This excellent documentary looks at how a radical generation of musicians created a new German musical identity out of the cultural ruins of war.

Featured musicians include Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze and Faust.

You can view the first part above. See the rest on YouTube – while you can.

Description:

Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard. They shared one common goal – a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany’s gruesome past – but that didn’t stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain from calling them Krautrock.

Kraftwerk’s The Bleep proves that everything sounds a lot naughtier when you censor it.

via commanderkrudge, who says “Even the Grandfathers of Electro Pop only had *bleep* on their mind when writing their classic song The Model.”

For Kraftwerk fun, see this earlier post 11 Unusual Covers Of Kraftwerk’s The Model.

via apc

This video, Truckstop Gondolero, captures Kraftwerk in 1971, back when they were still groovy.

via BVM0Experim0Indus0TV:

Live studio performance, 1971.

The documentary will debut Friday October 23rd on BBC 4 at 9pm. No word on when it will be available outside the UK.

Description:

Between 1968 and 1977, bands including Neu!, Faust, Can and Kraftwerk looked beyond Anglo-American pop to create some of the most radical and original sounds ever heard in the country.

The experiments of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Cluster would give the world its first taste of electronica.

By the late Seventies, some famous English and American ears took notice as David Bowie, Brian Eno and Iggy Pop decamped to Germany in an attempt to tap into the Zeitgeist. Meanwhile, in a studio overlooking the Berlin Wall, Iggy and Bowie would record Low, Heroes and Lust For Life, taking the sound and feel of Krautrock to the bank and to the world at large.

via TV pick of the day

Remember the Acid Symphony Orchestra?

This short video clip comes from Flow Festival Helsink, where the Acid Symphony Orchestra opened for Kraftwerk:

There are ten TB-303’s in this orchestra and one TR-707(?) operated by conductor Mr Jori Hulkkonen. This was very good performance, but unfortunately I only have some short clips with very bad audio quality. These guys were supporting Kraftwerk, which played excellent gig later.

Imagine ten 303’s from Kraftwerk PA system… Ahhh…

via Chris Randall

Das Modell is one of their most popular tracks – and it’s also one of their most frequently covered tracks.

Kraftwerk plays it today remarkably similar to how they did it thirty years ago. Here are some version from the last 30 years that aren’t so faithful to the original.

Give them a look – and let me know your favorite cover in the comments!

Das Modell, Mit Ukulele, Melodica Und Akustischer Gitarre

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rammstein’s Das Model

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Cardigans’ Das Model

Click here to view the embedded video.

Triology’s String Quartet Version Of Das Modell

Click here to view the embedded video.

David Byrne and the Balanescu Quartet – The Model

Click here to view the embedded video.

Nullsleep’s 8-bit Cover

Click here to view the embedded video.

Folky Cover with Banjolele

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Model, On Ukulele

Click here to view the embedded video.

Big Black

Click here to view the embedded video.

Generator’s Techno Version

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ska-esque Version

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gorefest covers Kraftwerk’s synth pop classic Autobahn, and Autobahn may never be the same.

via, WFMU, via Grindtube666:

Recorded from VPRO’s Firma Onrust (Dutch TV) in may 1993

Then take the time to listen to The Story Of Kraftwerk, an audio documentary that looks at the electronic music pioneers and their influence on musicians over thirty+ years.

If you don’t have time now, bookmark this page and give the documentary a listen later or download the MP3 and listen to it at your leisure.

It’s that good.

The Story Of Kraftwerk includes forty years of music, interviews with Kraftwerk and some of the musicians influenced by them from Bowie to Hot Chip.

via jaypee112233, M:Cast

After posting the vintage footage of Kraftwerk performing Das Modell, Keep Werking’s John Shilcock sent me a link to this equally interesting historic performance in Russia of The Robots.

via rmfigue:

Originally Broadcasted by USSR TV at 1980

This is some fantastic vintage footage of a young Kraftwerk, in 1980, performing Das Modell on German TV. Make sure you check out the crowd shots!

Amazingly, their current performances are amazingly faithful, both sonicly and visually, to what’s captured here.

Can you imagine how this would have blown people’s minds thirty years ago?

via goodtolove235abc

Sonic Boom (Pete Kember) does Kraftwerk’s Hall of Mirrors.

via spacemetalizer:

Here he is! Finally, after many years, I got a chance to see the great Pete Kember (aka Sonic Boom, formerly of Spacemen 3)… I filmed this at the Toronto record store Sonic Boom, in their basement where he did a 3 song set- February 4, 2008.

The tune is ‘Hall of Mirrors’ by Kraftwerk.

Kraftwerk interview, with Ralf Hütter July 8th, 2009.

Filmed during the Kraftwerk gig in the Manchester Velodrome 3th July 2009. With clips of Tour de France, Numbers and The Robots.

via twingokraftwerk

HITEC ROBONOVA-I robots dance to the sounds of Kraftwerk.

