A Deconstruction of Krautrock and its Two Major Influences
Have you ever listened to Krautrock? Because you should have. If you haven't, give yourself 10 minutes and listen to this:
That.. Was Krautrock.. My favorite song within the genre. There is just something so beautiful about this style of music, there is just so much to love; the sense of exploration, the lush and evolving soundscapes, the weird experimental nature. I want to get into how Krautrock came about but more so, what defines something as Krautrock and what are its major two influences; Progressive Rock and Psychedelic Rock. I will cover Each genre separately then conclude by comparing how the two relate to Krautrock.
What is Krautrock?
Krautrock also know as "Kosmische Musik" or "Cosmic Music" is an experimental genre of music birthed from Germany in the late 1960's and 1970's (Cox, 2004). The term "Krautrock" originated from the English newspaper 'Melody Maker' as a humorous term for this new wave of artists. The word 'Kraut' itself is an ethnic slur and its initial use was inspired by a track from Amon Düül - "Mama Düül und Ihre Sauerkrautband Spielt Auf". Below is the only available copy on youtube.
This use of an ethnic slur to label a musical movement was not received well by the artists themselves. Although the slur has since lost its meaning since finding international success, it still lead certain artists to speak publicly about the term, the famous Krautrock band Faust once said;
"When the English people started talking about Krautrock, we thought they were just taking the piss... and when you hear the so-called 'Krautrock renaissance,' it takes me think everything we did was for nothing." (Stubbs, 2007)
What makes Krautrock?
The musical tendencies of the genre are wide and varied. Artists within have been known to create pieces that range from Ambient, Jazz, Minimalist, Proto-punk, Electronic music and most commonly Progressive and Psychedelic Rock. Artists were usually inspired by the "Berlin School" electronic movement that was occurring at the same time. The use of synthesizers plays a large part to genre's futuristic style. Artists such as Kraftwerk, a once large part of the Krautrock movement went on to become one of the biggest influences within Electronic music. (Roger's, 2013)
Although Electronic music was such a large influence to the Krautrock sound, it was the rock influences that pushed the genre and allowed it to become as influential today. Bands typically had a Drummer, Guitar, Bass, Synthesizer and occasional vocalist. This is not a groundwork for what creates a Krautrock band as sometimes the bass and guitar would be traded out for synthesizers, although this is not always the case.
A staple song for the Krautrock genre is 'Hallogallo' by 'Neu!'. The song features Drums, Guitar, Bass and studio effects such as overdubbing, reversing and so on. The song has a typical Krautrock structure, removing the Verse Chorus Verse phrasing usually found in standard Rock genres and replaced it with the continuous driving, pulsating movement.
This Pulsating rhythm that plays throughout the 10 minutes, without hesitation, is the Motorik Beat. First used by "Neu!" on their debut album (The album in which the song above is the first track). The Motorik Beat is a constant 4/4 rhythm with emphasis on the Kick Drum. This beat is a staple for the Krautrock genre in that is it one of the defining features, teamed up with its merging of electronic and rock and avant-garde stylings.
What is Progressive Rock?
Progressive Rock or 'Prog Rock' for short is a form of rock music that evolved from the 1960s and 1970s through an attempt to try and elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility. Prog rock grew out of the Psychedelic Rock movement which encapsulated the 1960's. The Psychedelic Rock movement was pushing away from the standard rock formats in which had dominated rock music till that point, Progressive Rock was an extension of that.
What Makes Progressive Rock?
Prog rock is one of those difficult to pin down genre's as it is based around the fusion of multiple genre's. Tapping into cultural pieces that use classical music, folk music and the avant-garde. Due to the large possibilities open for Prog rock, to keep the genre coherent, critics tend to limit the scope down to a few key stereotypes; Long Solos, Overly-long Albums, Fantasy lyrical themes and an largely technical musicianship. A perfect example of this is the band Yes.
'Heart of the Sunrise' is an incredibly technical Prog Rock song that includes long drawn out phrases, non linear song structures, large instrumental passages, most of which highlight the technical ability of the band. The band in which is a typical Prog setup; Lead Guitar, Rhythm Guitar, Bass Guitar, Vocals, Organ / Strings Synthesizer and Lead Vocals. Their vocal contents include phrases like "Dream on, on to the heard of the Sunrise", this sort of mystical and abstract lyrical styles are common place. It differs from the 'trippy' themes that Psychedelic Rock follows. This form of story telling through abstract themes brings us to another huge Prog Rock band, Pink Floyd.
Concept albums have become a staple for Prog Rock as they bring forth a new meaning to the artistic nature of music. Albums such as Pink Floyd's the wall highlight this perfectly, as the album as a whole deconstructs the world and tells political and existential tales through the abstract lenses of Prog Rock. The song above is my favorite Pink Floyd song as I think it perfectly highlights the artistic nature of the band. 'Animals' was released in 1977 and was written as a musical piece revolting against the current music industry. The song "Sheep" follows the typical Prog Rock format with long drawn out passages, musically technical but the focus is upon the message of the music and the emotion portrayed. This is somewhat of a Strong point behind Pink Floyd, which lead's me to where Pink Floyd originated from, Psychedelic Rock.
