Martin D
Well-known member
This is similar to something Mad Mike said, he always talked about Kraftkerk not being a colour, race or age, that the music somehow transcend all of that.
the Afro-American Roots of Kraftwerk
- Thread starter zhao
- Start date
This is similar to something Mad Mike said, he always talked about Kraftkerk not being a colour, race or age, that the music somehow transcend all of that.
Martin D
Well-known member
Kraftwerk didn't and don't see themselves as a techno band, Ralf has spoken about techno in a couple of places and spoke about it being an important phase of electronic music. Let me see if I can find the piece.
firefinga
Well-known member
You pretty much nailed it there.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
Well Alan Vega's hispanic.
Also there are key examples way before what Zhao indicated... Sun Ra's been doing electronic experiments before Kraftwerk, there was Bernie Worrell, Herbie Hancock (both solo & w/ Miles (and not for nothing, it's pretty obvious a lot of what Miles went for parallels if not inspired a lot of earlier abstract typical Krautrock stuff). We know that Kraftwerk were the kind of people who listened to this stuff, in addition to black-based white rock music (Velvets & Stooges) and Motown-stuff. It's not unreasonable that they noted what some of these aforementioned acts were doing and wanted to expand further on ideas they noted.
Also there are key examples way before what Zhao indicated... Sun Ra's been doing electronic experiments before Kraftwerk, there was Bernie Worrell, Herbie Hancock (both solo & w/ Miles (and not for nothing, it's pretty obvious a lot of what Miles went for parallels if not inspired a lot of earlier abstract typical Krautrock stuff). We know that Kraftwerk were the kind of people who listened to this stuff, in addition to black-based white rock music (Velvets & Stooges) and Motown-stuff. It's not unreasonable that they noted what some of these aforementioned acts were doing and wanted to expand further on ideas they noted.
cool i know but i was talking about their influence on making techno what it became
Martin D
Well-known member
Aye, I think this is the crux of what Zhao is driving at, more the press position of Kraftwerk.
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
On a slight tangent. This is a smashing piece on the roots of Detroit HipHop and the D music scene in general
http://csgholz.org/blog/welcome-to-tha-d/
http://csgholz.org/blog/welcome-to-tha-d/
Trillhouse
Well-known member
Lot's of people in Europe were making electronic experimental music before Kraftwerk, but Sun Ra is pretty much an anomaly in African American music. Hancock & Worrell both went electric after Kraftwerk & I don't really hear the obvious parallels between 60s Miles Davis and early Kraftwerk, which was a very deliberate break from other German music of the time that could be name Krautrock.
I don't think anyone is arguing that African American music wasn't in some way an influence on Kraftwerk.
firefinga
Well-known member
Rewriting history in endless continuity
Yea, some even scored chartbusters:
Pierre Henry "Psyche Rock"
Yea, some even scored chartbusters:
Pierre Henry "Psyche Rock"
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I agree w/placing KW in larger, holistic continuum including European, black and any other influences, in the sense that if you want to understand the origins, as opposed to post-facto imposed narratives, of anything you need to put it such a continuum. I'd guess not specific enough for zhao, so by all means let's acknowledge the significant influences of black popular musics on techno and its roots in KW, synthpop, Italo and so on.
however. KW also came out of a German scene heavily influenced by a-g classical, musique concrete, electroacoustic, analog synth experimentation etc, things which had virtually nothing do with any black popular music. for KW those things are most prominent early on - Tone Float, 1, 2 - but they're absolutely still there in later electronic KW (and prominently displayed in large swathes of modern techno).
to come at it from the other side, 70s Miles, for example, had a hell of a lot to do with Teo Macero, who had an a-g classical background and was a major follower of Varese, which directly impacted his editing style. I'm certainly NOT saying a-g European composers are responsible for Bitches Brew, any more than Berry Gordy is for KW, just that zhao's view is - unsurprisingly - highly reductionist. there are plenty of other examples that could be cited in this vein.
techno did not spring fully formed from Ralf und Florian's foreheads but nor were they solely "robots playing Motown". robots playing Motown via compressed pop Stockhausen, perhaps.
and not just KW. most obviously Cluster, but also TD, early Popol Vuh, Schulze, Gottsching, Battiato, Heldon, and a litany of more obscure records from Europe and North America. I notice those advancing a black purist view of techno usually want to diminish the importance of this stuff if not ignore it all together, which seems to me to be the opposite of excising techno's black roots.
however. KW also came out of a German scene heavily influenced by a-g classical, musique concrete, electroacoustic, analog synth experimentation etc, things which had virtually nothing do with any black popular music. for KW those things are most prominent early on - Tone Float, 1, 2 - but they're absolutely still there in later electronic KW (and prominently displayed in large swathes of modern techno).
to come at it from the other side, 70s Miles, for example, had a hell of a lot to do with Teo Macero, who had an a-g classical background and was a major follower of Varese, which directly impacted his editing style. I'm certainly NOT saying a-g European composers are responsible for Bitches Brew, any more than Berry Gordy is for KW, just that zhao's view is - unsurprisingly - highly reductionist. there are plenty of other examples that could be cited in this vein.
techno did not spring fully formed from Ralf und Florian's foreheads but nor were they solely "robots playing Motown". robots playing Motown via compressed pop Stockhausen, perhaps.
and not just KW. most obviously Cluster, but also TD, early Popol Vuh, Schulze, Gottsching, Battiato, Heldon, and a litany of more obscure records from Europe and North America. I notice those advancing a black purist view of techno usually want to diminish the importance of this stuff if not ignore it all together, which seems to me to be the opposite of excising techno's black roots.
