.

1199
01:43:15,470 --> 01:43:21,670
even worse than right-wing partly. It
was definitely reactionary. So singing

1200
01:43:21,670 --> 01:43:23,430
in German was politically impossible.

1201
01:43:45,420 --> 01:43:51,960
These clichés that German pop music has,
that is, the drummer has, that has a

1202
01:43:51,960 --> 01:43:58,100
very formalized language, in which in
very clear formulas about love, home,

1203
01:43:58,340 --> 01:44:00,300
such things are discussed.

1204
01:44:00,840 --> 01:44:07,340
There is talk about love, but in such a
cold, fixed

1205
01:44:07,340 --> 01:44:12,080
form that it has nothing to do with any
real people and a real love.

1206
01:44:14,910 --> 01:44:18,970
That's why Kraftwerk caricatured, or
that's how they were heard here in

1207
01:44:18,970 --> 01:44:23,590
Germany, their obviously senseless
texts,

1208
01:44:24,050 --> 01:44:30,490
which didn't make the attempt to be
somehow

1209
01:44:30,490 --> 01:44:32,030
profound.

1210
01:44:34,490 --> 01:44:39,910
And so obviously that it was again an
artistic statement.

1211
01:44:40,910 --> 01:44:43,270
It was a caricature of

1212
01:44:53,959 --> 01:44:58,040
Despite such culturally specific
elements, the record became a massive

1213
01:44:58,040 --> 01:44:59,400
hit in the US and the UK.

1214
01:45:00,000 --> 01:45:04,700
After being picked up by a radio station
in Chicago, the Autobahn single hit the

1215
01:45:04,700 --> 01:45:08,760
top 30 in the US and the album reached
the top five on both sides of the

1216
01:45:08,760 --> 01:45:14,010
Atlantic. It was a huge record and it
allowed them to then tour, you know,

1217
01:45:14,050 --> 01:45:17,210
America and so on. For the first time
they could actually go and tour in the

1218
01:45:17,210 --> 01:45:20,110
States, which was like a huge
breakthrough, yes, of course.

1219
01:45:20,350 --> 01:45:25,990
And I think for the first time Americans
and British could see that some German

1220
01:45:25,990 --> 01:45:31,950
music was really, really fantastic to
hear and friendly and warm and wasn't,

1221
01:45:31,950 --> 01:45:36,350
as Ian MacDonald had said many years
later, cold and unemotional. It was very

1222
01:45:36,350 --> 01:45:37,950
emotional and it was very funny as well.

1223
01:45:39,279 --> 01:45:42,740
Before departing for the tour, the
structure of the group changed once

1224
01:45:42,740 --> 01:45:47,020
more. Keen on the more expansive sound
as well as the image of a four-piece,

1225
01:45:47,280 --> 01:45:50,540
when Klaus Ruder quit the group, he was
instantly replaced with another

1226
01:45:50,540 --> 01:45:53,220
percussionist, music student Karl
Bartosz.

1227
01:45:53,460 --> 01:46:00,200
Well, my professor said, hey Karl, it
was 75, I've got this

1228
01:46:00,200 --> 01:46:06,020
telephone call now, there's this band
called Kraftwerk, they need a classical

1229
01:46:06,020 --> 01:46:07,200
trained percussionist.

1230
01:46:07,530 --> 01:46:08,750
here's the number, call them.

1231
01:46:09,330 --> 01:46:14,070
And I called back, and actually it was
Florian Schneider on the phone, and at

1232
01:46:14,070 --> 01:46:19,570
that time we were all very casual, so I
got phone calls every day, playing

1233
01:46:19,570 --> 01:46:21,010
there, playing there, playing there.

1234
01:46:22,050 --> 01:46:28,930
And I got there, and I just, as far as I
remember, I took my

1235
01:46:28,930 --> 01:46:32,950
vibraphone, I had a vibraphone, and
Florian came to my flat.

1236
01:46:34,480 --> 01:46:37,380
And we were carrying this vibraphone to
the Klingsham studio.

1237
01:46:37,780 --> 01:46:42,260
They put some sheet music in front of
me, and it was a song, as far as I

1238
01:46:42,260 --> 01:46:44,020
remember, it was a Kometen melody.

1239
01:46:45,160 --> 01:46:47,060
So it was basically a major scale.

1240
01:46:47,820 --> 01:46:53,220
I was playing this from the sheet music,
and a little riff here, a little riff

1241
01:46:53,220 --> 01:46:58,600
there. And we were laughing, had some
fun, and that was it. I was in the band.

1242
01:47:00,240 --> 01:47:03,360
Kraftwerk arrived in the U.S. in April
for the 22-day tour.

1243
01:47:04,080 --> 01:47:08,180
And now performing as a four-piece, the
band all adopted short hair and dressed

1244
01:47:08,180 --> 01:47:12,700
in suits, a collective ensemble for the
first time, and an antithesis of

1245
01:47:12,700 --> 01:47:14,320
everything rock was about in America.

1246
01:47:14,800 --> 01:47:18,700
Yet many in the audience viewed them
very much as a passing musical fad.

1247
01:47:18,940 --> 01:47:25,260
I think at that time we were some sort,
received as some sort of gimmick group.

1248
01:47:26,140 --> 01:47:32,240
Only very few people could foresee
what...

1249
01:47:32,680 --> 01:47:35,720
what potential was in Kraftwerk.

1250
01:47:36,520 --> 01:47:41,680
I think they, even though we played in
Detroit, we played almost everywhere.

1251
01:47:43,160 --> 01:47:46,980
At that time, it was too far out, too
strange.

1252
01:47:47,340 --> 01:47:48,460
We were playing in suits.

1253
01:47:49,400 --> 01:47:50,660
Suits, short hair.

1254
01:47:51,060 --> 01:47:53,520
I was playing electronic drums.

1255
01:47:53,780 --> 01:47:56,720
We had a mini-moog. Ralph was playing a
mini-moog.

1256
01:47:58,760 --> 01:48:00,200
A Fafisa organ.

1257
01:48:01,320 --> 01:48:02,320
I still have it.

1258
01:48:03,240 --> 01:48:04,720
I nicked it off him.

1259
01:48:05,200 --> 01:48:07,940
So it's in my basement collecting dust.

1260
01:48:09,520 --> 01:48:13,320
And Florian was playing an Arp Odyssey
synthesizer.

1261
01:48:13,540 --> 01:48:17,680
And Wolfgang and me were playing
electronic drums. And my vibraphone, of

1262
01:48:17,680 --> 01:48:18,680
course.

1263
01:48:19,320 --> 01:48:21,920
And it was a very odd performance.

1264
01:48:22,180 --> 01:48:23,640
Very, very odd, I think.

1265
01:48:24,660 --> 01:48:28,560
Despite the strangeness of the
experience, the single, the album and

1266
01:48:28,560 --> 01:48:31,640
the tour were highly lucrative for
Hutter and Schneider, and they

1267
01:48:31,640 --> 01:48:34,060
reinvested their profits back into Kling
Klang Studios.

1268
01:48:35,000 --> 01:48:39,060
Here they returned to work on a new
album, and as with Autobahn, it would

1269
01:48:39,060 --> 01:48:40,760
again centre on a single concept.

1270
01:48:41,420 --> 01:48:46,520
You know, after Sgt Pepper, everybody
was doing concept records, and it became

1271
01:48:46,520 --> 01:48:50,740
a little bit out of fashion then. And I
think...

1272
01:48:51,470 --> 01:48:56,510
Looking at the classical composers, like
Cage, Stockhausen, there was always a

1273
01:48:56,510 --> 01:48:58,290
strong concept behind their work.

1274
01:48:59,090 --> 01:49:04,370
It's impossible to make really good
music without a concept, even if you go

1275
01:49:04,370 --> 01:49:11,270
to strong music coming from other
cultures, like Indian music or

1276
01:49:11,270 --> 01:49:17,110
whatever. There's always a strong
concept behind it, which is deeply based

1277
01:49:17,110 --> 01:49:18,710
in their ethnic background.

1278
01:49:20,170 --> 01:49:27,170
And being part of, we always felt really
as Germans, later really more

1279
01:49:27,170 --> 01:49:33,530
as Europeans. And of course, coming also
from the classical background, you have

1280
01:49:33,530 --> 01:49:37,010
to come up with a thought, with a theme.

1281
01:49:37,290 --> 01:49:42,210
We always went into a production of a
record and we put pictures on the

1282
01:49:42,210 --> 01:49:46,270
console. We always had some pictures
around.

1283
01:49:46,650 --> 01:49:48,670
And, you know, if you...

1284
01:49:49,040 --> 01:49:54,640
even if you improvise music, if you sing
a track, if you make some lalas, it's

1285
01:49:54,640 --> 01:49:59,680
always good if your mind is in a
direction.

1286
01:50:00,500 --> 01:50:06,740
It's much better if you look
metaphorically in one direction instead

1287
01:50:06,740 --> 01:50:07,740
of being nowhere.

1288
01:50:07,940 --> 01:50:11,320
It's always good being somewhere if you
play music.

1289
01:50:12,160 --> 01:50:17,040
And that was one of the strongest parts
of Kraftwerk, and that's why I really

1290
01:50:17,040 --> 01:50:18,040
felt

1291
01:50:19,809 --> 01:50:26,670
felt very good being part of this
movement and being part of Kraftwerk,

1292
01:50:26,770 --> 01:50:27,770
actually, yes.

1293
01:50:28,310 --> 01:50:32,210
Working solely out of the improved
Klingklang, the context in which the

1294
01:50:32,210 --> 01:50:33,750
band would now function had changed.

1295
01:50:34,110 --> 01:50:38,190
Having negotiated a new deal with EMI,
Hutter and Schneider took over

1296
01:50:38,190 --> 01:50:39,690
production duties on their records.

1297
01:50:40,090 --> 01:50:43,410
Although both Fleur and Bartosz were
brought on board the sessions for the

1298
01:50:43,410 --> 01:50:47,720
new album, The control over Kraftwerk
product was now entirely in the hands of

1299
01:50:47,720 --> 01:50:51,940
Ralph and Florian. From radioactivity
on, Ralph and Florian became the

1300
01:50:51,940 --> 01:50:55,280
producer of Kraftwerk. So they took this
part.

1301
01:50:55,840 --> 01:51:02,720
And it felt very natural because it was
not at that time,

1302
01:51:02,740 --> 01:51:06,840
I hadn't really the feeling it was
teamwork.

1303
01:51:07,060 --> 01:51:09,960
It was just Ralph and Florian's record.

1304
01:51:10,540 --> 01:51:13,020
Kraftwerk was just, I would say,

1305
01:51:14,480 --> 01:51:15,920
Part-time Kraftwerker.

1306
01:51:17,380 --> 01:51:21,660
Although it opened up really a
possibility for the future, but I didn't

1307
01:51:21,660 --> 01:51:22,660
know at that time.

1308
01:51:22,820 --> 01:51:27,080
Released at the close of 1975,
Radioactivity was a very different

1309
01:51:27,080 --> 01:51:31,220
record from Autobahn. Around a concept
combining both the themes of nuclear

1310
01:51:31,220 --> 01:51:35,180
energy and the radio itself, Kraftwerk
delivered an album of shorter tracks

1311
01:51:35,180 --> 01:51:38,860
with a more accomplished and polished
use of the new technology available to

1312
01:51:38,860 --> 01:51:39,860
them.

1313
01:51:45,390 --> 01:51:49,630
Certainly with radioactivity, you get to
the point where Clapworth are operating

1314
01:51:49,630 --> 01:51:53,170
in, as it were, smaller found units.

1315
01:51:53,770 --> 01:51:56,670
It's a very sort of conceptually very
self-contained album.

1316
01:51:57,910 --> 01:52:01,830
It's dispensed entirely with the early
krautrock habit of going off on sort of

1317
01:52:01,830 --> 01:52:03,630
lengthy meandering jams.