What Is Psychedelic Rock?
Psychedelic Rock is simply music inspired by psychedelic culture that aims to replicate / enhance the effects of psychedelic drugs. The movement came about with the introduction of psychedelic drugs, most notably that of LSD. The genre was birthed when artists themselves began experimenting with the psychedelic's in the mid-1960's. Their doesn’t seem to be any record that was the "first" instance of LSD being a part of Rock music, although some claim it was a B-side record from the American surf band "The Gamblers", with their 1960's song, "LSD 25".
Although a lot of the influence to the shift in stylistic rock music was formed through the experimentation with psychedelic drugs, a major influence to what formed the sound was Bob Dylan. Dylan's use of lyricism was abstract and profound, his influence birthed not only Folk Rock but the late 1960's psychedelic lyricism. Having a large influence upon acts like The Beach Boys and The Beatles was crucial as they would later become the most influential and successful within the genre of Psychedelic Rock.
What Makes Psychedelic Rock?
Being a genre based around creating mind altering effects, Psychedelic Rock is experimental by nature. It took the shift from acoustic to electric that Rock music was making at the time and leaped bounds ahead. It was common place for multiple effects over instruments; The guitars would be soaked in Feedback and Fuzz effects, the studio started to become an instrument of its own with the use of "Studio Trickery", non western Instruments, Electric organs and pianos, extended instrumental passages, disjunctive song structures, Lyrical themes that referenced psychedelic drugs.
The Beatles became a staple for the sound, influencing a wide array of artists with the intense and noisy sound present on the track above. The track follows a few staples of the genre, features lyrics dealing with the LSD experience, loud noisy percussion tracks, weird tape loops and non-western percussion. The song still resembles a pop structure with being quite linear, featuring averse verse chorus structure, although that was not the case for all artist.
Pink Floyd was among some of the Psychedelic Rock artists to deal with ambience and spacey soundscapes. Breaking down the standard upbeat rock structure's and opting for more ambient and experimental musical passages. Their songs started to move in this more abstract direction and along with the psychedelic movement, this experimentation morphed into Progressive Rock and later on, Krautrock.
How Does Psychedelic Rock and Progressive Rock play into Krautrock?
If we jump back to the start of the deconstruction and look at the song I posted at the begging, "Deluxe (immer wieder)" by "Harmonia". This song is nearly a perfect example when tracing the influences of Krautrock. If we firstly compare the song structure's between another song example from above, "Sheep" by Pink Floyd, This is what we see.
We can see that both of these songs follow irregular song structures. Both tracks running over 10 minutes feature unpredictable tunes and musical explorations. In the Red we can see the Verse's of each songs, both appearing at the start and finish of the track, giving the sense of "story or Journey". This plays a major part in the stylistic tendencies of Progressive Rock. Both include Solo's (Blue) during the center of the track with interesting Intro's / Outro's (Green) and quiet / calm middle ambient pieces, though the Harmonia track does not feature any 'ambience' this is still a quiet segment of the track. It is typical for Krautrock to not feature any breaks or pauses in the momentum of the track.
Looking at how Psychedelic Rock influenced Krautrock we can take another song mentioned earlier, Pink Floyd "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun". We can hear the similarities between each song, the spacey organ and synthesizer pieces within the Pink Floyd track also show up on the Harmonia song. This is not strictly just the synthesizer parts and the ambiance but also the distorted guitar sounds can be heard between each track. Although they have been used differently for each song context, the sonic influence can be traced between each.
Dealing with such broad genre's and stylistic attributes can also lead to a lot of misconception's about the music and artists. In doing so you may see Pink Floyd's music ranges from label to label and also the same to artists such as Kraftwerk. I hope I have allowed you too see the differences between each of these musical styles.
Hopefully you enjoyed this deconstruction! Ill leave you with this, the infamous Krautrock song by Faust, "Krautrock"
References:
Cox, Christoph. 2004. Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. P.412
Cope, Julian. 1995. "Krautrocksampler: One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmiche Musik"- 1968 Onwards" Yatesbury Head Heritage, p.64
Stubbs, David. 2007. "Invisible Jukebox: Faust" The Wire, ed. 275
Rogers Jude. 2013. "Why Kraftwerk are still the worlds most influential band" The Observer.
N/A. 2017. "Neu! - Neu! - Songs, Reviews, Credits" AllMusic.
DeRogatis, Jim. 2003. Turn on your mind: Four Decades of Psychedelic Rock. p. 7, p.78
Hegarty, Paul; Halliwell, Martin. 2011. Beyond and Before: Progressive Rock Since the 1960's. p. 13
