Kraftwerk (album)
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- Florian Schneider
- Conny Plankx|2=</?t[drh][ >]|nomatch=}}|Template:Main other}}Template:Main other}}
Kraftwerk is the debut studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released in Germany by Philips in November 1970. It was recorded by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, following their departure from Organisation, and produced by Konrad "Conny" Plank.
The debut, compared to their previous work, showcases a disciplined structure and a motorik-groove development. Since their tour in support of their 1975 album Autobahn, Kraftwerk has not reissued nor performed any of the material from this album.
Retrospective reviews highlighted its slow and positively primitive approach that denies instant gratification in favor of patience, while others found it "bleak" and "spartan". The song "Ruckzuck" was singled out as the high point, placed on several accolade lists including "twenty essential Krautrock tracks" and "greatest songs recorded by Kraftwerk". NME ranked Kraftwerk's debut album at the second-to-last place in the band's discography, ahead of Electric Café (1986).
Background and recording
After the commercial failure of their previous record, Tone Float (1970), Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider of Organisation were dropped by RCA Records and signed a new deal with Philips, the third band to join its roster after FrumpyTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and Template:Interlanguage link.Template:Sfn Hütter and Schneider named the new project Kraftwerk, inspired by the industrial environment of Düsseldorf and embracement of their German roots. Moreover, the German identity manifested itself in the song titles written exclusively in German.Template:Sfn To begin work, the duo rented an empty workshop in an industrial part of Düsseldorf near a railway station, which would be eventually called Kling Klang Studio.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn They outfitted it with audio insulation, and recorded rough masters on stereo-tape machines and cassette recorders, subsequently bringing them to a well-equipped studio for mixing.Template:Sfn
The album was recorded between July to September 1970Template:Sfn and produced by Conny Plank who shared the credit with Hütter and Schneider.Template:Sfn During recording, they were also joined by two drummers, Andreas Hohmann and Klaus Dinger,Template:Sfn with Hohmann playing on "Ruckzuck"Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and "Stratovarius",Template:Sfn while Dinger played on "Vom Himmel Hoch".Template:Sfn Kraftwerk decided to use acoustic drums, amplified by the use of contact microphones, a choice which was not readily accepted by the drummers.Template:Sfn The other instrumentation included Schneider on flute,Template:Sfn while Hütter played guitar, as well as modified Hammond organ and Tubon electric organs, the latter made by Swedish factory Joh Mustad AB in 1966.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Some of the acoustic instruments were manipulated by a pitch-to-voltage converter, which created the duplicate sounds heard throughout the record.<ref name="Lamb">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Composition
Ned Raggett, writing for AllMusic, describes Kraftwerk as an art rock album with psych roots and "sudden jump cuts of musique concrète noise and circular jamming as prone to sprawl as it is to tight focus".<ref name="Allmusic"/> Adam Blyweiss saw the traces of "credible jazz, rock noise and funk jiggle",<ref name ="Treblezine"/> while David Stubbs wrote that the record "oscillates between passages of percussive fury and rhythmless, amorphous experimentalism", and represents a crucial step in Kraftwerk's musical evolution.Template:Sfn The album is based around repeated note sequences that were pre-recorded and mixed on tape, and diversified by "organ tone clusters" and flute feedback sounds.Template:Sfn