Martin D
Well-known member
Ralf and Florain both studied Classical, Freeform & Improv together at the Academy of Arts in Remscheid.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
also, I must call nonsense on this. or it's not entirely untrue, but it's an enormous sweeping generalization with much inaccuracy. a great deal of post-punk was founded on appreciation of black popular music and involved collaborations w/black musicians; the Pop Group, the entire downtown NYC scene, On-U Sound, the Slits, 100s of other examples.
black influences on industrial is are interesting topic. the most prominent one, besides some funky basslines, is probably indirectly via the great deal of 60s-70s European improvisational and experimental music that was influenced by free jazz, not always sonically but in mindset. this is actually an example of a continuum like zhao's talking about - several key free jazz figures either had classical backgrounds (Cecil Taylor) or were influenced by things like Satie or serialism (Dolphy, fellow traveler Mingus) in addition to bop and other black traditions. so it's possible to construct a holistic continuum in which white and black avant-garde musics have been interacting much farther back then you would think, even if I'm not sure how well it would all hold up to close scrutiny.
as usual I think zhao/his allies have a good initial point but hurt their own argument by going to the opposite extreme, being intransigent and being needlessly (as opposed to usefully) personally abrasive. it's actually quite reminiscent, unsurprisingly, of the some of the problems Afrocentric history has experienced. if I have time later I might expand on the analogy.
firefinga
Well-known member
Rewriting history in endless continuity
There were very early disco scenes and records coming from Europe (Munich as an example as a city, Moroder as the key figure producer, also France) from as early as 1975, 1976. Those scenes drew from quite different influences like prog rock (especially music scores from a highly influential Italian band Goblin) or even experimental electronic music of that time. I would even argue innovative in so far as that distinctive European disco favoured tracks instead of songs and used electronic instruments like synths or drum machines instead of traditional musicians.
There were very early disco scenes and records coming from Europe (Munich as an example as a city, Moroder as the key figure producer, also France) from as early as 1975, 1976. Those scenes drew from quite different influences like prog rock (especially music scores from a highly influential Italian band Goblin) or even experimental electronic music of that time. I would even argue innovative in so far as that distinctive European disco favoured tracks instead of songs and used electronic instruments like synths or drum machines instead of traditional musicians.
For every black 70s funkateer or jazz-fusionist using synths or drum machines (sly on Riot, Stevie Wonder, herbie H) there is a white counterpart doing the same thing either at the same time or earlier (tangerine dream, Tonto's Expanding Head Band, Pink Floyd, White Noise, 50 Foot House etc).
Stevie W worked with Tonto based on what they had already done on Zero Time, right?
What's really crucial is not who used the tech first but how it was used -- jazzers and funksters tended to use it more virutuosically, squiggly, frothy, busy-maximalist, juicy-fruit. It was your Euros who invented the metronomic pulse-grid trance-out minimalist regularity thing.
Is there anything in black music like "I Feel Love" before "I Feel Love"?
The idea that the significance of Kraftwerk can be reduced to the retransmission of already existing black musical ideas, approaches and structure is some Kirk DeGiorgio bullshit.
We measure groups and musicians by their achievement, by how far further forward they move music. "It's not where you took it from; it's where you took it to".
Stevie W worked with Tonto based on what they had already done on Zero Time, right?
What's really crucial is not who used the tech first but how it was used -- jazzers and funksters tended to use it more virutuosically, squiggly, frothy, busy-maximalist, juicy-fruit. It was your Euros who invented the metronomic pulse-grid trance-out minimalist regularity thing.
Is there anything in black music like "I Feel Love" before "I Feel Love"?
The idea that the significance of Kraftwerk can be reduced to the retransmission of already existing black musical ideas, approaches and structure is some Kirk DeGiorgio bullshit.
We measure groups and musicians by their achievement, by how far further forward they move music. "It's not where you took it from; it's where you took it to".
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
You misunderstand me. I know and you know that a lot of this music has a ridiculous base in black music. Anyone who frequents this forum should and does.
My issue is that once it passes a certain point, the practitioners of this music and it's champions strive to whitewash it and deny these influences. Take for example Chris Ott of Pitchfork, currently describing the 'amphetamine-influenced d-beat' of Killing Joke, as if Killing Joke themselves weren't for a long time, heavily influenced by black music (mostly through Youth, as after his departure it all gets very monochromatic), and trying to in the same sentence argue that The Pop Group and Gang Of Four (bands who are forwardly and overtly influenced by funk) are both too pretentious and distracting from how good a genre gothic music was.
And now the music is done by people who, even at it's best, very very rarely acknowledge this sort of connection. You see instead fascination with the teutonic-edged era of EBM or the noise/harsh angle getting played up again and again. Nobody'd dare ever try to sound like 23 Skidoo in this current 'revival' sound. Shit, even Raime by acknowledging the influence of jungle, are fucking miles and miles beyond the people who aspire to sound like lost Front Line Assembly records, because they're acknowledging influence from beyond such a myopic parameter.
Excellent point. Yeah, I think the best way to think about this is as complex networks of influence rather than through totemic figures. Originality and influence are everywhere. You can find people making in records in detroit and chicago who each sound closer to people in different cities in europe. It's a hybrid beast. Blues after all uses 12-tone scale which is European in origin? I'm not seriously considering that, just saying that playing this game a certain way reaches a dead end.
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
have you heard this zhao?
quite good
https://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media-publications/podcast-page/534
quite good
https://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media-publications/podcast-page/534
philblackpool
gamelanstep
Some bitter wrangling about the Tony Herrington piece in the following issue of the mag & on the mag website. Not nearly as exciting though as the full-page letter the other month from the author disputing the entire contents of the full-page review of his book the month before!