1318
01:52:04,730 --> 01:52:09,950
They're working in a sort of almost, you
know, I wouldn't say proto-pop format,

1319
01:52:09,970 --> 01:52:12,150
but proto, the kind of pop that they
help give rise to.

1320
01:52:14,570 --> 01:52:17,210
And I think that has to do with the fact
that they're kind of, as it were,

1321
01:52:17,290 --> 01:52:20,970
they've brought the whole thing
in-house. They're working on it

1322
01:52:20,970 --> 01:52:21,970
themselves.

1323
01:52:22,730 --> 01:52:26,690
In terms of the personnel working there,
they've got the kind of four-way

1324
01:52:26,690 --> 01:52:29,470
division of labour, anything like that,
even though Rolf Hutter and Florian

1325
01:52:29,470 --> 01:52:31,690
Schneider are obviously very much to the
fore.

1326
01:52:32,730 --> 01:52:36,230
And yes, it does feel as if it's
produced under some sort of aesthetic

1327
01:52:36,230 --> 01:52:37,230
factory conditions.

1328
01:52:38,170 --> 01:52:39,610
It's a very poetic record.

1329
01:52:40,130 --> 01:52:42,570
A very poetic record using...

1330
01:52:43,490 --> 01:52:48,410
utilizing the art form of a radio play,
actually.

1331
01:52:49,510 --> 01:52:51,190
It's sort of a radio play.

1332
01:52:51,530 --> 01:52:58,210
And listening to pieces like Antenna

1333
01:52:58,210 --> 01:53:03,610
or Home Sweet Home, it's really, really
very much

1334
01:53:03,610 --> 01:53:06,910
on the surface.

1335
01:53:07,850 --> 01:53:10,730
It has got this German soul.

1336
01:53:13,579 --> 01:53:18,520
And the album also pushed Kraftwerk's
sound into new areas, with the

1337
01:53:18,520 --> 01:53:21,160
conventional instrumentation of their
earlier records discarded.

1338
01:53:21,460 --> 01:53:25,500
Like Stockhausen before them, the band
were moving into entirely electronic

1339
01:53:25,500 --> 01:53:26,500
territory.

1340
01:54:00,799 --> 01:54:07,420
The pure electronic element on
radioactivity is pretty

1341
01:54:07,420 --> 01:54:11,460
discernible right from the very
beginning because of the reason they

1342
01:54:11,460 --> 01:54:15,760
were using all this electronic equipment
and had sort of totally done away with

1343
01:54:15,760 --> 01:54:16,860
orthodox.

1344
01:54:17,790 --> 01:54:21,090
instrumentation like the flute and the
drums and everything else like that

1345
01:54:21,090 --> 01:54:28,070
everything had been turned electronic so
this was a new turning

1346
01:54:28,070 --> 01:54:34,930
point for them really they were
interested in purely machine-made

1347
01:54:34,930 --> 01:54:41,910
music and this is where the bare bones
of the next stage

1348
01:54:41,910 --> 01:54:43,690
of the Kraftwerk sound would begin

1349
01:54:44,940 --> 01:54:49,680
A key instrument in their evolving sound
was the Vaco Orchestron, a 1975

1350
01:54:49,680 --> 01:54:53,960
synthesizer that was never mass-produced
and which broadened Kraftwerk's sound

1351
01:54:53,960 --> 01:54:58,560
palette. Basically, the orchestra, to
me, it sounds like the Mellotron, but it

1352
01:54:58,560 --> 01:55:00,420
has got these infinite loops.

1353
01:55:00,760 --> 01:55:06,960
You know, Mellotron had just a finite...
The loop stopped after 20 seconds, so

1354
01:55:06,960 --> 01:55:09,280
you had to only play just short notes.

1355
01:55:10,080 --> 01:55:11,860
Listen to the strawberry fields.

1356
01:55:13,200 --> 01:55:14,200
But...

1357
01:55:14,780 --> 01:55:20,720
I remember Florian, or Ralph and
Florian, they went to this music fair in

1358
01:55:20,720 --> 01:55:27,600
Frankfurt, and there was suddenly just
one of the, a part

1359
01:55:27,600 --> 01:55:32,060
of the exhibition there, and she just
immediately bought it, because it had

1360
01:55:32,060 --> 01:55:38,980
just this strange, old-fashioned
gramophone sound of recordings, Edison

1361
01:55:38,980 --> 01:55:40,440
type of 1867.

1362
01:55:42,060 --> 01:55:43,060
Yeah.

1363
01:55:44,270 --> 01:55:47,710
To me, it was always sort of Mellotron.

1364
01:55:48,990 --> 01:55:55,730
And it was functioning on... They had
just acetate disks or plastic disks,

1365
01:55:55,870 --> 01:55:59,470
and they had different loops, infinite
loops going on.

1366
01:56:00,270 --> 01:56:06,490
But the best were apparently strings,
which went on to Trans-Europe Express,

1367
01:56:06,630 --> 01:56:09,730
and choir, which went on to
radioactivity.

1368
01:56:10,150 --> 01:56:15,010
And as with Autobahn... This title track
was both accessible and melodic and

1369
01:56:15,010 --> 01:56:17,830
proved the Kraftwerk were able to
produce commercial material.

1370
01:56:42,680 --> 01:56:45,440
It's sung in English for the first time,
and they start singing in English, and

1371
01:56:45,440 --> 01:56:46,980
it sounds like a pop track.

1372
01:56:47,300 --> 01:56:52,100
It's so constant. It glides along, bops
along very well, they say,

1373
01:56:52,180 --> 01:56:53,180
radioactivity.

1374
01:56:54,700 --> 01:56:59,820
But remember, the radio was such an
important part of German culture,

1375
01:56:59,880 --> 01:57:02,980
particularly, see this again, they're
addressing the war. People used to

1376
01:57:02,980 --> 01:57:07,840
cluster around the radio in Germany, and
every day, every night, to hear what

1377
01:57:07,840 --> 01:57:10,740
Hitler was going to say. That's the way
they clustered around the radio.

1378
01:57:11,340 --> 01:57:15,100
in the UK to hear what Churchill was
going to say. There was a part of that

1379
01:57:15,100 --> 01:57:18,820
as well in the concert. You're looking
backwards to look forwards kind of

1380
01:57:18,820 --> 01:57:23,660
thing. And the whole thing is a concert.
In some ways they use oscillators and

1381
01:57:23,660 --> 01:57:25,220
they use a lot of electronic devices.

1382
01:57:25,560 --> 01:57:28,320
In some ways it's quite an austere
record.

1383
01:57:29,360 --> 01:57:32,780
The title track may be melodic and
hummable but the rest of it isn't.

1384
01:57:33,910 --> 01:57:39,170
And it's very much a brave thing to do
after Autobahn because some of it isn't

1385
01:57:39,170 --> 01:57:41,570
even constant, some of it is just
experimental.

1386
01:57:43,790 --> 01:57:50,430
But there is a wistfulness to it and
also a certain humour that the actual

1387
01:57:50,430 --> 01:57:53,310
album cover looks like a radio and the
whole thing has a concept.

1388
01:57:54,040 --> 01:57:57,780
And they're honing it. They're now
getting that each album is about

1389
01:57:57,780 --> 01:58:02,480
something modern but different. You've
got an album about driving, and they've

1390
01:58:02,480 --> 01:58:06,880
got an album about radios, and what's
next to come. So there is that feeling

1391
01:58:06,880 --> 01:58:11,500
that they're actually doing something
else here. This is Banders just doing

1392
01:58:11,500 --> 01:58:12,540
something totally different.

1393
01:58:12,980 --> 01:58:17,840
And just as Kraftwerk were now operating
outside of any school or movement, the

1394
01:58:17,840 --> 01:58:20,600
German scene itself had essentially
disintegrated.

1395
01:58:20,970 --> 01:58:25,390
I think by the mid-70s, the idea of
talking about this kind of, as it were,

1396
01:58:25,430 --> 01:58:29,790
almost autonomous thing called krautrock
has become less and less valid. Some of

1397
01:58:29,790 --> 01:58:32,290
the early groups had just fallen away by
the wayside. They were just very much

1398
01:58:32,290 --> 01:58:33,290
off their time.

1399
01:58:33,790 --> 01:58:36,470
Then other groups have kind of gone on
to...

1400
01:58:37,150 --> 01:58:40,090
forward as it were careers themselves
again some sort of measure of

1401
01:58:40,090 --> 01:58:43,730
international recognition um they've
achieved what was probably the initial

1402
01:58:43,730 --> 01:58:47,290
dream of getting the hell out of germany
and each is a kind of recognizable

1403
01:58:47,290 --> 01:58:51,130
entity going from a different direction
in their own in their own right i mean

1404
01:58:51,130 --> 01:58:55,950
groups like i mean noi are probably the
height of their powers in 1975 with a

1405
01:58:55,950 --> 01:59:01,010
music i mean although they were always a
slightly combustible affair um craft

1406
01:59:01,010 --> 01:59:06,770
worker very much kind of you know, very
much set out on the road, can actually,

1407
01:59:06,890 --> 01:59:12,090
or in fact, they'd only got sort of a
couple more years left in them, although

1408
01:59:12,090 --> 01:59:15,750
they were enjoying a sort of quite
significant measure of success at that

1409
01:59:15,750 --> 01:59:16,750
time.

1410
01:59:18,210 --> 01:59:21,890
So, yes, I think by that point it would
be completely inappropriate to talk of

1411
01:59:21,890 --> 01:59:25,450
all the kind of krautrockers down in the
old krautrock scene, krautrocking

1412
01:59:25,450 --> 01:59:26,770
together. It really wasn't like that.

1413
01:59:30,960 --> 01:59:34,620
Yet it was just at this point that the
scene received its most emphatic

1414
01:59:34,620 --> 01:59:39,720
endorsement. Both ex-Roxy music member
Brian Eno and the chameleonic pop icon

1415
01:59:39,720 --> 01:59:43,080
David Bowie had been drawn to the
distinctive sounds emerging from

1416
01:59:43,080 --> 01:59:47,040
Germany, and that interest would in part
lead them to begin working together in

1417
01:59:47,040 --> 01:59:51,540
late 1976 on a series of albums that
would bring this experimentalism to the

1418
01:59:51,540 --> 01:59:52,540
mainstream.

1419
01:59:54,620 --> 02:00:00,960
In the mid-1970s and late 70s, both...
Eno and Brian and David Bowie came to a

1420
02:00:00,960 --> 02:00:02,720
kind of crisis in their lives.

1421
02:00:04,040 --> 02:00:08,120
Eno was making records in the UK that
people weren't really interested in and

1422
02:00:08,120 --> 02:00:09,640
he wasn't getting much recognition.

1423
02:00:09,920 --> 02:00:12,840
Even though he was doing a lot of
production work and working with a lot

1424
02:00:12,840 --> 02:00:19,740
of other bands, he felt he needed to do
something that would have a

1425
02:00:19,740 --> 02:00:20,920
wider audience.

1426
02:00:21,840 --> 02:00:27,300
David Bowie for his part was just was
out at the lab, was floundering in the U

1427
02:00:27,300 --> 02:00:28,159
.S. of A.

1428
02:00:28,160 --> 02:00:33,500
He had made Young Americans and was then
making Station to Station.

1429
02:00:33,820 --> 02:00:39,060
At the time of Station to Station, he
was basically drowning in a sea of drugs

1430
02:00:39,060 --> 02:00:43,540
and decadence there, so he decided to
move to Switzerland first.

1431
02:00:44,540 --> 02:00:49,980
And there he met Eno, and Eno came to
see him.