The song "Ruckzuck" is driven by a motorik grooveTemplate:Sfn and powerful multi-dubbed flute riff.Template:Sfn NME characterizes "Ruckzuck" as "skirting around the edges of free jazz".<ref name="NME"/> According to Stubbs, Schneider's flute playing on the track is comparable to the "breathy fury" of Roland Kirk, within the "linear restraint" of the looped and varispeededed drum cycle.Template:Sfn "Stratovarius" begins with an "ominous cloud of electronic noise" that evolves into an acid rock improvisation,Template:Sfn similarly powered by motorik groove.<ref name="NME"/> Stubbs highlights the track's "desultory musique concrète clatter" and conference between a guitar-like violin and heavy percussion.Template:Sfn "Megaherz" is a more subdued track, bringing hints of ambient music, and the only one to feature no drums.Template:Sfn<ref name=sputnik/> Pascal Bussy discerns a "cathedral-like quality" in "Megaherz".Template:Sfn Anderson describes "Vom Himmel Hoch" as a "doomy soundscape", simulating a bombing raid and ending in an apocalyptic explosion.Template:Sfn The track has slight pitch curves that emulate the Doppler effect.Template:Sfn Its title refers to "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her", the Martin Luther nativity text set by Johann Sebastian Bach.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Release
Kraftwerk was released by Philips Records in Germany in November 1970.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The album cover features a drawing of a fluorescent-coloured traffic cone,Template:Sfn inspired by the works of Andy Warhol and the pop art movement in general.Template:Sfn Record CollectorTemplate:'s David Hemingway describes the sleeve as "iconic" and minimalistic.<ref name="Hemingway 2007">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The inner sleeve of the first printing contained a photo of an electric generator, which, according to Bussy, complements the band's industrial theme.Template:Sfn In 1972 the debut, along with their second album,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn were reissued in Britain by Philips' imprint company Vertigo Records as a double-set packaged in a different sleeve depicting a blue oscillating wave.Template:Sfn
In early 1971, Hütter briefly split from the band to study architecture in Aachen,Template:Sfn leaving Schneider, drummer Dinger and newcomer guitarist Michael Rother.Template:Sfn The three-member lineup—Schneider, Dinger and Rother—made an appearance on Radio Bremen,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and on the TV shows Beat-Club and Okidoki,Template:Sfn the former of which featured an improvisation titled "Truckstop Gondolero".Template:Sfn Shortly thereafter, Dinger and Rother left to form the band Neu!, with Hütter re-joining Schneider to continue Kraftwerk.Template:Sfn
The song "Ruckzuck" often served as an opener for Kraftwerk's early concerts.Template:Sfn Since their tour in support of their 1975 album Autobahn, Kraftwerk has not performed any of the material from this album.<ref name="Lamb"/> In later interview, Schneider referred to the first three Kraftwerk albums as "archaeology", and while after 1974 they have never been officially reissued, bootleg recording have been available.Template:Sfn In 2007, Kraftwerk hinted that the album might finally see a remastered CD release following the Der Katalog box-set release.<ref>Template:Cite interview</ref> Vinyl releases of the first two albums were scheduled for Record Store Day 2020 but were ultimately cancelled.Template:Sfn
Critical reception
Template:Album ratings The February 1972 issue of Sounds magazine published a readers’ poll on German music, which chose "Ruckzuck" as the best track of the year, ahead of Tangerine Dream’s "Alpha Centauri" and Et Cetera’s "Raga", and Can's "Halleluhwah".Template:Sfn During his 1978 recording sessions in Berlin, David Bowie deemed their earlier work to be "invigorating" and "free-form".Template:Sfn
"Praise Jimmy", reviewing Kraftwerk for the Sputnikmusic, favorably compared it to the band's classic works, describing it as "remarkably human", "eager", and "organic", largely contrasting with the "cold, robotic steel" of their classics. Jimmy also highlighted the album's slow and primitive approach that denies instant gratification in favor of patience, elaborating that there are "a lot of instances in which it seems like the band are noodling around, but it doesn't exactly mean they're lost" and have "eagerness" equal to "nothing short of charming to say the least".<ref name=sputnik/> Adam Blyweiss of Treblezine appraised it as a "totally different kind of acquired taste than their later techno, but a fascinating listen nonetheless".<ref name ="Treblezine"/> The Encyclopedia of Popular Music characterized their debut effort as "bleak, spartan music".Template:Sfn
