Insanity #07 17 августа 2000

Музыка

Kraftwerk - Techno culture: "the story of how an electronic music became the music of our time. "

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  (R) Dr.Dismal



  It's no secret that the culture of our generation - it is
primarily musical culture. Music Media
(Player, radio, tape recorder, CD player, computer), steel
public and any innovation in the music world
distributed across countries and continents with great speed.
Along with the music and spread the ideology of the music, its
attributes, a certain style of life.


  One of the first questions asked by young people in
acquaintance, is: "What kind of music do you listen?"
Indeed, the most typical division of our generation -
separation of musical tastes. Our motto: "Tell me
what you listen, and I'll tell you who you are! "Fans of 
different styles music is often just can not stand each other, 
and it even comes to serious conflicts with assault and 
battery. In the majority Now music lovers are divided into two 
groups: fans of rock music (All types) and fans of techno music.



  Rock music has existed for some time ago and has already
a rich history in this sense part of our generation,
addicting rock, continues the tradition of the previous 
generation. A Here techno music (music with the presence of 
industrial sounds) appeared relatively recently and the 
flourishing of culture-related this music came just in our 
generation. 


  Thus, career Kraftwerk - is the story of how an electronic
music became the music of today. That they managed to come up 
with musical language in which over a dozen years later

talking all the pop culture.


  To feel the atmosphere in which the giants have made their
first steps, it is worth remembering that in the late sixties
pop music in Germany was in very poor condition, and
most groups engaged in perepevaniem or simply the execution
British and American hits. However, this situation
suit, fortunately, not all.


  Several young highbrow Germans remember the traditions
and roots, and began to make art entirely his own, as no
similar to the English-speaking samples, based on the German 
tradition analysis and reflection, aggressive and full sad irony

very pertinent to the defeated superpower.


  So there is a new German wave that gave the film industry
Wenders, Herzog and Fassbinder, and completely changed
notions of pop music by Faust, Can, Tangerine Dream
and Kraftwerk. Almost all participants in these groups was
classically trained, and they make music on
structures and sounds quite similar to the one which occupied
the first line of the charts - although similar in some places 
on the rock. Soon they began to emulate dozens of German bands, 
and the British the music press dubbed this move "kraut rock".



  Among the founders of this style of Kraftwerk were on
everything from rock and as close to the German avant-garde.
Suffice it to say that the founders of the group, Floreana,
Schneider and Ralf Hütter Esleben, introduced in 1969
Art Academy in Dusseldorf, where studied at the conservatory. 
They decided to write their own music together and called

Organisation.


  The first performance of the group belonged rather to the 
category avant-garde happenings than to musical events: they 
played on the opening day and in the galleries, but among their 
fellow artists prevailed over the musicians. Ralph talked about 
this period: "The We had no strategy, we just have to do

industrial music, using all the things before they have learned.
Neither then nor now, we have not thought about a future there. 
" 


  Role in the group then distributed as follows: Ralph
played elektroorgane and Floreano the violin and flute. Inviting
three other musicians, they (that was a surprise for the German
of the time) signed a contract for the disk
British company RCA. Plate - it was called Tone Float -
a fate very unenviable - in England a group of no
knew, and in Germany it was not reprinted and sold as
"Import".


  However, to Ralph and Florian Then events took place far
more important - they made the studio. Hard to believe, but now
After nearly thirty years, they work in the same
shestidesyatimetrovoy room in the heart of Düsseldorf, close to 
the station!



  They called it "Kling Klang studio," and paste over the wall
Sound insulation materials, began recording a collection of
strange and unusual sounds. Archives are stored on 
stereokassetah last squeaking of the then fashion. Soon they 
recorded a second album, changing the name too internationalist 
Organisation to the German Kraftwerk ("power station").



  The album, also called Kraftwerk, sold well, and
Group started to give concerts in rock clubs. On their playbill
naked girl sitting on a huge striped red-white
column, which separates the ranks on the highways - the emblem 
of the first two discs. Summer of 1971 they recorded their 
second album, ingeniously called Kraftwerk 2, released on 
Philips. 


  This disc was not only a musical continuation of the first, 
but even came out with the same cover - many thought it was just

overprint the circulation of the first album. Therefore, it 
sold less first and has not held up to 50000 copies. Themselves 
as members group blamed for all the prewar emigration from 
Germany, which resulted in the country there are very few people

able to appreciate their music appreciated.


  The first two albums, unfortunately, quite a little known even
among connoisseurs of the group (perhaps because only recently 
been reissued on CD in large numbers), which is a pity - it's 
amazing and strange experiments with sound and rhythmic 
structures, not less interesting than any good art-rock album 
early 70.