1432
02:00:51,080 --> 02:00:53,620
The most important thing about that
meeting was they both had similar

1433
02:00:53,620 --> 02:00:56,660
listening tastes. They were both
listening to noise, they were both

1434
02:00:56,660 --> 02:01:03,260
listening, they were both very fond of
Rodelius and Mobius and that cluster

1435
02:01:03,260 --> 02:01:08,040
thing. But also they were listening to
Kraftwerk and they felt that there was

1436
02:01:08,040 --> 02:01:12,400
more happening in the German thing for
new music and new possibilities were

1437
02:01:12,400 --> 02:01:15,680
opening up much wider there than
anywhere else in the world. So they

1438
02:01:15,680 --> 02:01:17,280
decided that they would do something.

1439
02:01:18,429 --> 02:01:20,750
in 1977 in Germany.

1440
02:01:22,390 --> 02:01:27,010
Whereas Bowie was in part escaping from
his excesses, Eno had already been

1441
02:01:27,010 --> 02:01:30,950
making his mark in experimental music,
and the move to Germany seemed like a

1442
02:01:30,950 --> 02:01:31,950
natural progression.

1443
02:01:32,570 --> 02:01:37,010
Having created the album No Pussyfooting
with guitarist Robert Fripp in 1973,

1444
02:01:37,350 --> 02:01:41,910
which incorporated tape delay techniques
similar to those used by the Germans, he

1445
02:01:41,910 --> 02:01:46,190
set up the Obscure Records label in 75
to release both his and other composers'

1446
02:01:46,390 --> 02:01:47,390
experimental works.

1447
02:01:48,620 --> 02:01:52,960
His albums Another Green World and
Discrete Music both developed a sound

1448
02:01:52,960 --> 02:01:56,560
that would eventually be labelled
electronic ambient music, and this

1449
02:01:56,560 --> 02:02:00,060
interest in new experimental forms
brought him into contact with Cluster

1450
02:02:00,060 --> 02:02:03,620
and their collaboration with
ex-Craftwork guitarist Michael Roffer,

1451
02:02:03,760 --> 02:02:04,800
named Harmonia.

1452
02:02:06,200 --> 02:02:09,920
Having lost Konrad Schnitzler and
altered the spelling of their name in

1453
02:02:09,920 --> 02:02:14,360
the early 70s, Cluster had persevered in
their unique noise experiments through

1454
02:02:14,360 --> 02:02:15,540
the first half of the decade.

1455
02:02:16,350 --> 02:02:21,090
After moving to the rural village of
Forst in 1973, they teamed up with

1456
02:02:21,090 --> 02:02:25,130
Rother to record two albums of Harmonia,
both of which introduced a more

1457
02:02:25,130 --> 02:02:28,190
structured, rhythmical and melodic
element into the trademark Cluster

1458
02:02:28,190 --> 02:02:29,190
sound.

1459
02:02:29,710 --> 02:02:34,130
Drawn to the output of both ensembles,
Eno travelled to Germany before Bowie,

1460
02:02:34,210 --> 02:02:38,370
first to work with Harmonia and later
with Cluster, and although initially he

1461
02:02:38,370 --> 02:02:41,570
was looking to produce the bands, it
soon became a more organic,

1462
02:02:41,690 --> 02:02:42,690
collaborative process.

1463
02:02:44,650 --> 02:02:48,350
He found out that we can't produce
harmonia, neither harmonia or cluster,

1464
02:02:48,590 --> 02:02:51,130
because it was not possible.

1465
02:02:51,430 --> 02:02:57,390
He tried to do it. He tried to guide us
in his direction, of course, because

1466
02:02:57,390 --> 02:02:58,410
he's a great producer.

1467
02:02:59,390 --> 02:03:04,650
But he always said, please stay in your
way. Do what you want to do.

1468
02:03:04,910 --> 02:03:06,230
Don't listen to producers.

1469
02:03:07,490 --> 02:03:08,469
Produce yourself.

1470
02:03:08,470 --> 02:03:11,490
Produce your music yourself. It's the
best thing you can do, and you will be

1471
02:03:11,490 --> 02:03:12,570
successful with it.

1472
02:03:13,680 --> 02:03:17,840
And that's what I learned from him,
especially from my own, my solo music.

1473
02:03:51,020 --> 02:03:57,220
He made our living because Cluster
didn't sell, never came to break even

1474
02:03:57,220 --> 02:03:58,320
with their products.

1475
02:03:59,120 --> 02:04:04,640
And a sudden, with these two products,
with Brian, we got

1476
02:04:04,640 --> 02:04:11,360
more attention, of course, and we got
some money for it

1477
02:04:11,360 --> 02:04:14,420
because we sold about 50,000 from each.

1478
02:04:14,680 --> 02:04:18,760
That's a lot. At the time, it was a lot.
I mean, not in one year.

1479
02:04:33,980 --> 02:04:40,300
But where Cluster and Harmonia had been
keen on collaboration,

1480
02:04:40,800 --> 02:04:42,500
Kraftwerk were less forthcoming.

1481
02:04:43,160 --> 02:04:46,960
Bowie had initially asked them to join
him for his station-to-station tour as a

1482
02:04:46,960 --> 02:04:47,849
support act.

1483
02:04:47,850 --> 02:04:50,750
but they declined the offer, and
although they were scheduled to record

1484
02:04:50,750 --> 02:04:52,550
together, it never materialized.

1485
02:04:52,850 --> 02:04:57,690
Nevertheless, released in January 1977,
the first of Bowie and Eno's

1486
02:04:57,690 --> 02:05:01,730
collaborations, Low, would bring
experimental electronic music to a wider

1487
02:05:01,730 --> 02:05:02,730
audience.

1488
02:05:06,490 --> 02:05:11,470
What's incredible about Low is the
second side. I think the second side of

1489
02:05:11,470 --> 02:05:13,890
Low is probably responsible for my
sitting here.

1490
02:05:14,560 --> 02:05:17,980
It's certainly responsible for an
enormous amount of people starting to

1491
02:05:17,980 --> 02:05:20,180
listen to experimental music.

1492
02:05:20,700 --> 02:05:26,820
I would say without the second side of
the load, the vast rock audience, the

1493
02:05:26,820 --> 02:05:30,140
vast amount of people who are interested
in rock music would never have heard

1494
02:05:30,140 --> 02:05:35,780
Steve Reich, Terry Riley or even some of
this German electronica because it was

1495
02:05:35,780 --> 02:05:40,060
basically a portal, basically like a
portal into all of this world.

1496
02:05:40,780 --> 02:05:45,540
And it was such a brave thing to do
because it was basically extremely, it

1497
02:05:45,540 --> 02:05:50,880
had this coldness to it as well and this
kind of, you know, aridness to it. And

1498
02:05:50,880 --> 02:05:53,880
it seemed to be devoid of something.

1499
02:05:54,100 --> 02:05:58,180
Some of it was a deathly sound, but it
was fascinating because it was such a

1500
02:05:58,180 --> 02:05:59,180
brave thing to do.

1501
02:06:39,330 --> 02:06:43,750
Tony was going to produce, let's get
this straight, and Eno was there

1502
02:06:43,750 --> 02:06:45,410
assisting and stuff.

1503
02:06:46,010 --> 02:06:50,590
If Eno wasn't there, I don't think Bowie
would have been able to get away with

1504
02:06:50,590 --> 02:06:54,390
putting this on the second side. Because
Eno was there, it changed the whole

1505
02:06:54,390 --> 02:06:55,430
dynamics of the thing.

1506
02:06:56,350 --> 02:07:02,990
And it certainly put him more in the
same

1507
02:07:02,990 --> 02:07:05,430
frame as Kraftwerk and those bands.

1508
02:07:05,770 --> 02:07:10,030
He then seemed to be the one trumpeting
this music worldwide.

1509
02:07:10,670 --> 02:07:14,230
And with the release of the second of
Bowie's trilogy later in 1977,

1510
02:07:15,000 --> 02:07:18,100
the singer managed to capture the
totally alien world of the divided

1511
02:07:18,100 --> 02:07:23,240
Berlin. While in the UK, punk music laid
waste to the dominant rock scene that

1512
02:07:23,240 --> 02:07:26,620
had been becoming progressively
overblown throughout the decade, with

1513
02:07:26,620 --> 02:07:30,400
heroes not only did Bowie raise the
profiles of the musicians of Germany,

1514
02:07:30,560 --> 02:07:33,960
but also of lives outside of the typical
Anglo-American experience.

1515
02:07:34,540 --> 02:07:37,900
And this, in turn, would influence a new
generation of musicians.

1516
02:07:38,800 --> 02:07:45,560
Bowie went to Berlin to hide, but of
course, that, that, German war,

1517
02:07:45,740 --> 02:07:52,640
that, you couldn't, you couldn't, a city
divided

1518
02:07:52,640 --> 02:07:58,280
by a wall, I mean a city, not even a
country. Actually, a city in the middle

1519
02:07:58,280 --> 02:08:01,620
of an entire country you couldn't even
go to. This is what's so weird, it's

1520
02:08:01,620 --> 02:08:02,559
like an island.

1521
02:08:02,560 --> 02:08:08,160
And then only half of that you could
walk around, the Kafustan Dam, etc.

1522
02:08:09,500 --> 02:08:15,130
So, I'm sure sitting in that flat, You
know, going out to get the milk and just

1523
02:08:15,130 --> 02:08:19,790
being David Jones again, for David
Bowie, was him being reborn.

1524
02:08:20,030 --> 02:08:25,590
And there, that city, that Berlin city,
even though an island in the middle of

1525
02:08:25,590 --> 02:08:29,650
nowhere, surrounded by people who had
nothing, you know, rebuilding their

1526
02:08:29,650 --> 02:08:33,610
lives, who can you relate to? Jump on a
train, go to Dusseldorf, meet with

1527
02:08:33,610 --> 02:08:40,070
Kraftwerk, yeah? These guys were also
not pop stars, not going anywhere, but

1528
02:08:40,070 --> 02:08:41,150
doing something brilliant.

1529
02:08:41,600 --> 02:08:47,940
And again, that creativity, Bowie,
Kraftwerk, Iggy, Hansa by the Wall, the

1530
02:08:47,940 --> 02:08:48,940
environment.

1531
02:08:49,420 --> 02:08:55,780
I mean, heroes of the song, with Brian
Eno's tapestry background,

1532
02:08:56,120 --> 02:08:58,560
with Carlos Alomar on that guitar.

1533
02:08:58,800 --> 02:09:05,700
I mean, that, that, that. And then to do
it in German. Ich bin dein König, und

1534
02:09:05,700 --> 02:09:07,380
du, du Königin.

1535
02:09:14,230 --> 02:09:20,990
I think, just for one day, I mean, in
that song, that song

1536
02:09:20,990 --> 02:09:27,870
became now, for me, exactly what we
were, i.e., we could be

1537
02:09:27,870 --> 02:09:33,490
heroes for one night. We could dress up,
get out of that grey, horrible, no

1538
02:09:33,490 --> 02:09:37,550
future, Thatcherite Britain, and we
could...

1539
02:09:37,760 --> 02:09:40,820
be somebody. We could look good. We
could sit in that cafe.

1540
02:09:41,060 --> 02:09:42,760
We could have a jeton.

1541
02:09:42,980 --> 02:09:47,680
We could listen to beautiful music and
we could forget that really we've got to

1542
02:09:47,680 --> 02:09:48,680
sign on tomorrow.

1543
02:09:48,700 --> 02:09:50,960
We've got no job. We've got no future.

1544
02:09:51,620 --> 02:09:52,620
Bowie's gone.

1545
02:09:52,680 --> 02:09:53,880
Roxy has split up.

1546
02:09:54,140 --> 02:09:55,220
We've got no heroes.

1547
02:09:55,600 --> 02:10:01,700
The Sex Pistols have just said to
everything, let's do it ourselves.

1548
02:10:02,180 --> 02:10:03,600
Let's make our own music.

1549
02:10:44,940 --> 02:10:50,140
Certainly the Edo Bowie thing was
basically the green light for German

1550
02:10:50,140 --> 02:10:54,460
musicians to really go for it, and they
did in 1977 with Trans Europe Express.

