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Review
Offers a great overview of a hugely influential movement... An excellent primer. --Pitchfork
**** A fascinating overview of a hugely influential movement. --Q Magazine
***** As good as the music it celebrates. --Record Collector
**** A fascinating overview of a hugely influential movement. --Q Magazine
***** As good as the music it celebrates. --Record Collector
Product Description
Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and its Legacy charts the history of this influential music genre, from its roots in free jazz, psychedelia and the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, to the groundbreaking experiments of Faust, Kraftwerk and Can. The late 1960s in West Germany was a period of profound breakthroughs, upheavals and reversals. Communes were spreading, protests organised throughout the entire country, the desire to begin everything anew permeating the young. Out of this climate, a music scene exploded that would forever change the face of western rock; at times anarchic, at others mystical, magickal, or utopian, it pushed rock beyond any known limits. Never a genre or a movement per se, Krautrock encompassed a very wild and diverse range of sounds, attitudes, and past musics, from free jazz to Karlheinz Stockhausen, from dada to Fluxus, from German Romanticism to the Mothers of Invention. The musicians operated outside any known categories, breaking new ground and turning their backs to both their country's past and the conventions of Anglo-American rock. Their vision fired the imaginations of generations of musicians after them: Cabaret Voltaire, Brian Eno, Nurse with Wound, PiL, DAF, Einstürzende Neubauten, to only name a few, have all acknowledged their debt to Krautrock's uncompromising, outsider ethics and far-out sounds. From the relentless drum beating of Amon Düül, to the eastern tinged mysticism of Popol Vuh and the sonic assaults of Conrad Schnitzler, Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and Its Legacy traces the history of this phenomenon. Illustrated with concert photos, posters, record cover art and other rare visual material, and also including essays by Michel Faber, Erik Davis, David Stubbs, Ken Hollings and testimonials from Gavin Russom (Delia and Gavin/Black Meteoric Star), Plastic Crimewave, Stephen Thrower (Coil/Cyclobe), and Ann Shenton (Add N to (X)) this is an essential compendium to a music whose spirit and ideas still vibrate through contemporary culture today.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This isn't the first book on the subject of German electronic and avant garde music from the 1960s onward, of course, but it's the only one I've read. Having recently bought several CDs by the likes of NEU!, Cluster and Popol Vuh, I wanted a book that would guide me on exploring this kind of music further. At just under 200 pages it looks expensive, but it's glossy, almost A4 size and informative. One of its strengths is in having more than a dozen contributors and the text is divided into sections: background essays, A-Z artist and producer profiles, a timeline which puts releases into a wider context, a look at labels and a long 1973 article on the subject. There are also many great photos.
The four essays take up the first fifty pages, the best of which is by novelist Michel Faber. It is an account of his initiation into and continuing love for this music which frequently touches a chord. Unlike other contributors, he acknowledges the popularity of other forms of modern music and the whole piece is highly readable. Some of the other writing, though informative, is more dense, often in an academic style. Where it's badly-written, it can be virtually impenetrable. David Stubbs, who also writes some interesting artist profiles, makes the mistake of dismissing 'Anglo-American Rock' as a continuing influence on current music. His biggest gaffe, however, appears in his piece on Tangerine Dream, in which he claims that their album 'Zeit' is 'the true voyage to the Dark Side Of The Moon, one which puts Pink Floyd's own declared efforts in this vein in their proper perspective as cosy, shagpile astronomers by comparison'. Assuming that he's listened to Floyd's album, he ought to know that, despite its title, it has nothing to do with space and has a completely different agenda to 'Zeit'.
That aside, the profiles are interesting, identifying each artist's best, most innovative and most groundbreaking work. They've introduced me to some great artists of whom I haven't previously heard, such as Agitation Free. Lumping artists into a subject as uncertain as this is difficult, though, because 'Krautrock', for want of a more respectful label, isn't a movement as such. The people involved are linked only by a certain approach to music-making. Some are rooted in jazz, others in Stockhausen, and then of course there's Faust - where do you put them? Can are unlike anyone else and Popol Vuh veer from beautiful melodies to impressionistic brilliance. Nektar are a baffling inclusion: a British band based in Germany who sound much more like a conventional rock band caught between hard rock and prog.
