Kraftwerk europe endless download

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Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! And, of course, there is the fact of their extremely distinctive sound — very mechanical, and yet somehow still very human, and capable on occasion of stirring deep feelings.

Kraftwerk emerged as part of the rise of a new German musical culture in the late s, just as a vibrant experimental music scene was beginning to take shape in West Germany in reaction to the dreadful state of German music at the time. By the late s, however, a new generation of German musicians was rising which had been born too late to remember the horrors of the war, occupation, and denazification. These young musicians were often classically trained, but were also interested in rock from the Anglophone world, and they were looking to break new ground of their own, part of which was their desire to explore the possibilities of using electronics in making music.

None was to attain the level of fame and influence that Kraftwerk were destined to reach, however. The s witnessed the rise of electronic musical instruments which could generate their own sounds — original sounds which cannot be produced in nature or by any classical instrument.

These new devices included such instruments as the Moog synthesizer, the vocoder, and the drum machine. Indeed, Kraftwerk were among the first musicians to incorporate industrial sounds into their work, thus making them pioneers in the industrial genre, among others. Tone Float , which was released in and has never been reissued except as a bootleg , bears almost no resemblance to the sound for which Kraftwerk were to become famous, being more in the spirit of s psychedelic jazz, and features little in the way of electronics apart from the use of an electric flute and violin by Schneider, and a Hammond organ.

They released Kraftwerk in and Kraftwerk 2 in Although still very different from their later style, with some songs resembling psychedelic rock, and in some cases what later came to be known as ambient music, some of the elements that came to define the group already appear on them, including a much greater use of electronics and the sampling of industrial sounds.

The third, Ralf and Florian , remains in a similar style, but brings them yet further towards their mature sound, with increased use of synthesizers. There is certainly something almost religious about the way Kraftwerk pays homage to our mechanical creations. As such, Kraftwerk can be seen as quintessentially Faustian, daring to break free of the constraints of the old in favor of a world that has been reshaped according to the will of the creative and heroic mind.

Indeed, Kraftwerk became one of those rare bands that managed to combine popular success with admiration even among the denizens of high-art criticism. In addition to the title track, however, Autobahn contains four other songs which are in the same style as their earlier albums, but which mark the end of what could be called their experimental period.

Also, after Autobahn , the band developed a highly conservative aesthetic in public appearances, donning suits and ties, which contrasted sharply with the look that had come to define popular music in the s, when it was dominated primarily by long-haired, bearded hippies and punks sporting a more adolescent, in-your-face countercultural look that sought to defy convention.

This image was made using a photograph taken by J. Stara in Paris and then retouching it, apparently in order to make the band members look like mannequins. The album interior of Trans-Europe Express , modelled after portraits of string quartets.

Speaking of fash, unlike their Slovene spawn, Laibach, there are almost no instances of Kraftwerk making use of fascist imagery — which, even had they desired to do so, would have been impossible in s Germany in any event. Rather than seeking to undermine these assumptions, Kraftwerk decided to take them to the furthest extreme, presenting themselves as some sort of synthesis between men and machines uninterested in the trivialities with which most pop music is concerned.

Kraftwerk as robots, from their current tour click to enlarge. Kraftwerk was also unique in the s for creating a particularly German aesthetic, which included singing most of their songs in their own language rather than in English, as was the custom at the time even though most of their songs have always been rerecorded in various European languages for the international markets.

As such, in addition to being trailblazers in the musical world, they should also be seen as a watershed in the reemergence of a genuine and distinct German culture in the wake of the Second World War. Trans-Europe Express , my personal favorite, depicts a journey along the railway of the same name, which was an actual rail service that operated in Europe from until , featuring rhythms and sounds describing a train in motion.

Its literal meaning, of course, could be seen as describing the endless landscape of Europe as it flows past the windows of a moving train. But for me it has much deeper significance. While listening to it I can always envision a European landscape, cities and towns and countryside streaming beneath my imaginary eye as the various elements of which Europe is comprised flow on forever and blend together, across both time and space.

The music likewise evokes Europe as an endless dance through the ages, with many faces coming and going but the line of our people always remaining constant through all their various trials, giving the impression of something evolving and changing, but never ending, and always looping back around toward its origins to begin anew.

Listening to this album never fails to move me. Ample fodder for any postmodernist critic, to be sure. As previously mentioned, the band had eschewed the conventions of their time by going with suits and ties; in addition to this, all of the subjects, languages, and imagery that Kraftwerk have made use of over the years, with very few exceptions a few references to Japanese is all I can think of at the moment , is very specifically and exclusively European.