1551
02:10:55,780 --> 02:10:59,340
And it was with this album that
Kraftwerk offered their creative input

1552
02:10:59,340 --> 02:11:02,060
into what would become a classic year in
electronic music.

1553
02:11:02,400 --> 02:11:06,380
With a new concept and a still more
technically accomplished sound, the

1554
02:11:06,380 --> 02:11:10,360
German four-piece continued to tread
their own unique path through the 70s.

1555
02:11:11,340 --> 02:11:15,540
Yet this album was less anticipated than
their last two records, simply because

1556
02:11:15,540 --> 02:11:17,980
of the commercial disappointment of
radioactivity.

1557
02:11:18,460 --> 02:11:23,380
Of course, apparently, if you had a hit
record, you need a follow-up.

1558
02:11:24,000 --> 02:11:29,440
And this is true, I agree to that, you
need a follow-up which could be played

1559
02:11:29,440 --> 02:11:30,440
in the radio.

1560
02:11:30,780 --> 02:11:35,400
Unfortunately, the single of
radioactivity wasn't a hit.

1561
02:11:35,740 --> 02:11:38,620
It wasn't a hit worldwide, it became a
hit in France.

1562
02:11:40,619 --> 02:11:42,620
And that's why we play friends.

1563
02:11:43,340 --> 02:11:48,040
And I think that's where the idea of
Trans-Europe Express came, really, from

1564
02:11:48,040 --> 02:11:49,040
that angle.

1565
02:11:49,660 --> 02:11:55,240
Of course, the first thing was the
German identity.

1566
02:11:56,740 --> 02:12:03,500
And then pretty much aware of the
European identity, which includes,

1567
02:12:03,760 --> 02:12:08,160
of course, all the other European
nations. And this idea was really much

1568
02:12:08,160 --> 02:12:09,440
coming up at that time.

1569
02:12:23,280 --> 02:12:26,560
It's a very European theme again.

1570
02:12:26,840 --> 02:12:32,280
It's really something from the
historical point where I thought, great,

1571
02:12:32,420 --> 02:12:39,220
they are really able to find things
which are not connected to

1572
02:12:39,220 --> 02:12:45,000
Anglo-American or international or
whatever and still...

1573
02:12:46,170 --> 02:12:48,710
It is in a way very campy.

1574
02:12:49,350 --> 02:12:53,510
The idea is like a film.

1575
02:12:54,090 --> 02:13:01,030
You start in Paris, you go in a train
and you

1576
02:13:01,030 --> 02:13:03,310
end up in Düsseldorf.

1577
02:13:03,610 --> 02:13:06,490
I think that was the concept.

1578
02:13:07,130 --> 02:13:12,390
Someone who is traveling through Europe.
Because at that time when Trans Europa

1579
02:13:12,390 --> 02:13:14,530
Express was released,

1580
02:13:15,240 --> 02:13:18,520
I think it was perfectly planned with
Kraftwerk.

1581
02:13:19,360 --> 02:13:23,880
Everybody was discussing about the
European Union.

1582
02:13:24,240 --> 02:13:26,120
Yeah, that was the new thing.

1583
02:13:26,720 --> 02:13:30,180
Well, Trans Europe Express has to be one
of the greatest albums ever made.

1584
02:13:30,440 --> 02:13:35,820
I mean, it's certainly one of the most
beautiful records.

1585
02:13:36,240 --> 02:13:38,520
I mean, it's so beautiful.

1586
02:13:39,220 --> 02:13:43,220
It has this concept about trains. But
then if you look at the album cover, it

1587
02:13:43,220 --> 02:13:44,220
has four guys.

1588
02:13:44,460 --> 02:13:49,180
is the classic, er, Kraftwerk of Florian
Schneider, Ralph Futter, and then Karl

1589
02:13:49,180 --> 02:13:52,740
Barthos and Wolfgang Fleur, who were
doing percussion and other stuff in the

1590
02:13:52,740 --> 02:13:57,300
background. All dressed in suits,
looking wistfully, in this kind of sepia

1591
02:13:57,300 --> 02:14:00,080
cover. And then the writing is in this
kind of Art Deco script.

1592
02:14:00,320 --> 02:14:04,620
And then you took out the inner sleeve.
And on the inner sleeve, which is

1593
02:14:04,620 --> 02:14:09,250
printed... is this photograph of them
sitting around an outdoors dinner table

1594
02:14:09,250 --> 02:14:13,450
like you would see in most Hitler Youth
films or whatever of them in Bavaria

1595
02:14:13,450 --> 02:14:14,450
having their tea.

1596
02:14:14,910 --> 02:14:18,350
And you realize that this is probably,
this is a nostalgia for Germany that

1597
02:14:18,350 --> 02:14:22,410
could have been that never happened but
now hopefully can happen again because

1598
02:14:22,410 --> 02:14:24,150
they're dressed in 1930s clothes.

1599
02:14:24,590 --> 02:14:28,190
But that's nothing compared to the
music. You put on the music and there's

1600
02:14:28,190 --> 02:14:31,570
this really thick motor beat and then
this...

1601
02:14:32,040 --> 02:14:37,220
The sounds of it, the whole record flows
from beginning to end. It's not like

1602
02:14:37,220 --> 02:14:42,800
there's a few interesting tracks and
then there's a lot of experiment.

1603
02:14:43,000 --> 02:14:45,440
There's no experiment on this. This is
completely conceptual.

1604
02:14:45,900 --> 02:14:47,660
The whole thing flows through.

1605
02:15:26,700 --> 02:15:28,660
I was not involved in the concept.

1606
02:15:29,380 --> 02:15:31,040
The concept was done.

1607
02:15:31,580 --> 02:15:36,760
But I think all of this was written very
fast.

1608
02:15:37,260 --> 02:15:43,520
I just remember during the night there
was an engineer, Peter Bollig at that

1609
02:15:43,520 --> 02:15:50,460
time, and they went to a bridge and they
listened actually

1610
02:15:50,460 --> 02:15:52,060
how a train would sound.

1611
02:15:53,929 --> 02:15:57,830
Actually, I think it's not right how a
train sounds. A train sound, if you

1612
02:15:57,830 --> 02:16:03,450
listen to the rhythm, it has to do with
the wheels

1613
02:16:03,450 --> 02:16:10,410
and with the track.

1614
02:16:11,850 --> 02:16:17,810
When two pieces of track are getting
together and you have two wheels, what

1615
02:16:17,810 --> 02:16:18,810
you hear is the rhythm.

1616
02:16:22,710 --> 02:16:24,830
But this is a three-quarter.

1617
02:16:27,010 --> 02:16:32,910
But to come up with a danceable beat,
you have to use four, four to the beat.

1618
02:16:32,990 --> 02:16:38,990
So that's why I think it's just a
metaphorical beat.

1619
02:16:40,490 --> 02:16:41,670
It's not right, though.

1620
02:16:43,090 --> 02:16:45,750
But I think it's a damn good beat,
actually.

1621
02:16:57,040 --> 02:17:02,700
on the Champs-Élysées, leave Paris in
the morning with TEE.

1622
02:17:03,520 --> 02:17:06,360
France, Europe, express.

1623
02:17:07,879 --> 02:17:10,799
France, Europe, express.

1624
02:17:12,340 --> 02:17:15,280
France, Europe, express.

1625
02:17:16,680 --> 02:17:19,700
France, Europe, express.

1626
02:17:30,670 --> 02:17:34,270
The two things that are very interesting
about that, I think that Trans Europe

1627
02:17:34,270 --> 02:17:38,670
Express really is the beginning of the
electro-bop movement in the UK, I think,

1628
02:17:38,690 --> 02:17:44,590
because you can hear the same dunking
and dishing kind of drumming, drum

1629
02:17:44,590 --> 02:17:49,010
machine sound on that that you hear down
in the records of Depeche Mode, Gary

1630
02:17:49,010 --> 02:17:53,209
Newman, Soft Cell, and all of those kind
of bands in the UK.

1631
02:17:54,030 --> 02:17:56,969
And the second thing about Tangier,
which is wonderful, is that it was

1632
02:17:56,969 --> 02:17:58,150
recorded in three languages.

1633
02:17:58,350 --> 02:18:00,570
It was recorded in French and English
and German.

1634
02:18:00,850 --> 02:18:05,889
So they were even recording, if they
could have recorded a Japanese version,

1635
02:18:05,990 --> 02:18:08,969
they would. These guys are not just able
to make records. They're able to speak

1636
02:18:08,969 --> 02:18:09,969
in different languages.

1637
02:18:10,690 --> 02:18:15,129
These guys are not. This is the new
Germany. The new Germans are

1638
02:18:15,129 --> 02:18:19,030
international. They want the world to
know. They want positive things. They

1639
02:18:19,030 --> 02:18:22,930
want to give positive feelings and not
go back to the past.

1640
02:18:24,010 --> 02:18:26,950
The most bizarre thing about T.E.,
basically it had something futuristic

1641
02:18:26,950 --> 02:18:28,270
wrapped in something old.

1642
02:18:28,750 --> 02:18:34,190
It was the most bizarre record and still
it stands out as being a classic record.

1643
02:18:34,309 --> 02:18:36,809
Definitely, I think, you know, for me,
my favourite record.

1644
02:18:37,430 --> 02:18:39,270
Definitely my number one cover record.

1645
02:18:39,730 --> 02:18:44,230
There's a wonderful track about every
person discovers themselves in the

1646
02:18:44,230 --> 02:18:46,450
looking glass and this Hall of Mirrors
track.

1647
02:18:46,950 --> 02:18:51,450
Again, that harks back to the great
stars of Hollywood, the Marlene Dietrich

1648
02:18:51,450 --> 02:18:54,250
and Rita Hayward. It harks back to the
1930s period.

1649
02:18:54,750 --> 02:19:01,030
Even the greatest stars Discover
themselves

1650
02:19:01,030 --> 02:19:07,730
in the looking glass Even the greatest
stars

1651
02:19:07,730 --> 02:19:13,670
Discover themselves in the looking glass

1652
02:19:22,730 --> 02:19:28,230
But it also reflects, it somehow is
saying all the ways to

1653
02:19:28,230 --> 02:19:33,530
discover themselves in the looking
glass, that also there's a slight

1654
02:19:33,530 --> 02:19:38,850
reference there to Bowie, to the fact
that Bowie was so transfixed with his

1655
02:19:38,850 --> 02:19:43,389
image and would often be seen in films,
particularly with the cracked actor, for

1656
02:19:43,389 --> 02:19:46,330
most of the film it's him looking at
himself in the looking glass, changing

1657
02:19:46,330 --> 02:19:47,469
his image, doing his hair.

1658
02:19:47,750 --> 02:19:50,350
The artist is living in the mirror.

1659
02:19:52,810 --> 02:19:54,770
with the echoes of themselves.

1660
02:19:57,710 --> 02:20:04,430
Even the greatest stars Live their

1661
02:20:04,430 --> 02:20:10,550
life in the looking glass Even the
greatest

1662
02:20:10,550 --> 02:20:17,490
stars Live their life in the looking
glass

1663
02:20:20,750 --> 02:20:23,130
And of course, the absolute,

1664
02:20:24,050 --> 02:20:29,650
you know, the best thing on it is that
we meet in the Champs Elysees and we get

1665
02:20:29,650 --> 02:20:32,970
the Trans-Siberian Express and maybe
we'll meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie,

1666
02:20:33,030 --> 02:20:35,470
this whole idea, or meet Iggy Pop, which
they did.

1667
02:20:36,530 --> 02:20:41,090
You know, now they're not only making
conceptual records, but they're actually

1668
02:20:41,090 --> 02:20:45,650
referencing their sources and doing it
so well that even the sources come to

1669
02:20:45,650 --> 02:20:47,250
meet them to congratulate them.

1670
02:20:47,790 --> 02:20:49,930
So, I mean, the album is a triumph.

1671
02:20:50,230 --> 02:20:52,110
I mean, it's one of the greatest records
ever made.

