The journey last week to find the graves of Jaki Liebezeit, Holger Czukay and his wife U-She might have piqued your interest in the German post-war experimental music scene of the seventies. By watching this very well put together documentary first aired on BBC 4 in 2009 you will have a much better understanding of what it was all about. (Thanks for forwarding Jed).
Where do you start to explore this music? Well, most people that are interested are already well versed in the Krautrock scene and it might be something of a challenge to introduce new people on a larger scale to something so deep, so influential and so important – something so original, something so new and experimental. Try.
The most successful band that began here were Kraftwerk, an electronic version of the genre. Tangerine Dream’s soundscapes penetrated the universe, CAN hypnotized, Neu, Cluster and Harmonia had Eno and Bowie mesmerized, Popol Vuh’s soundtracks were the sound of Werner Herzog’s films, Faust could get a tune out of a cement mixer – Amon Düül ll blew my mind. Go look, see what you can find, you won’t regret it.
Just watched it for a second time as there is a lot of info to process here. A few things that stood out to me:
1. As far as I know, there was not much of an R&B scene in Germany in the early/mid 60’s like there was in Britain. The experimental German scene just seemed to come out of nowhere into full bloom around 1968.
2. These groundbreaking German musicians were really operating in a vacuum with most of German culture still enthralled with Schlager music. Plus the scenes we separated by multiple cities.
3. They had a strong belief in themselves and the music…and culture finally caught up to them 50 years later. They are probably more popular today than they ever were at the time. Such is the power of music to travel beyond time!