Kraftwerk (album)
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| Kraftwerk | |||||
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| Studio album by Kraftwerk | |||||
| Released | 1970 - Germany Released later in other countries |
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| Recorded | July - September 1970 | ||||
| Genre | Krautrock Electronic music |
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| Length | 39:39 | ||||
| Label | Philips | ||||
| Producer | Conny Plank & Kraftwerk | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
| Kraftwerk chronology | |||||
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Kraftwerk is the first album by Kraftwerk. It was released in Germany in 1970, produced by the influential Konrad "Conny" Plank.
Hütter and Schneider used two drummers during the recording of the album; Andreas Hohmann and Klaus Dinger. Their playing provides the music with a rock edge. According to later interviews with Dinger, he plays on side two, while Hohmann plays on side one, which was completed before Dinger joined the sessions. This proves to be quite distinct from Hütter and Schneider's previous band Organisation, or the following pair of Kraftwerk albums, Kraftwerk 2 and Ralf und Florian which were both recorded entirely as a duo by Hütter and Schneider.
The other instrumentation features Hütter on Hammond organ and an electronic bass instrument called a tubon, whilst Schneider supplied manipulated flute. The song, Ruckzuck is driven by a powerful multi-dubbed flute riff, along with electric violin and guitar; these instruments often connected to further electronics via an EMS pitch-to-voltage converter.
The album features no vocals, and only parts of Ruckzuck and Stratovarius are similar to a structured rock song. TV footage from WDR exists of Ruckzuck being performed in concert by Hütter and Schneider's previous band, Organisation.1, as well black and white footage of Kraftwerk playing the song, featuring the line-up of Hütter, Schneider and Dinger.
The cover design, credited to Ralf Hütter, is a curious nod to the influence of Andy Warhol and the then contemporary Pop Art movement, featuring a fluorescent-coloured traffic cone drawn in a Warhol-esque manner. The image on the inside of the gatefold sleeve is of a powerplant electricity substation, photographed by Düsseldorf conceptualist artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, known for their photographic Typologies [1] series that celebrated the industrial and urban environment – and by extension, the society that built it – by showing multiple variations of ordinarily mundane building types.
Guitarist Michael Rother joined the band after this album, and remarkably, around the same time Hütter actually left the band for a few months in 1971. The 3-piece Kraftwerk line up of Schneider, Dinger and Rother made a TV appearance on Radio Bremen TV show Beat-Club. After this, Dinger and Rother left to form revered band Neu!, with Hütter rejoining Schneider to continue Kraftwerk, both parties recording under the mentoring of Conny Plank.
No material from this album has been performed in the band's live set since the Autobahn tour of 1975, and to date, the album has not been officially reissued on compact disc. The band seemingly reluctant to consider it a part of their canon. as Schneider in later interviews described the first three Kraftwerk albums as "archaeology". However, pirated CDs of the album have been widely available since the mid-1990s on the Germanofon and Crown labels.
Ruckzuck was used as the theme song for the defunct PBS show Newton's Apple in the United States. It was used without permission. Later episodes of the show feature an unknown cover version of the song.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
[edit] Side one
- "Ruckzuck" - 7:47 (translates as "Very quickly" with a slight connotation of "Push-pull")
- "Stratovarius" - 12:10 (pun on Stratocaster guitars and Stradivarius violins)
[edit] Side two
- "Megaherz" - 9:30 ("Mega-heart" - a pun on "Megahertz", the unit of frequency)
- "Vom Himmel hoch" - 10:12 ("From Heaven above" - the first words of Martin Luther's famous Christmas hymn)
[edit] Credits
- Ralf Hütter – organ, tubon; cover design.
- Florian Schneider-Esleben – flute, violin, electric percussion.
- Andreas Hohmann – drums.
- Klaus Dinger – drums.
- Konrad "Conny" Plank – sound engineer & production.
- Klaus Löhmer – assistant sound engineer.
[edit] Release details
| Country | Date | Label | Format | Catalog | |
| Germany | November 1970 | Philips | Vinyl | 6305 058 | Gatefold sleeve |
| France | 1973 | Philips | Vinyl | 9118 002 | Single sleeve |
| United Kingdom | March 1973 | Vertigo | Vinyl | 6441 077 | A combination of Kraftwerk's first two German albums |
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262025655 Bernd and Hilla Becher: 'Typologies'
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