I suspect that this book will add little to a bookshelf that already contains something on the subject, such as Julian Cope's take on it, but as an introduction I've found it very useful.
The four essays take up the first fifty pages, the best of which is by novelist Michel Faber. It is an account of his initiation into and continuing love for this music which frequently touches a chord. Unlike other contributors, he acknowledges the popularity of other forms of modern music and the whole piece is highly readable. Some of the other writing, though informative, is more dense, often in an academic style. Where it's badly-written, it can be virtually impenetrable. David Stubbs, who also writes some interesting artist profiles, makes the mistake of dismissing 'Anglo-American Rock' as a continuing influence on current music. His biggest gaffe, however, appears in his piece on Tangerine Dream, in which he claims that their album 'Zeit' is 'the true voyage to the Dark Side Of The Moon, one which puts Pink Floyd's own declared efforts in this vein in their proper perspective as cosy, shagpile astronomers by comparison'. Assuming that he's listened to Floyd's album, he ought to know that, despite its title, it has nothing to do with space and has a completely different agenda to 'Zeit'.
That aside, the profiles are interesting, identifying each artist's best, most innovative and most groundbreaking work. They've introduced me to some great artists of whom I haven't previously heard, such as Agitation Free. Lumping artists into a subject as uncertain as this is difficult, though, because 'Krautrock', for want of a more respectful label, isn't a movement as such. The people involved are linked only by a certain approach to music-making. Some are rooted in jazz, others in Stockhausen, and then of course there's Faust - where do you put them? Can are unlike anyone else and Popol Vuh veer from beautiful melodies to impressionistic brilliance. Nektar are a baffling inclusion: a British band based in Germany who sound much more like a conventional rock band caught between hard rock and prog.
I suspect that this book will add little to a bookshelf that already contains something on the subject, such as Julian Cope's take on it, but as an introduction I've found it very useful.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
From Can to Kraftwerk and Nektar to Neu! This is a very informative guide to the origins of the experimental German rock movement of the late 60's and early 70's that came to be known as Krautrock. While it provides profiles of the key bands and their music, it also explores the underlying reasons why and how such a phenomemnon developed with its parallels in politics and social upheaval. The book is some 190 pages and is well laid out with plenty of photographs and artwork that you can dip into without ever feeling you have to read it from cover to cover. It probably won't interest those who find Krautrock relentless, boring and repetitive. But for those who appreciate what its all about, it should makes you value your old vinyl records (and the artwork on their album sleeves) even more with a desire to hear more of what you may have missed.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Krautrock or Cosmic Rock & It's Legacy is by far the most visually perfect rendering of the music that emanated from Germany from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. It's 8.5 inch by 10.5 inch size enables wonderful photographs to be displayed. My favourite is a full colour image of Karlheinz Stockhausen (the father of German Electronica) at the controls of the studio as he creates his almighty 'Hymnen' in 1967. Other wonderful images are Tangerine Dream with Klaus Schulze on drums, Cluster manipulating banks of equipment, Tangerine Dream against a forest of Moogs,rare images of Harmonia and the wonderful Gille Lettmann of the Cosmic Jokers. There are 31 band profiles, 8 wonderful label tabs with copious colour illustrations of those far out covers like those of Ohr, Kuckuck,Brain and the legendary Pilz which means Mushroom. Of great interest is the analysis of the producers including profiles of Dieter Dierks, Rolf -Ulrich Kaiser and Conny Plank. And this entire glorious tome ends with a timeline which puts the entire experience in context including copious mention of the infamous Baader/Meinhof gang or Red Army Faction. Exhaustive and quite brilliant in every way.
Mark Prendergast (Author of The Ambient Century-From Mahler To Moby)
Mark Prendergast (Author of The Ambient Century-From Mahler To Moby)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good, but flawed
This is essentially a series of essays about the various bands, labels and influential figures involved in all things Kraut. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mr T
Krautrock book
I purchased this book as a gift for my son who had it on his Christmas Wish list.Personally therefore I am unable to offer a review however I understand that he is pleased with it... Read more
Published on 10 Jan 2010 by Mr. Derek A. Levermore
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