  Ralf and Florian much experimenting at this time
noise and sounds artificial, superimposing them on
recording of an analog synthesizer. Conservatoire education and
shtokgauzenovskaya school, help them in the beginning, is now 
lost find a place unique and inimitable sound.



  "Up to a certain point, I studied music
seriously, said Florian, and then suddenly I was bored. I
realized how limited the possibility of a flute and began to 
search for something new. Soon I bought a microphone, then the 
amplifier with speakers then the synthesizer. And then I just 
threw the flute, and it was quite natural. "The new band's 
sound is well demonstrated Klingklang track with the second 
disc, where the rate constant theme changes, following the 
acceleration and deceleration bit generated by a drum machine 
and creating a sense of what bits is the main musical theme 
throughout semnadtsatiminutnoy composition.



  For the period, it was simply a revolution: to build
music on the bit and the picture of shock, but not to the same 
e! So came their signature sound.



  However, for winning the masses needed to add to corporate
sound and simple rhythmic and instantly memorable melodies
the third component - a radical new look. And it became clear
that Ralf and Florian have succeeded to a greater extent than
perhaps the rest of the musicians in the world (except, to be
Maybe Michael Jackson). Kraftwerk robots pretending ...


  Already on the third album "Ralf And Florian" defined
essential elements of their style, prompted suggests itself
an image: repetitive synth arpeggio that allowed
Ralph to play them with some degree of automaticity, and
use of the vocoder - an electronic device, which distorts
speech and making it a kind of "mechanical" enabling change
its tone with a keyboard synthesizer.


  Through this music Kraftwerk places began to resemble
scenes from science fiction. So could sound saudtrek a film 
about some future world where power is captured

humanoid mechanisms, entertain themselves with music track.
Realizing this, the band made one more step: they are ordered to
all members of the same costumes and did the same
hair - a very classic and completely indistinguishable from each
other.



  Around the same time, Kling Klang studio was installed
mode that does not change is the twenty-odd years: the music
here wrote six days a week from five pm until after midnight. In
this time, finally approved by the group,
transformed into a quartet, which remains unchanged until
the early 90's.


  A permanent job were taken Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür,
before occasionally collaborated with Ralf and Florian. C
this point, intelligent progressive rock band from
Dusseldorf, began to turn into dance-beat project remix
which now occupies pride of place on the shelves, perhaps,
any studio in the world.


  They were simple little fame: the very image of Kraftwerk
assumed perfect music, perfect - do not just write
new records, and job strategy and style for all
dance music, the computer age. Their albums became
conceptual, addressing the topics adequately fast
expanding the world on the brink of self-destruction and
lost in the pipeline of industrial production people
ceased to be identical to myself: a "motorway" followed
"Trans-Europe Express," but for "Radioactivity" - "Man
Machine ".


  However, Kraftwerk, a worthy successor to the German
analytic philosophy, did not comment on either of these
phenomena. On the contrary, and in the musical number, and the 
texts they as abstracted from that reality, while remaining

as if robots, equipped with sensitive sensors, and
scrupulously transmitting to all comers information
world around them.


  This attitude and makes them stand out in the first place 
among pop groups, immediately making it clear that here we are 
talking about some new genre for which has not even come up with

term ...


  It is in this state of consciousness is gradually turning into
Robot people have recorded the first of the fame of their discs 
- Autobahn. Reviews from critics and sales of the album 
immediately convinced them that they have chosen the right 
direction: Praise on the disk everything. From German-speaking 
vokodirovannogo voice synthesizer to passages in the 
background, from the infinite minimalism ( By the way, 
absolutely adequately convey a sense of trips endless highway, 
where none of meter is not distinguishable from each other, and 
each of them devoid of any individual characteristics) to 
unique creative vision and the presence of his face. 


  Simply put, the means chosen to influence the audience
finally start to bear fruit: Kraftwerk noticed and appreciated 
by dignity. Thus began flowering.



  However, the experiments are not intended to Dusseldorf
stop there: a year later leaves
fantastic album, Radioactivity, which in the melancholy
melody can give odds to almost any disk that period.
Album of the eternal decay of matter, the radio waves that 
penetrate endlessly transformed and thus an unchanging world, 
and the sweet word "Om" - a mantra, tuning the consciousness on

repetition of a single eternal truth, which is known to
mother of all exercises - nothing like nobody has ever recorded!


  Plate at the beginning of a warning which squeaked counter
Geiger, and then in morse code in the same subliminal listener
squeaked KRAFTWERK, ripped from his hands. The Group has not 
only popular - she moved into the category of fashion, the very 
volatile substance, which is the closest linked with eternity 
(just like radioactivity).



  For the "radioactivity" followed Trans Europe Express - yet
one "kraftverkovsky" road movie, in its infinite
immutability journey through frozen in harmony Schubert
Europe.