Unfortunately, they probably do this before they kill you and use your spinal fluids for lubricant.

via chaff79

Short review, via Craig Thom:

This documentary attempts to cover the rise of German electronic and experimental music from the 1960s, centered on Kraftwerk. There are perhaps two documentaries here: one an overview of the career of Kraftwerk, and the other the development of native German music. I found the latter more interesting, but I enjoyed it all.

If your interest is just in Kraftwerk, you may not get enough out of this to justify the time. If you are mostly unfamiliar with German music from the ’60s, picking it up, as I did, with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream and Neu! in the ’70s, then you may find the first hour as interesting as I did.

You can preview Kraftwerk And The Electronic Revolution below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

via vanelektrik

This is a promo for Kraftwerk’s The Catalogue, 2009 digitally remastered releases of their most important albums.

The albums include:

• Autobahn (1974)
• Radio-Activity – (German title: Radio-Aktivität) (1975)
• Trans-Europe Express – (German title: Trans-Europa Express) (1977)
• The Man-Machine – (German title: Die Mensch-Maschine) (1978)
• Computer World – (German title: Computerwelt) (1981)
• Electric Café (1986) – (here given its original name of Techno Pop)
• The Mix (1991)
• Tour de France Soundtracks (2003) – (now titled Tour de France)

Individual albums will be available Oct 5th, and the box set Nov 16th.

The Catalogue (German title: Der Katalog) will be available as a boxed set of eight albums by Kraftwerk that were released from 1974 to 2003. All albums were digitally remastered, with most of the cover art redesigned, including rare photographs in the liner notes that were not part of each album’s original release.

“We’ve been digitally transferring all of Kraftwerk’s original recordings and sound sources from our badly degrading master tapes while our engineers, Fritz and Henning, have been working in parallel to remaster our early albums for re-release. So for the first time, our recordings will be available in crisp, clear Kling Klang sound with all the fold-out covers and images our label at the time either messed up or wouldn’t pay for. There will be some alternate mixes of tracks and some unedited versions, but unfortunately we don’t have much unreleased material. We never recorded extra songs or twenty different versions of the same song. We would complete a song and then move forward, always keeping very focused on one Kling Klang project at a time.”

via fantomas44

This is a sneak preview/teaser, via moonmodular, of “the last analog moon module you´ll ever need…”

When it comes to teaser, there’s usually a little steak to go along with the sizzle.

If you’re a Moon Modular user and you have any ideas on this, leave a comment!

This is an unofficial cover version & video for Kraftwerk’s It’s More Fun To Compute – The Minimal Mix.

via syntesen:

After attending a Kraftwerk concert in Randers, Denmark, I just had to realize this classic track from the Computerwelt album.

I aimed for a quite straight version, albeit updated to a modern-day minimal house/techno sound.

I did the video in the style of the good ol’ Germans, hand-creating ~150 video frames in Adobe Photoshop and cutting them all together in Premiere.

I used the following gear on the track.:

• Clavia Nord Lead 2X (bass, leads/pads, sequences, drums)
• Ableton Vocoder
• SugarBytes Efectrix (FX sequencer for drums)
• PSP VintageWarmer for mastering
• Ableton Live 8 (sequencing, etc.)

In a way, it’s a “demo reel” for the Nord Lead 2X as well.

Seminal electronic band Kraftwerk have announced plans to reissue 8 of their classic albums with the release of 12345678: The catalogue .

Eight of the band’s albums will be repackaged, including:

• Autobahn (1974)
• Radioactivity (1975)
• Trans Europe Express (1977)
• The Man Machine (1978)
• Computer World (1981)
• Techno Pop (1986)
• The Mix (1991)
• Tour de France (2003)

The collection will be available as eight individual CDs, eight individual vinyl sleeves, a CD box set, or as a digital download.

Yum! Let’s hope there are some goodies thrown into the mix.

via the quietus

Earlier in the week, we put up a post on 9 Flavors of Popcorn, a collection of music videos for a variety of versions of the synthpop classic.

Once again, though, a Synthtopia reader, Ian Page-Echols, has topped us – finding an ancient WFMU post that offers no less than 79 covers of Popcorn. They cheat a little and use Prodigy’s Popcorn Techno Dance 99 Remix 1 twice, but it’s a pretty good cover, so why not?

Others on board for this massive collection include Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk, The Boston Pops & twisted children’s musician and techno pioneer Bruce Haack.

A few examples are embedded below; see the WFMU post for the motherload.

Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider, caught at MusikMesse 2009 – Frankfurt

via Nafoute:

First public appearance of Florian Schneider as now an ex kraftwerk member (or ex robot is you prefer)

Thx to Mark J Stagg for the original link