1672
02:20:52,530 --> 02:20:53,890
It's so influential.

1673
02:20:54,710 --> 02:20:58,750
And outside of Kraftwerk, electronic
music was beginning to flourish like

1674
02:20:58,750 --> 02:20:59,750
never before.

1675
02:21:00,090 --> 02:21:04,430
The rising stars of a more commercial
form, Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre,

1676
02:21:04,570 --> 02:21:07,830
had already begun to break into the
upper reaches of the charts with their

1677
02:21:07,830 --> 02:21:09,610
anodyne electronic soundscapes.

1678
02:21:10,010 --> 02:21:14,430
Yet it was with the arrival of Giorgio
Moroder, an Italian producer working out

1679
02:21:14,430 --> 02:21:17,500
of Munich, but a new era of electronic
music would begin.

1680
02:21:17,720 --> 02:21:22,480
On hearing his production work on the
Donna Summer hit I Feel Love, Brian Eno

1681
02:21:22,480 --> 02:21:24,560
declared that this was the sound of the
future.

1682
02:21:24,940 --> 02:21:27,520
The instruments were getting easier to
play.

1683
02:21:27,940 --> 02:21:30,920
The instruments were getting smaller.

1684
02:21:31,880 --> 02:21:33,820
They were getting more versatile.

1685
02:21:34,300 --> 02:21:35,300
They were better.

1686
02:21:35,340 --> 02:21:37,940
Early synthesizers were huge.

1687
02:21:38,180 --> 02:21:39,380
The cumbersome it had to be.

1688
02:21:40,100 --> 02:21:44,980
They had to be programmed and everything
with wires and patches and you need to

1689
02:21:44,980 --> 02:21:47,520
be a basic electronic engineer to work
with them.

1690
02:21:47,800 --> 02:21:51,040
Now you were getting modular
synthesizers with little keyboards and

1691
02:21:51,040 --> 02:21:52,260
all sorts of keyboard things.

1692
02:21:52,740 --> 02:21:59,160
Also you had other people working in
dance music that were hearing Kraftwerk

1693
02:21:59,160 --> 02:22:01,580
and bands in Germany, the more like Neue
and stuff.

1694
02:22:01,780 --> 02:22:06,580
I think that this rhythmic thing could
be really used in dance music.

1695
02:22:07,400 --> 02:22:09,720
And George Moroder would have been
influenced.

1696
02:22:10,000 --> 02:22:13,020
And of course it was in Germany that he
recorded all the stuff with Donna

1697
02:22:13,020 --> 02:22:17,640
Summer. So of course, the I Feel Love
and stuff, these things were... It was a

1698
02:22:17,640 --> 02:22:20,400
wonderful year for German music. It was
great, 1977.

1699
02:23:02,060 --> 02:23:07,240
But Giorgio Moroder's influence, I
think, is paramount in the whole concept

1700
02:23:07,240 --> 02:23:12,580
of turning, you know, what Kraftwerk
were doing and taking it onto the dance

1701
02:23:12,580 --> 02:23:13,580
floor.

1702
02:23:18,280 --> 02:23:22,900
It's just this pounding sort of
electronic beat that you've got hold of

1703
02:23:22,900 --> 02:23:27,020
and the way that it sort of finds
rhythms within rhythms within that

1704
02:23:27,020 --> 02:23:30,740
electronic track and just keeps piling
it on.

1705
02:23:31,180 --> 02:23:38,040
and then overlays it with Donna Summer's
sort of vocal that make that

1706
02:23:38,040 --> 02:23:38,859
track work.

1707
02:23:38,860 --> 02:23:45,820
It's teaming the alien with the
recognisable, you know,

1708
02:23:45,840 --> 02:23:52,400
a very beautiful woman singing a very
erotic song over this really

1709
02:23:52,400 --> 02:23:57,160
extraordinary sort of robotic beat
that's going on behind her.

1710
02:23:57,770 --> 02:24:01,550
and Kraftwerk themselves were fully
aware of the flourishing world of disco.

1711
02:24:02,430 --> 02:24:09,010
At that time, we were going to the clubs
frequently or

1712
02:24:09,010 --> 02:24:15,890
regularly. I wouldn't say we were doing
like pop crawling or club crawling, but,

1713
02:24:16,090 --> 02:24:20,310
you know, we were working in the
evening, and then late at night at 12,

1714
02:24:20,550 --> 02:24:25,850
1, or even 2 o'clock, we were going to
the clubs, and we were listening to what

1715
02:24:25,850 --> 02:24:26,850
was going on there.

1716
02:24:27,790 --> 02:24:34,170
You had James Brown always in good
clubs, like Sex Machine or Nature or

1717
02:24:34,170 --> 02:24:39,790
Papa Got a Brand New Bag, all these
tracks, which we liked very much because

1718
02:24:39,790 --> 02:24:46,510
of the rhythm feel, of course. It was
just a pictographical

1719
02:24:46,510 --> 02:24:51,170
rhythm, just moving on with this groove
forever.

1720
02:24:52,030 --> 02:24:55,250
It was just what appealed to us very
much.

1721
02:24:56,180 --> 02:25:00,440
Despite the band's interest in club
music, Trans Europe Express did not

1722
02:25:00,440 --> 02:25:04,160
cross over into the mainstream and
failed to chart in both the US and the

1723
02:25:04,160 --> 02:25:08,600
UK. For all their technical mastery,
Kraftwerk was still searching for a

1724
02:25:08,600 --> 02:25:10,360
crossover hit to follow Autobahn.

1725
02:25:11,060 --> 02:25:13,740
It's interesting that Trans Europe
Express doesn't seem to make an enormous

1726
02:25:13,740 --> 02:25:18,460
impact. Probably people very much had
their eye on punk, new wave, and it was

1727
02:25:18,460 --> 02:25:21,140
just a little ahead of its time. Only a
little, but just a little ahead of its

1728
02:25:21,140 --> 02:25:22,140
time at that point.

1729
02:25:22,480 --> 02:25:25,140
After we finished Trans Europe Express,
we went to Paris.

1730
02:25:26,570 --> 02:25:30,770
We were going out at the Mega Disco at
that time. I think it was the Palace

1731
02:25:30,770 --> 02:25:32,930
Club or Mega Disco.

1732
02:25:33,710 --> 02:25:34,730
Thousands of people.

1733
02:25:35,010 --> 02:25:37,070
And they put Trans Europe Express on.

1734
02:25:37,970 --> 02:25:40,230
And it wiped the dance floor completely.

1735
02:25:41,310 --> 02:25:42,770
It wiped it empty.

1736
02:25:43,830 --> 02:25:48,290
So again, Trans Europe Express at that
time was a really flop.

1737
02:25:48,670 --> 02:25:50,030
It was a flop record.

1738
02:25:51,330 --> 02:25:54,770
Kraftwerk wouldn't have to wait long
before their music was finally engaged

1739
02:25:54,770 --> 02:25:55,930
by a worldwide audience.

1740
02:25:56,460 --> 02:26:00,840
Electronic music had continued to
develop through 1977, with the emergence

1741
02:26:00,840 --> 02:26:05,040
of numerous post-punk bands who embraced
the synthesizer, and the release of

1742
02:26:05,040 --> 02:26:08,860
Throbbing Gristles' The Second Annual
Report, the first notable industrial

1743
02:26:08,860 --> 02:26:09,860
album.

1744
02:26:10,200 --> 02:26:14,740
Bands such as New Yorker's Suicide and
the British outfit Cabaret Voltaire were

1745
02:26:14,740 --> 02:26:16,040
developing similar sounds.

1746
02:26:16,520 --> 02:26:21,260
In 1978, the Yellow Magic Orchestra
appeared with their self-titled debut.

1747
02:26:21,840 --> 02:26:25,940
A pioneering Japanese outfit interested,
like Kraftwerk, in a synthesis of

1748
02:26:25,940 --> 02:26:29,780
electronics and pop music, they would
prove a key influence for the movements

1749
02:26:29,780 --> 02:26:30,780
yet to come.

1750
02:26:31,220 --> 02:26:35,320
As a new electronic age was dawning,
Kraftwerk returned to Kling Klang

1751
02:26:35,320 --> 02:26:36,740
Studios for their next record.

1752
02:26:37,280 --> 02:26:41,320
And having now kept their lineup
constant for two albums, Schneider and

1753
02:26:41,320 --> 02:26:44,540
Hutter invited Carl Bartos to become a
creative member of the unit.

1754
02:26:45,660 --> 02:26:49,000
In the beginning, Ralph and Florian,
they had this feeling.

1755
02:26:49,960 --> 02:26:54,500
of being part, I think, being part of an

1756
02:26:54,500 --> 02:27:00,680
industry somehow, a cultural industry.

1757
02:27:01,520 --> 02:27:07,560
And we were, Wolfgang and me, we were
hired,

1758
02:27:07,860 --> 02:27:10,620
called for some reason.

1759
02:27:10,880 --> 02:27:16,360
We became, we were studio musicians in
the beginning, and later on...

1760
02:27:16,700 --> 02:27:22,180
When I started being a composer and
author on Man Machine, for me at least,

1761
02:27:22,280 --> 02:27:23,360
it changed.

1762
02:27:24,020 --> 02:27:30,200
Working together in the studio and after
two records really, I

1763
02:27:30,200 --> 02:27:36,860
was really invited to be part of the
composer theme because it came easy.

1764
02:27:37,040 --> 02:27:38,680
I didn't have to prove anything.

1765
02:27:38,920 --> 02:27:40,120
I proved it before.

1766
02:27:40,820 --> 02:27:44,520
And so, unfortunately, I was growing up
to this

1767
02:27:45,450 --> 02:27:48,370
easy pop music as well as on the
classical background.

1768
02:27:48,630 --> 02:27:52,310
So it really came easy. And the first
thing I really composed on Man Machine

1769
02:27:52,310 --> 02:27:57,290
was, I think it was a riff on
Metropolis, really.

1770
02:27:57,530 --> 02:28:02,610
We were using at that time the
sequencer, and Man Machine was the first

1771
02:28:02,610 --> 02:28:09,010
record on which we could link the drums
with the sequencer. So I didn't play the

1772
02:28:09,010 --> 02:28:13,110
drums. It was played automatically by
the drum machine.

1773
02:28:13,820 --> 02:28:18,460
We came up with this. It was a Russian
idea, we thought. Somehow it had to do

1774
02:28:18,460 --> 02:28:20,260
with Metropolis, the movie.

1775
02:28:20,780 --> 02:28:25,740
But when we first started improvising
the tracks, at that time we did a lot of

1776
02:28:25,740 --> 02:28:29,700
improvisations in the studio, we had
this Russian feel.

1777
02:28:57,260 --> 02:29:00,900
I think it captures the feel quite
nicely from that.

1778
02:29:01,720 --> 02:29:08,340
And then apparently robots, neon lights,
and the model, yeah, really.

1779
02:29:09,800 --> 02:29:14,400
So I think it was done in six weeks. My
machine was recorded in six weeks using

1780
02:29:14,400 --> 02:29:16,460
this fantastic new equipment.

1781
02:29:18,180 --> 02:29:22,220
And it worked like clockwork, actually.

1782
02:29:25,220 --> 02:29:30,240
Released in May 1978, The Man Machine
presented a new group image and more

1783
02:29:30,240 --> 02:29:32,940
commercial content and was a
breakthrough for the band.

1784
02:29:33,300 --> 02:29:37,320
With a controversial cover image
referencing pre-war socialist and

1785
02:29:37,320 --> 02:29:42,200
constructivist art, the album condensed
the trademark Kraftwerk sound into even

1786
02:29:42,200 --> 02:29:46,400
shorter tracks and the notion of the
band as music machines spread into their

1787
02:29:46,400 --> 02:29:49,040
TV and live performances and photo
shoots.

1788
02:29:49,600 --> 02:29:53,340
The album went on to sell over 200,000
copies in France.