  The success of this drive should no longer surprise you - 
Kraftwerk learned to "get into the vein," though about this 
team ever it was impossible to say that it adapts to the tastes 
of the audience - He always formed them. But even against this 
backdrop of steady and sustained greatness (and of course the 
status of luminaries and meters genre) stands next album.



  Kraftwerk called him The Man Machine, recalling his
social status of people - robots serving mechanism
public consumption of music. The album cover,
decorated in the style of constructivism (referring to the 
twentieth Years in Soviet Russia - the work of Rodchenko / 
Mayakovsky utopian dream of universal mechanization) in Russian 
written words in Russian as sampled in the title things: "I'm 
yours servant. I'm your worker. "



  The phrase was prophetic, but not without ambiguity: the 
servants and employees of the consumer, Kraftwerk, moving toward

total impersonality, standardizing the look of even a musician,
steel (do not be afraid of this definition) the most
"Individualized" group of their time in search of finding
identity with its own unique industrial environment
face ...


  In 1986 the band released their last to date
album - Electric Cafe, not so melancholy, however
previous ones, and striking purity and finesse sound
compared with the apologists have already appeared: Kraftwerk 
again gave understand all those who for five years, began to 
doubt that there is hierarchy in the world of dance and 
electronic music. 


  New Musical Express described the new drive as follows: 
"Wagner sitting in an airport lounge and tries to call on the 
mobile phone porter. "It was again a new standard

new language of emotions, where the metaphor of melancholy 
became a phrase from Song: "I give you the time and attention / 
attempt to connect to phone, "but instead the chorus listeners 
hypnotized Loopback mechanical voice: "The number, dialed,

temporarily disabled. "


  And then there was The Mix - the last victory over the Kling 
Klang Studio market for pop music. This 70-minute remix album, 
not only finally turned the Trans-Europe Express, Pocket 
Calculator and Computer Love in the international dance hits, 
but also allowed the group to pay tribute to several newfangled

social movements: expense of the fact that the lyrics have
Kraftwerk have always played a second role, they can be more
change - and in the composition of Radioactivity appears 
Mentioned town of Chernobyl.



  They have demonstrated not only the fact that the meaning of
Tracks can be changed by changing a few samples, but
that the function of the sample, "loopback" pruning of speech or
musical phrase in contemporary culture is immeasurably more 
important than meaning of the composition ...



  Then they were silent: perhaps older than you are, the harder
maintain a consistent identity to themselves, especially if you 
started play music, publicized and repeated later

millions of skilled followers ... Anyway at the turn
ninetieth this led to the transformation of the quartet in a 
duet. 


  But Kraftwerk is not broke: although Bartos and Flür left the 
group, however, the original duo of Ralf Hutter and Florian 
Schneider remained, and the latter two are working with 
different compositions guest musicians (perhaps they can afford 
it). 


  Kraftwerk is so great that they did not forget, though,
since 1991 does not go any release of the group, and new
songs was not as much from 1986. Any other pop group
dared to behave this way, soon went to a
nothingness, occasionally recalling its once-glorious past
tribute collectors and greatest hits.


  However, with Kraftwerk, things are different: they are more 
likely reminiscent of some gurus of electronic music that came 
through the door Temple only to think of another puzzle hit

students. Rumors about the new album began to emerge in the late
80, frequent after the release, The Mix, and with new strength
is being discussed now adepts techno scene.


  Worldly-wise fans of the group usually respond this way: "All
This is very interesting, but I myself believe it, hold it when 
it plate in your hands! ".



  ... However, 24 May 1997 an event occurred that rocks
the musical world (however, the ability to do so Kraftwerk
can never be denied), and measured the doubts of even the most
skeptical fans. Kraftwerk were in England "live" on
Techno Festival Tribal Gathering '97! Not only that - they have 
played a few new tracks, from which you can easily conclude

that the new material still exists, and perhaps
ever released as an album.


  And yet, by some accounts, 50-year-old musicians
recorded a library of sounds for a new series of synthesizers 
Quasar Quasimidi, a year ago, Florian Schneider gave the German 
magazine Keys passed through a vocoder recording of the poem, 
dedicated to another favorite instrument - the synthesizer 
Doepfer A-100. 


  "Mechanical Universe Kraftwerk repeatedly cloned and
copied in Detroit, Brussels, Milan, Manchester and,
Finally, psihodelizirovalas in delirium tremens
house of culture, says a recent interview with Ralph
Hütter.


  We can define how you want: sci-fi music
techno-disco, cybernetic rock, but I've always preferred the 
term "Robot pop". He is the most expresses our goal -

work on designing the perfect pop for the tribes,
living in a village called Earth. "


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