Favourite Music Reads of the 00s: #2 (Kraftwerk)
Posted by s woods on November 4, 2009
The Return of Kraftwerk (and why you shouldn’t be disappointed)
- Tom Ewing, Freaky Trigger, 2000.
“Listen to ‘Europe Endless,’ the first track on Trans-Europe Express. It sounds pristine, beautiful, Utopian, even before the soft-spoken voice comes in. There’s nothing ‘rock’ about that voice, but there’s nothing cold or mechanical either. What I hear is history, sadness and hope: the great, scarred old continent looking into a future which might at last be peaceful. Far from the blank-eyed conceptualists their legacy casts them as, Kraftwerk at their peak made intensely reflective, poignant music. Their embrace of the synthesiser’s beauty and stability can be taken as a stern or canny comment on mechanisation — but it can also be heard as music made in a time and place which needed stability, which was weary or suspicious of rock’s wanton drama and rage to expend itself.”
A.C. Rhodes said
I was wondering why there hasn’t been a proper documentary about them (after all, there was about Klaus Nomi, though he was a more overt cult figure with peripheral Bowie ties who passed away). And I have yet to find someone who got their hands on the first edition of Flür’s I Was A Robot before it was pulled. I haven’t read Bussy’s book, yet.
s woods said
Not JUST about Kraftwerk, A.C., but I’ve heard this is good: http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/review-synth-britannia-223591