1789
02:29:53,770 --> 02:29:57,810
and charted for 13 weeks in the UK,
where it peaked at number nine.

1790
02:29:58,350 --> 02:30:03,990
Man Machine, to me, has a visually
arresting Kraftwerk image, and it's the

1791
02:30:03,990 --> 02:30:10,190
height of Kraftwerk as provocateurs,
posturing that kind of rouge lipstick

1792
02:30:10,190 --> 02:30:11,210
and those red shirts.

1793
02:30:11,410 --> 02:30:14,030
The whole thing is derived as sort of
constructivist homage.

1794
02:30:16,820 --> 02:30:20,920
Synth pop is already beginning to sort
of happen when that comes along. And

1795
02:30:20,920 --> 02:30:24,880
nothing could be calculated, you know,
especially kind of American audience,

1796
02:30:24,980 --> 02:30:28,780
people who believe in the authenticity
of the guitar, the sincerity of the open

1797
02:30:28,780 --> 02:30:33,540
-net sort of hairy-chested macho rock
hero, you know, the Bruce Springsteen

1798
02:30:33,540 --> 02:30:37,460
type, whatever, the Bejeans type, all
this kind of thing. I mean, it offends

1799
02:30:37,460 --> 02:30:40,920
on every level. I mean, you know, I
think that's wonderful about that. Here

1800
02:30:40,920 --> 02:30:42,320
they were kind of more of a band.

1801
02:30:43,000 --> 02:30:45,600
They were an identical kind of unit.

1802
02:30:46,240 --> 02:30:53,180
In the same way that the Ohio-based Devo
had dressed

1803
02:30:53,180 --> 02:30:58,820
themselves up in yellow outfits and came
on as a kind of an army in a way,

1804
02:30:59,000 --> 02:31:02,780
Kraftwerk were a kind of more haute
couture army.

1805
02:31:03,120 --> 02:31:09,600
It is a very good gimmick for that time
to just say, well, we're a machine.

1806
02:31:10,060 --> 02:31:15,180
You know, Kraftwerk is a kind of
man-machine, and this is what we do.

1807
02:31:16,260 --> 02:31:18,360
You just turn us on and we'll turn you
on.

1808
02:31:19,480 --> 02:31:25,040
That is the basic simplicity of what
they were trying to do at that time.

1809
02:32:24,320 --> 02:32:30,800
It's where crafters begin to detach
themselves as human beings from the

1810
02:32:30,800 --> 02:32:37,740
concept. It's the beginning of the
robotic era of crafters. But Man Machine

1811
02:32:37,740 --> 02:32:42,520
sold like 100,000 copies in the UK
alone, charted and everything.

1812
02:32:42,880 --> 02:32:46,680
And it had this wonderful song called
The Model, which kept on charting. I

1813
02:32:46,680 --> 02:32:48,060
think it got to number one in 1991.

1814
02:32:48,280 --> 02:32:51,080
I think Transylvania says then charted
because of it. Then it was re-released

1815
02:32:51,080 --> 02:32:53,080
again. It was an ad. It kept going and
going.

1816
02:32:53,960 --> 02:33:00,880
But by that stage, they were so
consummate in their abilities to make

1817
02:33:00,880 --> 02:33:04,800
fantastic pop music out of what they
were doing. And it was so honed and

1818
02:33:04,800 --> 02:33:06,140
precise and sheen.

1819
02:33:06,520 --> 02:33:12,100
It was almost like automatic music. They
were just pumping this. They were

1820
02:33:12,100 --> 02:33:13,940
basically the new Beatles.

1821
02:33:36,449 --> 02:33:41,130
It only takes a camera to change her
mind.

1822
02:34:04,539 --> 02:34:09,460
From that time on, more and more, we
were pretty much aware we were working

1823
02:34:09,460 --> 02:34:10,900
on the structure of the song.

1824
02:34:11,580 --> 02:34:16,620
So I just remember me counting, counting
the verse, and now here we have to have

1825
02:34:16,620 --> 02:34:21,180
a mid-eight, here we have to have a
bridge, and it worked, fantastic.

1826
02:34:22,260 --> 02:34:26,300
And I just remember talking about
structure and whistling.

1827
02:34:26,840 --> 02:34:29,640
We thought we missed a hit.

1828
02:34:30,760 --> 02:34:34,440
on model, because we haven't had a
refrain.

1829
02:34:35,180 --> 02:34:36,460
There's no chorus.

1830
02:34:37,360 --> 02:34:43,220
So it's just a good structure, but
there's no chorus summing it all up.

1831
02:34:44,400 --> 02:34:51,360
It's just a guy telling a story about
how he

1832
02:34:51,360 --> 02:34:52,580
wants to pull a model.

1833
02:34:52,980 --> 02:34:59,620
We always were quite sure we missed the
refrain, we missed the chorus.

1834
02:35:00,360 --> 02:35:01,560
But somehow it worked.

1835
02:35:29,660 --> 02:35:35,380
They'd retained the sounds that they had
on Trans Europe Express, but they had

1836
02:35:35,380 --> 02:35:42,280
sharpened it as well and sort of made it
more sort of

1837
02:35:42,280 --> 02:35:43,580
accessible in a way.

1838
02:35:43,840 --> 02:35:50,720
They'd figured out the way of
compressing it in a

1839
02:35:50,720 --> 02:35:57,280
way, compacting it would be a better way
to explain it, from a 12-inch... size

1840
02:35:57,280 --> 02:36:04,220
record into a 7 inch size record into a
song that lasted not 20 minutes but

1841
02:36:04,220 --> 02:36:05,800
a song that lasted 3 minutes.

1842
02:36:06,060 --> 02:36:11,180
They'd managed to compact all that
energy all that sort of newness all that

1843
02:36:11,180 --> 02:36:13,480
kind of strangeness as well.

1844
02:36:13,680 --> 02:36:20,400
There's a very strange still weird kind
of feel about it. Again you see showroom

1845
02:36:20,400 --> 02:36:25,640
dummies and things like that in the
window and that's the kind of you're not

1846
02:36:25,640 --> 02:36:30,640
talking about A model as such, walking
up and down the catwalk, you're talking

1847
02:36:30,640 --> 02:36:35,540
more like a model in a shop window
that's just about to have an expensive

1848
02:36:35,540 --> 02:36:38,800
fur coat draped over its shoulders, but
it'll just stand there in the same

1849
02:36:38,800 --> 02:36:43,500
position. But it's kind of alien but
beautiful in a way.

1850
02:36:44,760 --> 02:36:49,300
Yet despite its phenomenal success, Man
Machine divided some of its listeners,

1851
02:36:49,520 --> 02:36:52,680
although it was pivotal in bringing
Kraftwerk to a larger audience.

1852
02:36:53,180 --> 02:36:56,180
The more commercial elements were
off-putting to many of their earlier

1853
02:36:56,180 --> 02:36:59,860
fans, while some critics felt that the
conceptual rigour that had been applied

1854
02:36:59,860 --> 02:37:04,640
to Autobahn, Radioactivity and Trans
Europe Express had here been diluted

1855
02:37:04,640 --> 02:37:11,620
somehow. It is the classical pop album
done by Kraftwerk. And of course

1856
02:37:11,620 --> 02:37:13,040
it's not everybody's taste.

1857
02:37:13,540 --> 02:37:20,440
A lot of fans, I think, never really
felt that Kraftwerk is

1858
02:37:20,440 --> 02:37:21,700
a pop group.

1859
02:37:23,260 --> 02:37:29,760
Felt a bit disappointed. Yeah, I thought
they sold out Yeah, nice cover. Yeah

1860
02:37:29,760 --> 02:37:36,540
interesting image a little bit Russia a
little bit. Yeah Communism a little

1861
02:37:36,540 --> 02:37:39,760
bit of this and a little bit of that and
a little bit of Roberts and a little bit

1862
02:37:39,760 --> 02:37:45,680
of Schaufenster Puppen and models and
It's a it's just a pop-up

1863
02:37:46,510 --> 02:37:48,630
I don't think it works as well as Trans
Europe Express.

1864
02:37:49,750 --> 02:37:53,430
Conceptually, I think Man Machine is
more a collection of great songs.

1865
02:37:53,790 --> 02:37:58,990
Man Machine, I think, is probably in
terms of a pop record, a better

1866
02:37:58,990 --> 02:38:02,030
collection of songs because the songs
like The Model and some of that are

1867
02:38:02,030 --> 02:38:07,390
extremely well put together. They're
almost like a Beatles song or a Burt

1868
02:38:07,390 --> 02:38:08,650
Bacharach song. It's fantastic.

1869
02:38:10,220 --> 02:38:14,580
The other side of it is that, you know,
as a concept, the man-machine does not

1870
02:38:14,580 --> 02:38:15,319
hold together.

1871
02:38:15,320 --> 02:38:20,700
It's not, from beginning to end, a
perfect conceptual record where, you

1872
02:38:20,700 --> 02:38:27,620
know, a transhuman process conjured up
in the 1930s, travelling, say, on the

1873
02:38:27,620 --> 02:38:29,180
Orient Express.

1874
02:38:29,790 --> 02:38:34,070
Meeting kind of film stars like Marlene
Dietrich on the train, people in

1875
02:38:34,070 --> 02:38:37,450
wonderful private carriages with mirrors
and stuff, looking out at the

1876
02:38:37,450 --> 02:38:40,150
countryside, going from one side of
Europe to the other. Yeah, from

1877
02:38:40,150 --> 02:38:41,970
beginning to end, it was a complete
journey.

1878
02:38:42,530 --> 02:38:48,110
Where Demand Machine, no, Demand
Machine, it has a concept, but it's a

1879
02:38:48,110 --> 02:38:49,110
looser one.

1880
02:38:49,710 --> 02:38:53,150
Yet the album was key to the dawning of
a new electronic era.

1881
02:38:53,690 --> 02:38:58,270
In the UK, a new generation of musicians
obsessed with the sounds of Berlin-era

1882
02:38:58,270 --> 02:39:02,970
Bowie and Kraftwerk emerged, and in
1979, the seeds of the synth-pop era

1883
02:39:02,970 --> 02:39:07,310
were sown by a young DJ called Rusty
Egan, who recognised the dance floor

1884
02:39:07,310 --> 02:39:08,430
potential of this music.

1885
02:39:08,910 --> 02:39:15,450
I would think Autobahn was probably my
first introduction to electronic music.

1886
02:39:16,090 --> 02:39:21,290
My interest was the length, the fact
that it was like...

1887
02:39:21,610 --> 02:39:25,030
15 minutes long and it kept stopping and
starting.

1888
02:39:25,650 --> 02:39:29,830
I mean, what is it? It's got nothing on
it. It's just the road.

1889
02:39:30,030 --> 02:39:31,670
It just goes on and on and on.

1890
02:39:31,870 --> 02:39:36,630
So to create that beautiful... To

1891
02:39:36,630 --> 02:39:43,590
create that monotonism, in a way

1892
02:39:43,590 --> 02:39:44,810
they call it trance today.

1893
02:39:45,990 --> 02:39:51,130
And for me to then say, well, how can
I...

1894
02:39:51,440 --> 02:39:53,260
Play that in a bar, you know.

1895
02:40:02,660 --> 02:40:08,060
The bar in question was London's Blitz
Club, where Egan's electronic nights

1896
02:40:08,060 --> 02:40:12,860
flurried. A new culture was emerging,
and as Bowie released his Scary Monsters

1897
02:40:12,860 --> 02:40:16,540
album with its more commercial
electronic sound, young acts making

1898
02:40:16,540 --> 02:40:19,600
prominent use of the synthesizer sprung
up across the country.

1899
02:40:20,560 --> 02:40:24,340
And the hub of this activity was The
Blip, where this new music was played

1900
02:40:24,340 --> 02:40:27,020
alongside Kraftwerk and their fellow
electronic pioneers.