This reminder of a better time in European history, when the Tour de France was an event by Europeans, for Europeans, without the need for token minorities on display, is at sharp variance with what one finds depicted elsewhere in popular culture. Warning signs had already made themselves apparent.

In , Kraftwerk released The Mix , which was an attempt to update their greatest hits for the digital age by taking into account adjustments they had made in their live shows since the original albums had first come out, but it contained no new material. When I initially became interested in them in the mids, fans were still confident that they were just in the midst of a prolonged break. And when they went on a US tour in — their first since — and performed three new, if not particularly impressive, songs as part of their set they sounded more like the beginnings of songs than finished products , many people took this as an indication that a new album was imminent.

But the years continued to pass, and nothing new was forthcoming. And even that album is now fifteen years old. Since then, only two more albums have appeared, both of which consist entirely of new performances of their classic hits: Minimum-Maximum and 3-D The Catalogue , the latter of which is taken from their current tour.

So it seems that, barring unforeseen surprises, Kraftwerk has given up trying to create new material. Music critics have been speculating for decades about why this is. Most agree that it was probably the result of the difficulty they were having in remaining on the cutting edge of a field that they pioneered, but which quickly became populated by many other groups doing similar things who, ironically, were in many cases largely inspired by them.

Kraftwerk basically created techno as a genre, and also contributed toward the development of ambient, industrial, disco, hip hop, dance music, and rock, as well as experimental electronica. And even now, more than thirty years since their best-known songs were released, you can still hear the influence of, and sometimes even samples from, their music in some of the latest tunes across many genres.

But in spite of the paucity of fresh music, Kraftwerk has not been entirely idle, instead choosing to focus on developing their performance style. They have continued to tour regularly, as they are presently doing, and after not having seen them for nearly thirteen years, I was curious to see what was new.

The atmosphere of the show was very different as well. The two concerts I saw in Detroit had open seating or, more correctly, standing , and some people were dancing — which should be expected given this type of music. In Budapest, however, the impression one had was more of a classical music recital — seating was assigned, and there were actual seats arranged across the span of the enormous Budapest Arena that one was expected to remain in for the duration of the performance.

I am pleased to report that it was a nearly sold-out crowd, in spite of the large space. There was no calculator in this show, however — there was a wide gap between the band and the audience on this occasion. While the mood was certainly very different, perhaps there is something fitting in this, reflecting that Kraftwerk is now more akin to classical than it is to pop music, being that it has grown to be more for connoisseurs than for those just out looking for a good time.

I certainly noticed that a large part of the audience, including me, was over forty — probably reflective of the fact that many younger people have never heard of them. Along with their impersonal presentation style, Kraftwerk has always been doggedly apolitical — with one exception.

This is the version that they have toured with ever since I suppose, like many superstars, they developed a guilty conscience. I was at least relieved that they have now removed the vocoder bit at the beginning, probably because Sellafield is now in the process of being decommissioned.

There were some differences from , however. One is that the band members now sport black, skintight bodysuits covered in lines of LED lights, as opposed to the dark suits of old. Kraftwerk stood impassively at their consoles throughout the performance, barely registering any reaction that I could see from where I was sitting, although the LED lights served to highlight their legs and feet as they tapped in time to the music. But the main difference, of course, was in the animations.

Several of them seemed identical to what I remembered from and , but several were certainly new, and the 3D element was put to good use in them. The music, as far as I could discern, was identical to what I remembered from Detroit. Since Kraftwerk has always used the revised versions of their songs from The Mix rather than the originals. I like the sound of s electronica, so what might sound archaic to some is mellifluous to my ears.

And perhaps it is fitting that, for a band as conservative in its concept as Kraftwerk, they should likewise be conservative in how they choose to present themselves to the public and not indulge in change merely for its own sake.

Maybe one day androids will tour in their place. But as for me, as much as I was grateful to be able to see them one more time, I suppose I long for the good old days of the s, when I could have gone to see Kraftwerk play in some small and dingy club in Germany, not as demigods of the musical world, but as something I was just discovering for the first time like a revelation, with all the imperfections the equipment they were just developing at the time would have added to their sound, and before they had had a chance to hone and perfect each song through ten thousand rehearsals and concerts.

And I suppose there is nothing more Kraftwerkian than that. Kraftwerk is a true manifestation of archeofuturism. And it serves as an example of how, by combining new ideas and technology with the aesthetics and values that have long defined our civilization, Europe can truly be endless.

That is a half-good essay. I say half good although I am also to love most of the music. Who, both pre-Kraftwerk. Sure, Kraftwerk were great, until the mid-eighties, at that time, Japanese synth and drum-macihne makers were willing to give away machines gratis to anyone seeming to popularise it.