Krautrock
Krautrock is a style of experimental and psychedelic rock music that emerged in the late 1960s and the early 1970s in Germany.
Birth: 1968 Bloom: 1974
The signature sound of krautrock mixed rock music and «rock band» instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums) with electronic instrumentation and textures, often with what would now be described as an ambient music sensibility. A common rhythm featured in the music was a steady 4/4 beat, often called «motoric» in the Anglophone music press, the best examples of which are albums by Neu!, and Kraftwerk`s composition «Autobahn».
Many krautrock bands were reacting against the post-World War II cultural vacuum in Germany and tending to reject Anglo-American popular culture in favour of creating their own more radical and experimental new German culture and identity, and to develop radically new musical aesthetics. By the end of the 1960s, the American and British counterculture and hippie movement had moved rock towards psychedelia, heavy metal, progressive rock and other styles that incorporated socially and politically incisive lyrics. Krautrock has its roots in the German electronic avant-garde of the 1950s. Moreover, krautrock music mixed ideas from contemporary experimental classical music (especially composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, with whom Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay of Can had previously studied).
Typical bands dubbed «krautrock» in the 1970s included Tangerine Dream, Faust, Can, Amon Düül II, Ash Ra Tempel and others associated with the celebrated Cologne-based producers and engineers Dieter Dierks and Conny Plank, such as Neu!, Kraftwerk and Cluster.
Also read: Experimental, Berlin School
Umbrellate style: Rock
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