1901
02:40:30,440 --> 02:40:37,280
As the DJ in the club and playing
records

1902
02:40:37,280 --> 02:40:41,680
not made for DJs, don't forget these
people, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulz,

1903
02:40:41,680 --> 02:40:45,320
however, were making their music
unbeknownst that there was a...

1904
02:40:45,710 --> 02:40:49,350
bar or club somewhere that was going to
play. They weren't making music to be

1905
02:40:49,350 --> 02:40:50,350
played in bars and clubs.

1906
02:40:50,610 --> 02:40:51,950
They were making their music.

1907
02:40:52,310 --> 02:40:55,230
Craft work were being, you know,
dimension machines.

1908
02:40:55,630 --> 02:40:56,650
They were being robots.

1909
02:40:57,070 --> 02:41:00,190
Nobody was saying, hey, this is going to
be the new electronic dance music.

1910
02:41:00,490 --> 02:41:01,810
Nobody said anything like that.

1911
02:41:02,230 --> 02:41:04,690
So they were just making their music.

1912
02:41:05,230 --> 02:41:10,230
And, you know, simple minds in Scotland
were making life in a day. Talk, talk.

1913
02:41:10,550 --> 02:41:12,270
You know, they were making great music.

1914
02:41:12,650 --> 02:41:16,570
Lots of people were making great music
using synthesizers. And you've got Soft

1915
02:41:16,570 --> 02:41:20,510
Cell in Leeds, and you've got Depeche
Mode in Essex.

1916
02:41:20,810 --> 02:41:22,970
Everyone can get hold of a synthesizer.

1917
02:41:23,210 --> 02:41:26,710
What they were actually doing with it,
some people were trying to make a beat.

1918
02:41:27,730 --> 02:41:30,550
And if you'd made it with a beat, I
found it.

1919
02:42:03,120 --> 02:42:06,400
We were pretty much aware what was going
on in England.

1920
02:42:06,800 --> 02:42:10,940
Apparently it was these new electro
groups coming up.

1921
02:42:11,780 --> 02:42:16,880
And I especially, I was pretty much
aware of the fact that the groups coming

1922
02:42:16,880 --> 02:42:21,540
from England, all of them, they brought
something new into this electronic

1923
02:42:21,540 --> 02:42:26,420
sound, which wasn't there before. They
brought their heritage.

1924
02:42:26,880 --> 02:42:30,140
They brought back the Beatles and they
brought back...

1925
02:42:31,150 --> 02:42:37,850
All this English pop music, but now they
weren't using guitars, they were using

1926
02:42:37,850 --> 02:42:43,550
sequencers. And I thought, OK, that's
fair enough. They bring something

1927
02:42:43,550 --> 02:42:46,370
into it again.

1928
02:42:47,850 --> 02:42:52,350
Alongside the Human League, Ultravox and
Depeche Mode, a more abrasive set of

1929
02:42:52,350 --> 02:42:56,310
groups appeared who had emerged from the
punk scene and were using synthesizers

1930
02:42:56,310 --> 02:42:57,330
within a punk aesthetic.

1931
02:42:58,190 --> 02:43:00,050
Like their more commercial counterparts.

1932
02:43:00,680 --> 02:43:04,720
Bands on newly formed independent labels
such as Cabaret Voltaire, Joy Division

1933
02:43:04,720 --> 02:43:09,260
and Soft Cell were all equally
influenced by Kraftwerk. Those kind of

1934
02:43:09,260 --> 02:43:15,900
groups like Joy Division, like the
Druity Column, like a lot of factory

1935
02:43:15,900 --> 02:43:21,660
bands, or bands on Mute, or what we call
Gang of Four, those kind of bands,

1936
02:43:21,740 --> 02:43:24,560
Cabaret Voltaire, all of those bands in
the UK.

1937
02:43:25,260 --> 02:43:30,200
those what we call left-field NME bands
at the time, they would have had every

1938
02:43:30,200 --> 02:43:31,640
Kraftwerk record in their collection.

1939
02:43:32,480 --> 02:43:37,300
Certainly. They're the kind of people
who would really, who often cited

1940
02:43:37,300 --> 02:43:41,280
Kraftwerk, who would be a massive fan,
particularly Cammie Voltaire.

1941
02:43:42,320 --> 02:43:44,400
Really obsessed with Kraftwerk.

1942
02:43:44,660 --> 02:43:50,200
When I was in Leeds, the punk thing was
still big and happening.

1943
02:43:50,910 --> 02:43:52,130
And it was like, okay,

1944
02:43:52,830 --> 02:43:54,890
so you can play three chords on a
guitar.

1945
02:43:55,390 --> 02:43:58,670
Well, what I thought, hang on, I could
play one note on a synth.

1946
02:43:59,150 --> 02:44:00,970
And so it was kind of like a
progression.

1947
02:44:01,430 --> 02:44:04,710
It was just like a zeitgeist, really.
You know, there was like the Human

1948
02:44:04,710 --> 02:44:05,710
League and there was...

1949
02:44:06,220 --> 02:44:09,260
There was Cabri Voltaire and stuff. And
there was us.

1950
02:44:09,560 --> 02:44:13,240
And we were just like, our initial
songs, we were writing them in this

1951
02:44:13,240 --> 02:44:17,740
little crummy little studio in art
college about sort of Tupperware parties

1952
02:44:17,740 --> 02:44:19,800
and just rubbish and shit biscuits.

1953
02:44:20,400 --> 02:44:24,420
And just basically about the state of
society, which I think is still relevant

1954
02:44:24,420 --> 02:44:25,640
today, quite honestly.

1955
02:44:26,020 --> 02:44:31,320
And it was that kind of, you know, it
was just like, that was like electronic

1956
02:44:31,320 --> 02:44:35,880
punk. I think that's what we were doing.
We weren't trying to be pop stars. We

1957
02:44:35,880 --> 02:44:39,300
weren't being Spandau Ballet or Duran
Duran.

1958
02:44:39,520 --> 02:44:42,700
I mean, I saw some Duran Duran recent
stuff and they're trying to be

1959
02:44:42,700 --> 02:44:47,440
Kraftwerk. I mean, you know, God bless
them, you know, but they're not

1960
02:44:47,440 --> 02:44:51,020
Kraftwerk. But I mean, we were punks,
basically.

1961
02:44:51,280 --> 02:44:53,000
We were just punks with synths.

1962
02:44:53,700 --> 02:44:56,660
When I was a kid, I was probably about
13 and...

1963
02:44:57,100 --> 02:45:01,360
I heard stupid records on the radio,
because I loved the radio, Radio 1 at

1964
02:45:01,360 --> 02:45:06,320
the time. Things like Popcorn by Hot
Butter, which is a really silly record.

1965
02:45:06,520 --> 02:45:10,860
Beep, beep, beep, boop, beep, beep,
boop. And the other one was Son of My

1966
02:45:10,860 --> 02:45:15,700
Father by Chicory Tip, which I later
discovered was written by Giorgio

1967
02:45:15,700 --> 02:45:19,280
Moroder. I was just kind of, what's that
new sound?

1968
02:45:19,840 --> 02:45:24,680
When I heard Autobahn, I thought, I want
that sound. But then I was listening to

1969
02:45:24,680 --> 02:45:25,760
kind of soul music.

1970
02:45:26,570 --> 02:45:32,550
So to me it was like a sort of like,
Kraftwerk, Northern Soul, you know,

1971
02:45:32,570 --> 02:45:36,270
bang. And that's really how Tainted Love
happened.

1972
02:46:05,080 --> 02:46:10,360
And obviously working with Mark Harmon,
who's such a passionate singer,

1973
02:46:10,620 --> 02:46:13,620
brilliant lyricist and passionate
singer.

1974
02:46:14,920 --> 02:46:19,760
And I was into synthesizers, and that's
what brought it about, really.

1975
02:46:20,560 --> 02:46:24,260
But where certain bands like Soft Cell
were taking the sounds pioneered by

1976
02:46:24,260 --> 02:46:28,180
Kraftwerk and moving into new areas,
others were more obvious in their

1977
02:46:28,180 --> 02:46:33,440
approach. With his trilogy of records
beginning with 1979's Replicas, Gary

1978
02:46:33,440 --> 02:46:36,880
Newman not only showed that he was
influenced by the sound of Kraftwerk,

1979
02:46:37,020 --> 02:46:39,100
but also mimicked their man-machine
image.

1980
02:46:39,500 --> 02:46:43,560
I thought it was fair enough if they
bring their Liverpool and London

1981
02:46:43,560 --> 02:46:46,080
heritage into synthesizer music.

1982
02:46:47,199 --> 02:46:50,360
like the Human League did, Don't You
Want Me Baby.

1983
02:46:50,760 --> 02:46:55,640
This is great, and this is perfect,
because it's a combination.

1984
02:46:56,660 --> 02:47:03,320
They used, apparently, the synthesizer
sound, which we didn't come up with,

1985
02:47:03,340 --> 02:47:05,180
actually. Somebody else did.

1986
02:47:05,420 --> 02:47:11,440
We only put something together,
probably, and we invented a

1987
02:47:11,440 --> 02:47:12,980
statement.

1988
02:47:16,710 --> 02:47:21,730
And I thought, at that time, I thought,
oh, still, I think it's fair enough if

1989
02:47:21,730 --> 02:47:27,390
they bring together, if they make a
collage of synthesizer, sound,

1990
02:47:27,630 --> 02:47:33,570
electronic drums, and their

1991
02:47:33,570 --> 02:47:38,810
English pop music. It works fine, and
it's cool.

1992
02:47:39,470 --> 02:47:45,490
But if you start wearing red shirts and
black ties,

1993
02:47:46,280 --> 02:47:49,680
look grim in the camera and make photos
like this. It's just a parody.

1994
02:48:17,480 --> 02:48:24,140
Gary Newman was a rock star, no matter
how he wished to

1995
02:48:24,140 --> 02:48:25,140
cast himself.

1996
02:48:25,480 --> 02:48:30,460
And every time he came on and did Cars
or something, you weren't thinking, wow,

1997
02:48:30,600 --> 02:48:32,660
Cars. You were thinking Gary Newman.

1998
02:48:33,160 --> 02:48:39,700
Whereas when Kraftwerk came on and did
The Model, you thought The Model,

1999
02:48:39,820 --> 02:48:44,640
because you had nothing to really
identify with that song. With Gary

2000
02:48:44,640 --> 02:48:46,120
Newman, you knew there was this...

2001
02:48:46,510 --> 02:48:52,190
rather portly bloke with makeup on, sort
of making funny sweeping gestures and

2002
02:48:52,190 --> 02:48:55,570
singing about cars in a sort of
ballardian kind of way, you know what I

2003
02:48:55,570 --> 02:49:01,110
mean? But with Kraftwerk, who knows what
they were really like? You know, they

2004
02:49:01,110 --> 02:49:02,110
were robots.

2005
02:49:02,870 --> 02:49:09,370
In a way, they, well, definitely, they
were the precursor to

2006
02:49:09,370 --> 02:49:11,530
the dance.

2007
02:49:11,900 --> 02:49:18,760
music scene from Acid House where the
stars there were a DJ who you

2008
02:49:18,760 --> 02:49:23,020
couldn't really identify either. It was
a man who put records on and mixed

2009
02:49:23,020 --> 02:49:29,840
records and manipulated sounds to create
a sound that was the

2010
02:49:29,840 --> 02:49:32,700
whole thing. That was what you were
interested in. You were interested in

2011
02:49:32,700 --> 02:49:39,500
being taken over by the sound as opposed
to gawping at the individual making

2012
02:49:39,500 --> 02:49:40,500
the sound.

2013
02:49:41,000 --> 02:49:43,160
And I think that's what they pioneered,
really.

2014
02:49:44,000 --> 02:49:47,760
And it was into this musical world that
they had so clearly influenced that

2015
02:49:47,760 --> 02:49:49,760
Kraftwerk released the follow-up to Man
Machine.

