Krautrock Sampler: A Response to Cope

Julian Cope has a ridiculous amount of accumulated music knowledge and to challenge him in any sort of authoritative manner would be ridiculous. But seeing as copies of Krautrock Sampler are getting hocked for nearly two hundred bucks on Amazon, I can’t really go on some sort of point by point refutation of his ideas. So, since that book seems to simply be out of reach for me – until I hit the bloody lottery – I’ve seen fight to compile my own sampler or sorts. Truncated, yes. Useful, perhaps, but it’ll serve to initiate the perspective travelers.

A.R. & Machines – “Beautiful Babylon”

One phrase that I abhor and could do without ever seeing in print again is “sound scape.” For whatever reason, it’s pretty difficult to unearth any information related to Achim Reichel, the principal player here, without finding that phrase too far off. But that really ignores the overt American psychedelic influence in his music. And on this track, “Beautiful Babylon,” the guitar appropriately pays homage to its American forbearers. There is a great deal of repetition, but that should be expected even in a rather short five minute track.

Amon Düül – “Ein Wunderhubsches Madchen Traumt von Sandosa”

Before half of the silly, commune dwelling hippies left the group to become simply Amon Düül II, the band released Psychedelic Underground. The album is a more straight forward look at psych than subsequent releases, but regardless of that point, this band might be the best distillation of the repetitive, motoric German sound couple with American psych tendencies. I could do without some of the vocal moaning, but that twisted guitar easily makes up for any other perceived short comings.

Faust - “Picnic on a Frozen River”

One of the more interesting back stories in the faux genre that is kraut rock, Faust fooled enough label executives to release a decent amount of work over their all too brief career. And the fact that the band still release music – although sporadically – points to the unified, yet bizarre, musical vision that they shared. This track sports that unforgettable German funky drumming beneath some group shouted vocals and enough time signature shifts to keep even Frank Zappa guessing.

Harmonia – “Dino”

The most overly electronic group represented herein, Harmonia sits next to early Kraftwerk more than any other group on this list. Thankfully, though, they didn’t devolve into a ridiculous techno act. “Dino” is all repetitive drumming and phased keyboards, which if executed for too lengthily a time could result in boredom. But this first disc from Hamonia, for the most part, knows when to stop – and thankfully so.

Xhol (Caravan) - “Schaukel”

These guys are one of the more obscure bands of the genre for some reason. They did crop up a bit earlier than other folks, but Can was definitely in full swing during Xhol’s hey day. The band only managed to release a single studio disc - Hau-Ruck – in addition to a pleasurable live album. “Shaukel” finds the band just on the rock side of Soft Machine, but occasionally the group ventures out into noise territory. Less for rock aficionados than expansive jazz fans, Xhol should easily be considered top tier purveyors German music.