In a mixed review, Ned Raggett of AllMusic lamented absence of Kraftwerk's trademark clipped keyboard melodies, but appreciated the "brilliant co-production and engineering skills" demonstrated by Plank, assessing his input to be as important as the band performances. He warmly reviewed Hütter's organ work on the "extended opening drone moan" of "Stratovarius" joined by Schneider's "eerie violin work".<ref name="Allmusic"/> In Record Collector, Hemingway describes its sound as being "as far away as it was possible to get" from Kraftwerk's Vertigo labelmates like Black Sabbath and Manfred Mann's Earth Band, citing the music's "musique concrete, organ tone clusters, and flute feedback." He added that, despite its relatively "inelegant" sound, the record hints at Kraftwerk's later music, evident not only with the "understated melodies and electronic experimentation" of pieces like "Megaherz" and "Vom Himmel Hoch" but also Schneider's early attempts at home-made rhythm instruments presaging those the band later employed.<ref name="Hemingway 2007" />
Biba Kopf of The Wire reflected that Kraftwerk "made the first significant steps towards a new form of amplified music, substantially different from its US/UK counterparts yet just as explosive, by reducing rock to its core elements — the basest beats, raw electric monotones, deliberately monotonous stop-start and fast-slow rhythms."<ref name="Kopf 2001" /> In The Ambient Century (2000), Mark Prendergast refers to Kraftwerk as "pure sound manipulation, a product of [Kraftwerk's] LSD experience of the late 1960s, a nerve-racking ride through machine sounds which ended with a veritable recreation of aerial bombing."Template:Sfn
Legacy
"Ruckzuck" was used as the theme song for the PBS show Newton's Apple in the United States.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> However, its use was unauthorized, and the program later substituted it with a cover version.<ref name="Lamb"/> The track also became a hit in Germany after it featured as the theme tune to the magazine television show Kennzeichen D, and was one of two German underground rock songs of the era to become a hit through TV usage, alongside Can's "Spoon".<ref name="Kopf 2001">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
In 2019, Stereogum ranked the 1971 Radio Bremen version of "Ruckzuck" among twenty essential Krautrock tracks, highlighting Schneider's "ascent-descent flute intro" as "iconic" and resembling blueprints for the beginning of their future track "Trans-Europe Express".<ref name="stereogum">Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 2020, The Guardian ranked thirty "greatest songs" recorded by Kraftwerk, placing "Ruckzuck" at the tenth spot and describing its "driving repetitive rhythms" as "almost proto-techno".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The same year, NME ranked Kraftwerk's debut album at the second-to-last place in the band's discography, ahead of Electric Café (1986), elaborating that the album is not "tearing up any trees in the 31st century electronica stakes, but it's still a fascinating record".<ref name="NME">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
German ensemble Zeitkratzer released a cover album Performs Songs From The Albums Kraftwerk And Kraftwerk 2 in March 2017, which includes reworked versions of Kraftwerk and Kraftwerk 2.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The 1997 album Die Roboter Rubato by American musician Terre Thaemlitz contains piano interpretations of Kraftwerk tracks, including the song "Ruckzuck".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Track listing
Personnel
Credited adapted from LP liner notes,<ref name="notes">Template:Cite AV media notes</ref> except where otherwise noted.
Kraftwerk
- Ralf Hütter – organ, Tubon, guitar
- Florian Schneider-Esleben – flute, violin, electric percussion
- Andreas Hohmann – drums ("Ruckzuck",Template:Sfn "Stratovarius"Template:Sfn)
- Klaus Dinger – drums ("Vom Himmel Hoch"Template:Sfn)
Technical
- Conrad Plank – producer, engineer
- Klaus Löhmer – assistant
- Ralf Hütter – cover
- Bernd and Hilla Becher – photographyTemplate:Efn
Charts
Weekly charts
| Chart (1971) | Peak position |
|---|
Year-end charts
| Chart (1971) | Position | |
|---|---|---|
| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> |
27 |
Notes
References
Bibliography
Books
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