2016
02:49:50,800 --> 02:49:52,180
Issued in May 1981,

2017
02:49:52,900 --> 02:49:55,980
Computer World was a return to the
band's more coherent conceptual

2018
02:49:55,980 --> 02:50:00,900
approach, and the album made the UK top
20 and remained on the charts for 22

2019
02:50:00,900 --> 02:50:05,980
weeks. In December, a double A-side
release of the album's title track and

2020
02:50:05,980 --> 02:50:09,140
the model took Kraftwerk to number one
in the UK singles charts.

2021
02:50:09,580 --> 02:50:12,400
And it was clear that the times had
finally caught up with the band.

2022
02:50:12,840 --> 02:50:19,380
With The Man Machine, I felt that for
the first time, they seemed to be just

2023
02:50:19,380 --> 02:50:25,180
slightly behind the times of anything.
But with Computer World, they're back at

2024
02:50:25,180 --> 02:50:26,220
the forefront, they're back at the
vanguard.

2025
02:50:26,640 --> 02:50:33,320
And one of the biographers for Kraftwerk
has written that if IBM in 1981

2026
02:50:33,320 --> 02:50:37,320
had embraced computers...

2027
02:50:38,240 --> 02:50:43,600
in the way that Kraftwerk did
thematically on that album they'd have

2028
02:50:43,600 --> 02:50:47,620
been in a much healthier situation ten
years down the line because they didn't

2029
02:50:47,620 --> 02:50:51,420
Kraftwerk are absolutely spot on on that
album not just about something that's

2030
02:50:51,420 --> 02:50:56,520
just beginning to come in but about the
fact that anticipating the sort of you

2031
02:50:56,520 --> 02:51:01,280
know the the the the digital swarm of
the kind of 21st century that you sort

2032
02:51:01,280 --> 02:51:04,580
of see you know you know which which is
the sound of that album you know that

2033
02:51:04,580 --> 02:51:09,980
kind of very point to a specific point
particularly like numbers um they really

2034
02:51:09,980 --> 02:51:12,400
are they're looking a long way down the
line

2035
02:51:12,400 --> 02:51:19,260
i'm the

2036
02:51:19,260 --> 02:51:21,440
operator of my pocket calculator

2037
02:51:25,840 --> 02:51:28,580
I'm the operator with my pocket
calculator.

2038
02:51:46,520 --> 02:51:53,290
There's something else going on with
computer world that I think is again

2039
02:51:53,290 --> 02:51:58,750
coming back to this this provocation
this teasing of um ross kind of self

2040
02:51:58,750 --> 02:52:03,930
-image and pretensions um and it's that
they use the pocket calculators and the

2041
02:52:03,930 --> 02:52:06,850
idea that music can just be made on
pocket calculators they constantly use

2042
02:52:06,850 --> 02:52:09,870
the word little and rather just
constantly using the word listening so

2043
02:52:09,870 --> 02:52:13,350
machines is just little i think that
especially men and the synthesizers

2044
02:52:13,350 --> 02:52:16,550
quite often slightly a great bounce of
synthesizers and playing two at a time

2045
02:52:17,600 --> 02:52:21,820
you know the bigness of it has some sort
of like phallic significance um a lot of

2046
02:52:21,820 --> 02:52:26,460
the time you know you can just make the
same things which is different you know

2047
02:52:26,460 --> 02:52:31,240
constantly teasing using the word little
all the time and then the kind of like

2048
02:52:31,240 --> 02:52:34,280
the clients of the show where they come
out and they just like you know that

2049
02:52:34,280 --> 02:52:38,140
didn't you know you could have made
music like that but nobody wanted to no

2050
02:52:38,140 --> 02:52:42,720
because nobody that's you know people
you know well you know when crap would

2051
02:52:42,720 --> 02:52:46,680
like to strike a pose but they're making
poses with a point The fact is that

2052
02:52:46,680 --> 02:52:52,440
especially sort of male sound makers
didn't really feel comfortable playing

2053
02:52:52,440 --> 02:52:53,440
something that little.

2054
02:52:55,460 --> 02:53:01,440
I'm controlling and composing by

2055
02:53:01,440 --> 02:53:05,540
pressing down a special key to play a
little melody.

2056
02:53:08,820 --> 02:53:12,540
By pressing down a special key to play a
little melody.

2057
02:53:13,580 --> 02:53:19,700
Kraftwerk really kind of were looking
into a long future here where they were

2058
02:53:19,700 --> 02:53:25,300
looking at the embryonic beginnings, the
embryonic beginnings of home computers

2059
02:53:25,300 --> 02:53:29,020
were starting off in the early 1980s.

2060
02:53:29,840 --> 02:53:35,540
Still quite expensive, available to the
few, not the many, but Kraftwerk were

2061
02:53:35,540 --> 02:53:37,980
clever enough to be able to see that the
future would be computers.

2062
02:53:38,920 --> 02:53:42,320
And the future would dominate for a very
long time. And they made an album, a

2063
02:53:42,320 --> 02:53:43,340
concept album around it.

2064
02:53:44,040 --> 02:53:48,860
But as many people say, it's their last
great concept album. They had Tour de

2065
02:53:48,860 --> 02:53:52,940
France and stuff, but it's not as strong
a concept as Computer World.

2066
02:53:54,040 --> 02:53:58,980
We get into that era of craft work where
they really don't want any more to be

2067
02:53:58,980 --> 02:53:59,939
seen by anybody.

2068
02:53:59,940 --> 02:54:01,580
Where they have mannequins and robots.

2069
02:54:02,120 --> 02:54:05,520
The records would come out, but that was
it. And there was not really a feeling.

2070
02:54:05,840 --> 02:54:07,900
People were wondering, is anybody there
anymore?

2071
02:54:08,790 --> 02:54:13,990
But I mean, they still got enormous
respect from the media and enormous

2072
02:54:13,990 --> 02:54:15,670
respect from the public, the album
chart.

2073
02:54:16,150 --> 02:54:20,570
But at this stage, it's fair to say that
there were so many other groups making

2074
02:54:20,570 --> 02:54:26,970
good, good and great electronic music
around them that the future had at last

2075
02:54:26,970 --> 02:54:30,370
caught up with them. They weren't any
more ahead of their time in terms of

2076
02:54:30,370 --> 02:54:31,249
their sound.

2077
02:54:31,250 --> 02:54:37,790
They were just part of a general, I
wouldn't say morass, but a general...

2078
02:54:38,090 --> 02:54:40,570
group of people who were making music
with electronic instruments.

2079
02:54:47,170 --> 02:54:52,970
And as Kraftwerk receded from the public
eye, electronic music continued to

2080
02:54:52,970 --> 02:54:53,970
evolve.

2081
02:54:53,990 --> 02:54:57,530
Their influence was not only heard
through the samples used on Afrika

2082
02:54:57,530 --> 02:55:01,450
Bambaataa's landmark Planet Rock record,
but even in the music of singer

2083
02:55:01,450 --> 02:55:05,250
-songwriter Neil Young, who openly
confessed his debt to them on his 1982

2084
02:55:05,250 --> 02:55:06,250
album Trans.

2085
02:55:07,210 --> 02:55:11,230
And as the 80s progressed, new forms of
electronic music continued to emerge,

2086
02:55:11,390 --> 02:55:14,870
such as house and techno, which also
clearly owed a debt to the pioneering

2087
02:55:14,870 --> 02:55:16,230
work of the German four-piece.

2088
02:55:17,110 --> 02:55:20,770
Yet Kraftwerk themselves were
mysteriously absent from this electronic

2089
02:55:20,770 --> 02:55:24,670
revolution, with only one more album
released before the close of the decade.

2090
02:55:25,210 --> 02:55:29,250
When they were a lone force, they
thrived, but once part of a larger

2091
02:55:29,250 --> 02:55:32,570
musical landscape, Kraftwerk drifted
away from the limelight.

2092
02:55:38,450 --> 02:55:43,190
synthy pop, new electronic pop, new
romantic, and so on.

2093
02:55:43,750 --> 02:55:48,610
That, I think, well, it referred
aesthetically to Catholic, but that was

2094
02:55:48,610 --> 02:55:55,110
very much about individual people, and
in a way, it was not

2095
02:55:55,110 --> 02:55:58,790
really competing with them. Early
electronic hip-hop was much more.

2096
02:56:00,410 --> 02:56:02,950
Those, they're the ideas of...

2097
02:56:03,310 --> 02:56:08,670
being robots not being authors but being
there having work on a pseudonym this

2098
02:56:08,670 --> 02:56:13,190
was this was really a competition uh and
and they didn't have an answer for that

2099
02:56:13,190 --> 02:56:18,490
uh because that was uh now it was no
longer for for people in in some uh

2100
02:56:18,490 --> 02:56:24,150
düsseldorf uh studio who were uh always
pretending to thinking seriously about

2101
02:56:24,150 --> 02:56:30,650
every beat, but now it was an entire
movement in the US, and it was

2102
02:56:30,650 --> 02:56:35,330
anonymous, it was mechanical, it was
about death of the author, if you wish.

2103
02:56:35,510 --> 02:56:41,890
The connection from this electric
boogie, electric hip-hop, to

2104
02:56:41,890 --> 02:56:46,230
early house, to early Detroit and
Chicago.

2105
02:56:48,510 --> 02:56:52,850
They were very big in that. They were
always mentioned honorably there. But

2106
02:56:52,850 --> 02:56:59,850
that was, of course, such a big thing
that they could not respond to

2107
02:56:59,850 --> 02:57:04,910
it any other way than becoming the
senior, the elder statesman. That's the

2108
02:57:04,910 --> 02:57:08,250
only possible role that was there for
them after that. And they haven't done

2109
02:57:08,250 --> 02:57:09,250
anything else but that.

2110
02:57:12,510 --> 02:57:16,890
And as elder statesmen, the group still
remained reclusive and detached from

2111
02:57:16,890 --> 02:57:17,890
popular music.

2112
02:57:18,220 --> 02:57:22,200
In the new millennium, their musical
activities have notably increased, their

2113
02:57:22,200 --> 02:57:27,340
infrequent live shows continuing to draw
huge audiences, and their 2003 album

2114
02:57:27,340 --> 02:57:30,020
Tour de France soundtrack receiving warm
reviews.

2115
02:57:30,720 --> 02:57:35,240
Yet as pioneers of electronic music,
their time has perhaps passed, and the

2116
02:57:35,240 --> 02:57:39,660
baton has been handed to a whole slew of
significant acts who would not exist if

2117
02:57:39,660 --> 02:57:42,080
it weren't for the revolutionary music
of Kraftwerk.

2118
02:57:42,760 --> 02:57:45,640
Conceptually, maybe they had what they
have ideas.

2119
02:57:46,170 --> 02:57:47,290
Maybe this is possible.

2120
02:57:48,610 --> 02:57:50,530
It's very hard to know.

2121
02:57:52,210 --> 02:57:57,650
They had done, remember they were making
a record a year from the 1970s, or 1959,

2122
02:57:58,010 --> 02:58:00,730
so this is the 1970s, 71, 72, 73, 74.

2123
02:58:00,930 --> 02:58:02,590
There's always a new record coming out.

2124
02:58:03,070 --> 02:58:06,810
And you know, that's the kind of work,
right? And there's so many brilliant

2125
02:58:06,810 --> 02:58:11,070
records, you can't keep it up. It's not
possible. Nobody has kept it up, even

2126
02:58:11,070 --> 02:58:12,070
the Beatles.

2127
02:58:12,110 --> 02:58:16,230
So, I mean, you know, I know at the end
of the day, crapper are human beings

2128
02:58:16,230 --> 02:58:20,910
making music and you have to admit that
they are human and they actually did

2129
02:58:20,910 --> 02:58:22,910
show human failings as well.

2130
02:58:23,530 --> 02:58:27,150
But what a legacy to leave behind you,
you know.