One of the best Kraut rock albums ever!!!





Krautrock is german music with very weird sounds, droning, concrete passages, Zappa-esque jazz pieces and very challaging to the mind ( )


Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental bands who appeared in Germany in the late 1960s. It was originally a somewhat derogatory term coined by the British music press from the slang term "Kraut", meaning "a German person" and taken from the traditional German dish of pickled cabbage, Sauerkraut. However, because much of the music produced by these bands has since come to be very highly regarded, the term "krautrock" is now generally seen as an accolade rather than an insult.[1][2]

Krautrock is an eclectic and often very original mix of Anglo-American post-psychedelic jamming and moody progressive rock mixed with ideas from contemporary experimental classical music (especially composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, with whom, for example, Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay of Can had previously studied) and from the new experimental directions that emerged in jazz during the 1960's and 1970's. Moving away from the patterns of song structure and melody of much rock music in America and Britain, some in the movement also drove the music to a more mechanical and electronic sound.

Typical bands dubbed "krautrock" in the early 1970s included Tangerine Dream, Faust, Can, Amon Düül and others associated with the celebrated Cologne-based producers and engineers Dieter Dierks and Conny Plank, such as Neu!, Kraftwerk and Cluster. Bands such as these were reacting against the post-WWII cultural vacuum in Germany and , while originally influenced by British and American popular culture, were also seeking to move in their own firmly original and distinctive direction, to create a radical and experimental new German popular culture.


check it out if you want

I'm a big fan of the superstars of the genre (Can, Faust, Neu and to a lesser extent Cluster). Can in particular are a favourite of mine, and I think they deserve to be recognized as one of the greatest bands of all time, for Tago Mago and Future Days particularly. Neu are fun drone-rock, and who could hate that, and Faust are loveable weirdos.


Otherwise, I've never gone too far beyond that. I've conclusively discovered that I despise Amon Duul in all their incarnations.

Damo I thought that Yeti was a fun Amon Duul II album. And I recently discovered Dzyan, very far out check them out if you haven't already

starbuck said:

Thanks for the tips - I'd certainly like to find more of this type of music. I'll do some investigating this weekend.

damosuzuki said:

if you need some tips or help just ask me

sorry double post
[Edited 2/8/07 4:07am]

i don't know much about krautrock, but everything i've heard i like. i have some can, i have neu!, of course i have a bunch of kraftwerk stuff...i wouldn't call myself a fan of the genre, but it's only because i haven't had time to dive into it. i heard julian cope wrote a really good guide to krautrock...ever read it?

Anx said:

I bought that book, but I left my copy in a restaurant after barely cracking the spine. bloody airhead, I am sometimes...

This comes from record digging.

What I've heard, I like, yes.

I definitely like Can, never really gotten into any other Krautrock band though.

I'm very interested in it, but haven't heard much.

I love CAN!