www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1004937,00.html
Alexis Petridis goes anyway Friday July 25, 2003 52 The Guardian The Kraftwerk robots Music machines: the Kraftwerk robots which perform instead of the band The bar at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts is swamped. The crowd are an uneasy alliance of asymmetric-haired trendies and what may be their polar opposite: nervous, bespectacled thirtysomething men who look like they regularly won the maths prize at school. Regrettably, some of the latter are wearing Gary Numan T-shirts. The crowd's appearance may be odd, but it's nothing compared to their conversation. Queuing for a pint, I overhear two men enthusiastically discussing computerised hi-hat patterns. In fact, the ICA is packed for a rare live appearance by Karl Bartos, who was once Kraftwerk's percussionist, but left the Dsseldorf quartet a decade ago. Even the ICA's organisers seem slight overwhelmed by the public response to the concert. One tells me that there were 200 applications for a guest list of 40. People unable to make the gig sent money and pleading letters asking for posters. The remaining members - Florian Schneider and Ralf Htter, who formed the band in 1969, plus two hired hands called Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmidt - are about to release the first new Kraftwerk album in 17 years. Tour de France Soundtracks, a musical celebration of the famous cycle race, was intended to coincide with this year's event, but Kraftwerk's endless perfectionism meant that the album's release date has been endlessly pushed back. It will now come out next month, weeks after the race itself has finished. In the ICA bar, this news is greeted with a sort of doleful resignation: it's Kraftwerk, innit? Most people had given up on Kraftwerk ever releasing any new music years ago. After all, Schneider and Htter have spent the last two decades gradually cutting themselves off from the outside world. They rarely give interviews, and when they do, they come with strings attached: one magazine which secured an audience with Htter was informed that he would only discuss his collection of bicycles and that they were not allowed to even mention that he was a member of Kraftwerk. Their legendary Dsseldorf studio, KlingKlang, has no telephone, no fax, no reception and returns all post unopened. They have not attended a photo shoot since 1978: their record label has had to make do with blurry shots from their highly infrequent live appearances and pictures of the band's painstakingly constructed robot doubles. I have spent the few weeks since the announcement of Tour de France Soundtracks' release attempting to penetrate Kraftwerk's enigma. After all, Kraftwerk are one of the few bands in history who genuinely bear comparison to the Beatles. Not because of their sound or their image, but because, like the Beatles, it is impossible to overstate their influence on modern music. It's the five albums they made between 1974 and 1981 that really matter: Autobahn, Radioactivity, Trans Europe Express, The Man Machine and Computerworld. In their clipped, weirdly funky rhythms, simple melodies and futuristic technology, you can hear whole new areas of popular music being mapped out. Kraftwerk were so far ahead of their time that the rest of the world has spent 25 years inventing new musical genres in anattempt to catch up. House, techno, hip-hop, trip-hop, synthpop, trance, electroclash: Kraftwerk's influence looms over all of them. It's difficult to imagine what rock and pop music would sound like today if Kraftwerk had never existed. In addition to their artistic importance, there's certainly plenty to talk about. In lieu of actual publicity, bizarre rumours about Kraftwerk began to abound during the 80s. Ralf Htter was said to have suffered a minor heart attack, not due to stress - in fairness, overwork was hardly likely to be a factor - but as a result of obsessively drinking coffee. There were also allegations of a kind of cultural Stalinism: after Bartos and fellow percussionist Wolfgang Flr left the band, not only were their names removed from some covers, but their faces were removed as well. Less troublingly, someone once solemnly swore to me that the Dsseldorf accent in which Kraftwerk sing was a Teutonic equivalent of the Brummie drawl, which would certainly add a whole new layer of humour to their deadpan lyrics: "Oi prowgramme me howme compewter, bring meself into the fewcher" etc. With this and other burning topics running through my mind, I attempt to go through the official channels, pestering their record company for an interview. If Kraftwerk won't come to me, I'll go to Kraftwerk: I resolve to go to Dsseldorf in an attempt to track them down. Even if I can't find them, perhaps the city itself will shed some light on their oeuvre. Few bands have ever seemed as rooted in their environment as Kraftwerk. While their German peers - Can, Faust, Tangerine Dream - muddied their cultural identity with a liberal dose of commune-dwelling, acid-munching hippy idealism, it's hard to see how Kraftwerk could have appeared more German without taking to the stage clad in lederhosen. While every one else was letting it all hang out, they sported suits, ties and short haircuts. Their sound was precise, efficient, emotionally cold and technologically advanced. It was music that had bagged the sun loungers while everyone else was still snoozing. Occasionally, their image even led Kraftwerk into slightly sinister waters. In 1975, Ralf Htter told one gobsmacked music journalist that "the German mentality" was "more advanced" than anyone else's and that German was "the mother language". The night before I leave, a telephone call comes from Kraftwerk's British press officer. Ralf Htter, it is intimated, will give me an interview on condition that I abandon any plans to go to Dsseldorf. This has rather the opposite effect from the one intended. Less an autobiography than an extended treatise on Flr's virility, I Was A Robot paints Kraftwerk not as emotionless "man-machines", but shameless groupie hounds. Perhaps Dsseldorf is filled with evidence of their youthful indiscretions, populated by children who bear a startling resemblance to members of Kraftwerk. In the case of Schneider, who the late rock critic Lester Bangs once described as looking like a man who could push a button and blow up half the world without blinking, this is a disturbing thought indeed. The next morning, there's another flurry of communication between EMI and the Guardian. Htter is now asking for the arts editor's written assurance that any article will not paint Kraftwerk as part of a German music scene, nor will it contain any jokes at the expense of Germans. This seems a bit rich coming from someone whose public image has involved the deft manipulation of a Teutonic caricature, but nevertheless we agree. I glumly consign a notebook packed full of rib-ticklers about bratwurst and square-headed men with no sense of humour to the bin. Next, we get sent a list of pre-interview conditions stringent enough to make your average Hollywood superstar baulk. Htter will not discuss Kraftwerk's history, their KlingKlang studio or indeed anything other than the new album. This poses a problem, as nobody in England has actually heard the new album yet. You suspect the end result will bear an uncanny resemblance to Kraftwerk's most recent German interview, in which Htter and a fearless correspondent from Der Spiegel spend two pages attempting to bore each other to death. Its gripping highlight comes when Htter is forced to admit that computers are smaller nowadays than they were in the early 70s. We tactfully decline their kind offer and I head for Heathrow. After an abortive attempt to garner some support for my expedition from an organisation called Dsseldorf Marketing And Tourismus (no, they don't know anything about Kraftwerk; Dirk is a nice man, but he regards me with deep suspicion. Unlike Dsseldorf Marketing And Tourismus, he's heard of Kraftwerk, but can't believe that I have just turned up in Dsseldorf with no leads at all. He seems to think I'm making it up about the veil of secrecy around the band. According to Bussy, KlingKlang is near the...
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