User talk:Gwen-chan/Krautrock

Drive by
This is perhaps the most desolate corner of WP, but if you happen to find yourself passing by or here by accident, and have any constructive input/criticism to make WRT Krautrock, please do so. Gwen Chan 20:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

"Deutsch Rock" first identified in Melody Maker
Gwen Chan 21:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Watts, Michael. (15 April 1972) "Deutsch Rock: Germany's new music is possibly more interesting than any in Europe." Melody Maker London: IPC Media – Pre-dated Ian MacDonald by 8 months; identified main bands in 'movement': "The main torch-carriers for intelligent German rock music are a nucleus of groups headed by Can and Amon Düül II. These include Embryo, Kraftwerk, Guru Guru and Tangerine Dream. Between them they define the best of German rock." Stockhausen influence: "Although most German rock groups lack the financial support to equip themselves with the VCS3s and Moogs that bands here [UK] accept as almost obligatory, they show a fascination with electronics, and use sound effects not as embellishments but for themselves. It's not too far-fetched to suggest that Stockhausen is the father figure of German rock, especially as Irmin Schmidt, keyboards player with Can, and Holger Czukay, the bassist, are both former students of the composer. Both men are intellectuals and perhaps see the rock tag as a means of packaging music which is nearer to the avant-garde than to the Top Twenty." Picked up on the krautrock beat: "...unmistakably German, with that heavy, insistent drum rhythm."

Van Dusen states John Peel heavily promoted Faust, which would have been 1971. Gwen Chan 22:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

More John Peel (1972): "The first time I heard tell of Faust was when I saw their extraordinary first LP in its equally extraordinary sleeve and felt that, regardless of the music within, I had to acquire one. When the music turned out to be highly original and very exciting that was a welcome bonus. Their single "It's a Bit Of a Pain" occurred during sessions for the second LP - which I've not yet heard - and will serve as an introduction to the band. I would advise you to hear the LP though because it must be one of the most important of the past few years. It's not often that you hear a band that is heading off in a totally new direction - and it's surprising that when you do many of those bands are from the Continent. It would be easy to say that Faust's music was Germanic and to let it go at that but I don't think that would be enough. It's really music born of a technological age in which there is neither time nor room for sentiment. Faust paint a bleak vision with music in much the way Leonard Cohen or Nico do with words. It is not easy to describe it in terms of what has gone before." This recording of Peel introducing the band on his show still exists, but needs to be pinned down with a reliable cite. Gwen Chan 22:55, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Etymology
First known use of "krautrock" in British music press is: Gwen Chan 21:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * MacDonald, Ian. (23 December 1972) "Germany Calling: From Amon Düül II to Faust's new sound-world" New Musical Express London: IPC Media – "[Faust are] a single-handed justification of all the ballyhoo that's been kicked up about Krautrock in recent years." This was the year before Faust IV and the track "Krautrock", although MacDonald had reviewed So Far which included "Mamie Blue" with the lyric: Mamie is blue/daddy is blue/and mamie is blue/and daddy is blue/and mamie is you/and mamie is you too/that's Kraut! MacDonald was also familiar with Amon Düül's work – and didn't rate it – which included Psychic Underground's "Mama Düül und Ihre Sauerkrautband Spielt Auf" ('Mama Düül and her Sauerkrautband Start Up.') Other references for the music press creation of the name:
 * Siebert, Armin. (1999) Die Sprache der Pop- und Rockmusik: Eine terminologische Untersuchung im Englischen und Deutschen (p.114) Norderstedt: Grin ISBN 9783640282333
 * Blühdorn, Annette. (2003) Pop and Poetry - Pleasure and Protest: Udo Lindenberg, Konstantin Wecker and the Tradition of German Cabaret (p.141) New York: Peter Laing ISBN 9780820468792
 * Cope, Julian. (1995) Krautrocksampler: One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik - 1968 Onwards (p. 16) Yatesbury: Head Heritage ISBN 0952671913

Gwen Chan 23:17, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Graham, Dave. (1 October 2008) "Discovering Krautrock – in Germany" Reuters London – Krautrock "began life as a 'pejorative remark from some British journalist' according to Amon Düül II guitarist John Weinzierl."

Gwen Chan 17:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Buckley, David. "Krautrock." Oxford Music Online Retrieved 22 October 2010 – "A mildly patronizing term coined by the British music press in the early 1970s to describe the new wave of experimental bands emanating from Germany in the late 1960s. After the critical success of Julian Cope's book Krautrocksampler, the term has now lost most of its pejorative connotations and has come to describe an important musical movement."

Gwen Chan 18:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * DeRogatis, Jim (2003) Turn on your mind: four decades of great psychedelic rock (p. 260) Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN 0634055488 – "The Germans themselves initially preferred the more psychedelic 'kosmische musik', or cosmic music, though they came to embrace the term krautrock with several song and album titles."

How to define stubbornly genre-defiant music?
Krautrock is a loose term applied to experimental and avant-garde music created in Germany between the late 1960s and early 1970s, and is defined by time and place rather than any unified musical style. Gwen Chan 22:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Zane Van Dusen ("Krautrock: The Obscure Genre That Changed the Sound of Rock") does make a credible effort to label the 'sub-genres' of krautrock: Gwen Chan 22:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Psych-folk
 * Space-rock
 * Hyper-minimalist grooves
 * Avant-garde rock


 * Jarrett, Michael (1998) Sound tracks: a musical ABC (p.138) Philadelphia: Temple University Press ISBN 9781566396417 – A term designating a genre of German experimental rock that originated in sixties psychedelia (Faust), culminated in seventies electro-pop (Kraftwerk), and influenced new wave (New Order, PiL), rap (Afrika Bambaataa) and ambient techno musics (The Orb)."

EFM
Gwen Chan 10:25, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Donnelly, K.J. (2006) "Angel of the air: Popol Vuh's music and Werner Herzog's films." in Mera, Miguel & Burnand, David (Ed.) European Film Music (p.118) Aldershot: Ashgate ISBN 9780754636595 – "Krautrock might be seen as the pop/rock music equivalent of the developments in German film that are called the New German Cinema. It manifested an attempt to create a localized form of the dominant British-American forms of popular music. As in other European countries, Germany had pop groups and rock bands that played music that owed its whole existence to the international format. Krautrock, on the other hand, took inspiration from and attempted to integrate certain aspects of avant-garde and experimental music, both in classical music as well as jazz. This included an embracing of new technology by synthesizer groups Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Klaus Schulze, the eclecticism of Can, the noise experimentation of Faust, and other, more rock-based groups like Amon Düül II, Neu! and Ash Ra Tempel... The groups that assembled under the Krautrock umbrella had little in common apart from the fact that they developed very individual indigenous responses to international rock music."

Gwen Chan 10:47, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Jarrett, Scott & Day, Holly (2008) Music Composition For Dummies (p.285) Hoboken: Wiley ISBN 9780470224212 – "Krautrock encompassed way too many styles and ideas to truly be considered a single movement."

Gwen Chan 13:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Larkey, Edward (2004) "Popular Music in Germany: Experimentation and Emancipation from Anglo-American Models." in Junker, Detlef (Ed.) The United States and Germany in the era of the Cold War, 1945-1990 (New York: Cambridge University Press) 1: 341 ISBN 9780521834209 – After 1968 German popular music began "progressing beyond the phase of imitation of the 1960s and became less-Anglicised... [and] creatively diverging from the Anglo-American model."