the Afro-American Roots of Kraftwerk

luka

luka

Well-known member
zhao said:
you are demonstrating very clearly your own biases and baggage here.

For rhythmic traditions in Africa are very much about pure mathematics, rationality, and cold, hard, precision, quite the opposite of the false narrative of "instinctual" or "natural" impulses that you espouse.

Personal anecdote: last time i spoke to Ryuji Ikeda, he told me about being present at a drumming class taught by a master in Gabon (i think it was), and the teacher said exactly: do not play from emotion or feeling. you are not human, you are a machine.
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I think my favourite Barty opinion is that African drumming is 'rubbish'.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Kraftwerk aren't even that great, good but not great, too classical, too teutonic fetishising technophilic, if the detroit kids didn't mention them noone would cite them as an influence on techno.

Simples.

Now D.A.F - that's a fucking great band.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Not saying Kraftwerk are not an influence on techno, they clearly are, but more for the guys in detroit. for people in the UK who come from the electrofunk scene, really? come on that's revisionism, it's far more plausible to say that Man Parrish or Africa bambaataa inspired them to make techno/get into electronic music. Trans Europe Express is far better in Planet Rock.

The detroit kids were mostly GQ and armani boys, they were far more into stuff that simply didn't get much of a look-in in the UK, Italo disco being one of them...
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
and something like this, it's clearly only linked to kraftwerk as a origins idea. But as a whole it has very little of the kraftwerk ingredients.

 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
but then also in chicago you had Black djs like Ron Hardy playing the residents and all kinds of weirdo shit, Traxx plays Bourbonese Qualk. It's not just one European group is it. Why the obsession with Kraftwerk I don't...

Actually, I do. it's that utopian promise, that both Zhao and his detractors are invested in. Bun dat.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
thirdform said:
It's not just one European group is it. Why the obsession with Kraftwerk I don't...

Actually, I do. it's that utopian promise, that both Zhao and his detractors are invested in.
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This feels reductionist. An easy way out. It's an interesting question but that's a boring answer.
 
chava

chava

Well-known member
thirdform said:
but then also in chicago you had Black djs like Ron Hardy playing the residents and all kinds of weirdo shit, Traxx plays Bourbonese Qualk. It's not just one European group is it. Why the obsession with Kraftwerk I don't...

Actually, I do. it's that utopian promise, that both Zhao and his detractors are invested in. Bun dat.
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Are Kraftwerk utopian? There's no outer space obsession for a start. They sound like modernist music should sound if it had the 20s utopianism but 50 years later it gets more ironic for me
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
chava said:
Are Kraftwerk utopian? There's no outer space obsession for a start. They sound like modernist music should sound if it had the 20s utopianism but 50 years later it gets more ironic for me
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yeah I was thinking of autobahn. It's so cheesy! It doesn't even sound very 70s.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
there's something about that riff once it's transplanted into the electro body that is incandescent. it's one of the most powerful sound sequeuces ever recorded. but in its orignal setting it is relatively inert.
 
chava

chava

Well-known member
thirdform said:
yeah I was thinking of autobahn. It's so cheesy! It doesn't even sound very 70s.
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That's the cheesiness and the mundanity of the themes that are genius. They pair this with melancholia and restraint and a great deal of classical euro heritage.

I just have a hard time with the techno connection stuff. The restraint and minimalism is probably a connection, it depends of course what you take from techno or electronic music in general.
 
chava

chava

Well-known member
I see (on twitter) that some are offended how Kraftwerk were loaded and pretty upper class (Florians father was a very influental modernist architect). I mean if you are loaded with D-marks and end up creating Kraftwerk how the hell is that a problem? That's was I call a solid investment strategy.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
luka said:
there's something about that riff once it's transplanted into the electro body that is incandescent. it's one of the most powerful sound sequeuces ever recorded. but in its orignal setting it is relatively inert.
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right. in its original settings it's quite clichéd. teutonic efficiency. but when it gets transplanted into soulsonic force, that's when the machines take over. in its original settings you can still hear the humans composing it.
 
Murphy

Murphy

cat malogen
thirdform said:
Kraftwerk aren't even that great, good but not great, too classical, too teutonic fetishising technophilic, if the detroit kids didn't mention them noone would cite them as an influence on techno.

Simples.

Now D.A.F - that's a fucking great band.
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prefer their first lp because it appears to have been a precursor to vlc player and all the flutes.

what’s more techno than flutes.....
 
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