D>Elektro 1.1
INTRO |> www - phase 1 | D>Elektro |> is a project that will be realized on various media-platforms.
The first one is this website, that is used to present the entire project as well as developing it's next manifestations. So it is also used as an online script - laboratory.
D>Elektro focuses on the origins, developments and influences of those German music-pioneers, whose works and ideas influenced and shaped the whole electronic music as we know it - and who have founded many of it's most significant current styles and formulas.
It was pioneering work.
|
"In 1973 I said in an interview: 'In ten years everybody's going
to play a synthesizer'.
The journalist stopped the tape, said: 'You are an idiot.' - and left.
For them we were just madmen, who only wanted to make fun of them."
Edgar Froese [Tangerine Dream]
|
|> Echoes 
Since quite a while - and particularly in England and America, the cradles
of modern / pop(ular) music - a true German-Elektro-["Kraut"]-Rock
fever is spreading:
|> Various international magazines like MOJO, the
Melody Maker, SPIN,
Q-Magazine, The
Face, the Sunday Times
- even the Washington Post
devoted special articles up to 20-pages to the re-discovered phenomenon.
|> No international documentary on Techno
/ HipHop etc., in which the featured artists don't explicitly refer to
Kraftwerk,
CAN, Klaus
Schulze, Tangerine
Dream a.o.
|> During just one year three comprehensive books on
German electronic Music have been released - in the UK alone.
|> The British Film Institute devoted an entire evening to the
screening of rare music-films and clips of German groups like CAN,
Amon Düül 2 and Kraftwerk.
|> An illustruous
group of international Techno + Ambient musiscians participated in
the CAN - Remix
album 'Sacrilege'
- other 'Tribute' albums are planned and under way - or have already been
released.
D>Elektro pays particular
attention to the fascinating multitude of techniques
and styles, which these musicians discovered by 'working' and 'playing'.
As it is between these two seemingly opposite terms of 'work'
and 'play'
where these diverse concepts
can be put into their true place of origins and where these soundscapes
were discovered and from where they unfolded - here in Germany in quite
a short time - and literally out of nothing, out of the blue.
In the centre of attention stand - obviously - the most creative
and influential
artists of these manifold work-and-play techniques:
|> Protagonists + Nodes
| KRAFTWERK > Soundscience; Focusing on the origins and 'purity'; Man-Machine + totalmusic concepts
Klaus Schulze | Tangerine Dream | Cluster | Conrad Schnitzler | NEU! and Harmonia developed the 'contemporary' musical movements and styles like Ambient, Trance, Techno, Chill-Out- and Industrial Music at a time, when even these terms and labels didn't exist yet.
| "I was a big fan of Kraftwerk, Cluster and Harmonia, and I thought the first NEU! album, in particular, was just gigantically wonderful. Looking at that against Punk, I had absolutely no doubts where the future of music was going, and for me it was coming out of Germany." |
Other influential groups and musicians will of course also be put into focus, like e.g. Popol Vuh | Amon Düül 2 | Ash Ra Tempel / Manuel Göttsching - and Conny Plank [most important producer and key-figure in sound-research/engineering] and Karlheinz Stockhausen [one of the 'godfathers' when it comes to the liberation of and research for sounds].
|> Influence > Now | 
The [popular] electronic music, as it presents itself in today's wide
variety, is without a doubt, THE dominating and most important contemporary
form of music. And not only because of this, it is about [the right] time
to draw the attention to the more unknown parts of it's origins.
This exploration and evaluation is all the more interesting
and 'right on time', as all those Elektro-musicians are still -or again-
actively playing and recording -- and this very often through invitations
from abroad, like e.g. Faust,
who, during the last years have released a number of new albums, did a
couple of international tours - just like Cluster
and Ashra a.m.o.
|
"What's extraordinary about all these bands - apart from the music
itself, is that despite severely limited commercial returns, their
influence was so wide-reaching that most are still working today;
or if like CAN, they're no longer together as a band, the various
members are still engaged on projects every bit as bonkers."
Andy Gill / MOJO
Magazine, April '97
|
Even the very secretive and for a long time quite quiet Kraftwerk are, after their recent 'comeback'-release of the EXPO-2000 song-trailer, supposedly working on the release of their long-awaited new album. Their recenlty completely revamped and up-to-dated website looks and sounds indeed very promising.
Klaus Schulze's creative output remains as steady as ever and let's his work - with every new release - stand out as on of the most influential in electronic music. The same goes for the Tangerine Dream.
The ideas, sounds and concepts of these musicians are still 'working' and influencing fellow musicians.
So, if D>Elektro is trying to bring these musicians - resp. their work more into the open - in all it's varieties, differences and at times surprising connections, it is NOT an undertaking of pure nostalgia.
In short: the time is right and long overdue to bring these often [and particularly in Germany] often ignored or even frowned-upon pioneering-works back into the public's attention - and it's ears as well.
The documentation of these chapters of German electronic-music-history will hopefully also work against a still widespread low self-esteem or mere ignorance towards one's own culture.
Many of them got in touch with their musical 'ancestors' to work on collaborative projects.
Two main-chapters of this site are devoted to the far reaching influences on other international musicians and styled - just enough to sum them up briefly.
||> CONTENTS: Hi|Story/ies + Elements
The main contents, stories + elements regarding the protagonists and most important subjects featured in D>Elektro, are to be found in the extended concept / script D>Elektro 1.2.
This contains the two main sections
The main subject of the NEWland section is the historical background, in front of which these musicians developed their sounds. These particular soci-political developments in post-war Germany have surely to be counted amongst the main engines that drove these musicians toward their innovations and discoveries.
While trying to point out the connections between artistic achievements and societal ongoings there'll also be references to other musical ancestors, approaching similar directions and ideas - some years or decades before.
The section Sounds + Elements focuses on the actual musical developments, ideas and experiments - obviously the most voluminous and important part of this site.
A wide range of further infos and material - incl. numerous links to other websites on these subjects - can be found in the sections Protagonists | Material and www-links.
| D>Elektro 1.2
Knut Gerwers |
| D>Elektro |1.1| |
| |> INTRO |> www - phase 1 <| |