release date: Dec. 1, 1970
format: digital (1994 unofficial reissue)
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,84]
producer: Ralf Hüttel, Florian Schneider-Esleben, Konrad 'Conny' Plank
label: Germanofon - nationality: Germany
Track highlights: 1. "Ruckzuck" - 2. "Stratovarius"
Studio debut album by Kraftwerk consisting of the two founders Ralf Hüttel and Florian Schneider-Esleben after they had left the experimental German band Organisation, who had released the album Tone Float (Jun. '70). On this first outing, the drummers Andreas Hohmann and Klaus Dinger are also credited as members. Hohmann plays drums on the first two compositions, while Dinger is credited drums on the final cut.
The album consists of four tracks with varying playing time running from 7:50 to 12:10 minutes and with a total running time of just under 40 minutes. It's experimental instrumental music pointing to inspiration from another German band: Tangerine Dream, which had just released its debut Jun. '70, and then it's also music with influence from experimental releases by Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, John Cage, and especially Karlheinz Stockhausen and musique concrete in general. Several tracks and parts of compositions sounds very much like the result of spontaneous sessions with Hüttel playing organ and a special instrument: electric 'tubon', while Schneider is credited playing violin, flute, and percussion. Besides a krautrock style, the individual compositions are made with some interesting twists pointing to ambient and progressive elements and rhythms you may find on early electronic music of the mid-70s by Brian Eno, Roxy Music, David Bowie, Jean-Michel Jarre, and in the early eighties by an artist like e.g. Laurie Anderson and among many synthpop bands, and then again in the early techno scene. You'll find sound bits hinting at this in the actual electronic explosion from the late 80s and early 90s with bands like The Orb, The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, Dust Brothers etc. and in much wider sub-styles. The album was originally released on Philips - reissued several times through the 70s and also on cassette from '77, but it has never been officially released on CD format, nor has it been reissued after 1980, and Germanofon releases (many from '94) of the band's three earliest albums are all unofficial or 'bootleg' releases, and the band themselves haven't found it fruitful to reissue the earliest albums. This may also be seen e.g. with the band's own 8-CD box set Der Katalog (2009), which doesn't include releases from before Autobahn (1974).
The album is a pure curiosity. There are many other and better experimental albums from the period, and it's only interesting that Hütter and Schneider already here named their music-project Kraftwerk, although, the electronic characteristics were only established with the band's fourth album. Still, it's a bit of shame how Hütter and Schneider somehow won't acknowledge their musical starting point. There are some fine parts pointing to both their own later progression, but also to much other music that flourished during the 70s.
[ allmusic.com 3 / 5 stars ]
