Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Much ink has been spilled on the topic of krautrock, the underground music of 1970s Germany. But Christoph Dallach\u2019s Neu Klang \u2014 the phrase means \u201cnew sound\u201d \u2014 finds a novel route through familiar ground. The book is billed as the first oral history of the movement. Interviewees include a wide cross-section of musicians, from members of leading bands such as Can and Neu!, to industry figures, scenesters and foreign admirers like Jean-Michel Jarre and Brian Eno. These many voices are confusing to follow, but they testify to krautrock\u2019s scope.<\/p>\n
Invented in the 1970s by \u201cone of those arrogant British music journos\u201d, in the words of radio DJ Winfrid Trenkler, the term itself was widely disliked in Germany. It was catchy, yes \u2014 but inaccurate and supercilious too. \u201cWe made electronic music \u2014 not kraut or rock,\u201d says ambient pioneer Klaus Schulze, formerly of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, interviewed before his death in 2022. Schulze\u2019s occasional bandmate Harald Grosskopf recalls a British music press article about Kraftwerk that was illustrated by Nazi runic lettering, flaming torches and the Brandenburg Gate; the headline was \u201cMuzak from Germany\u201d. \u201cIn the UK they\u2019d make their jokes,\u201d says free-jazzer Peter Br\u00f6tzmann, who died last year, through what can be guessed as gritted teeth.<\/p>\n
Neu Klang struggles with the diffuseness of the acts grouped under the krautrock umbrella, jumping rapidly between locales and people. Links are loose or non-existent (\u201cI wasn\u2019t interested in any kind of dialogue or exchange,\u201d says Neu!\u2019s Michael Rother). Intriguing life stories are truncated, like Suzanne Doucet\u2019s wild swerve from performing Schlager hits \u2014 Germany\u2019s homegrown pop songs, infamous for cheerful vulgarity \u2014 to trippy psychedelia. \u201cI wanted total liberation,\u201d she says. Despite the differences, a distinctively German character emerges. Dallach is eager to emphasise the music\u2019s prophetic nature. \u201cThe best krautrock sounds came, in their time, like unheard radio waves from the future, and will go on radioing into the future,\u201d he writes in the introduction.<\/p>\n
Can\u2019s improvisations \u2014 \u201cinstant composition\u201d in the words of their bassist and electronics expert Holger Czukay \u2014 aimed for complete immersion. They were inspired by radical musical theories about spontaneity, but also Germany\u2019s criminal history. \u201cWhat we did then with Can had a lot to do with clearing away that past,\u201d Czukay, who died in 2017, says. The synthesiser was another tool for starting over. Krautrock\u2019s experiments with electronic music overlapped with developments in the UK and the US. But German acts such as Cluster and Schulze took it further, creating space-age soundtracks that anticipated the development of ambient music and techno. Again, the motive was to escape the terrible pull of recent history. For one interviewee, the synthesiser was \u201ca gift from the gods, because it really enabled us to create something new, with no set paths to follow\u201d.<\/p>\n
What about krautrock\u2019s own paths? Given the erosion of the cheap rents and social security that effectively subsidised musicians 50 years ago, and also the collapse in record sales, the period covered in Neu Klang resembles a distant dream. Today\u2019s young musicians will read record executive Siegfried Loch\u2019s words with envy. \u201cThe more autonomy you have,\u201d he says, \u201cthe more future you get.\u201d Neu Klang: The Definitive History of Krautrock by Christoph Dallach, translated by Katy Derbyshire, Faber \u00a325, 448 pages Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Caf\u00e9 and subscribe to our podcast Life & Art wherever you listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Much ink has been spilled on the topic of krautrock, the underground music of 1970s Germany. But Christoph Dallach\u2019s Neu Klang \u2014 the phrase means \u201cnew sound\u201d \u2014 finds a novel route through familiar ground. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-54712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54713,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54712\/revisions\/54713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}