D>Elektro   |1.2.2|  |>Sounds + Elements
      |> History/ies + Sounds
of modern electronic / experimental music in Germany |<
 
D>Elektro 1.2 - |> expanded concept <|
|1.2.2| Sounds + Elements

|> Experiments | Sounds + Concepts |
| Effects | Developments | 2 |

||> In + Output | Ethno | Punk | [and more] |

The influential effects of German electro-sounds have indeed reached far beyond Germany - also in the area's of non-synthetic sounds. So called "ethno" elements went into these sounds - and worked / played themselves out of it again.

Also in this field there is a strong connection between those two very different groups: CAN and Kraftwerk.
However, contrary to Kraftwerk, from the very beginning did CAN integrate countless influences of ethnic music in their own compositions.
Especially in their E.F.S. ['Ethnological Forgery Series'] the group concsiously processed the musical forms found in foreign cultures.
"CAN were the first to explore the possibilities of ethno-collages, years before the growing publick interest in reggae and pan-african music.
Undoubtedly the've preceeded the the interest in the so-called 'World Music', when the'd begun to integrate african a.o. elements into their work."
Pascal Bussy
CANBut CAN weren't satisfied with simply fitting in various ethno-elements as mere citations into their own music. They combined, in their own, unconventional way, the most diverse elements.

In Transcendental Express typical CAN-like crystalline keyboard structures hit an original western-proof banjo - and through a quite simple, but for CAN quite typical unusual collage - had they created a very dense, atmospheric space-western soundtrack - with an ironic wink...

CAN were masters of restriction and variety at the same time. This self-instructed limiting to the basic musical forms and a relatively convential selection of instruments, lead them to an all the more playful attitude, trying out all imaginable variations, playing- and soundforms. Synthesists without lot's of synthesizers. Synthesists in their own way.
A parallel could also be drawn to the 'minimal' name of the band - three letters, that can take on many meaning: for instance it's Turkish for 'live / soul', Japanese for 'feeling / love' - or as 'usually', it simply means: CAN - a form into which all sorts of thing can be thrown...

CAN - and in particular their drummer Jaki Liebezeit - developed mechanical / metronomic rhythms [as they are used today everywhere in Drum 'n' Bass] - without drum-computers and sequencers; they conjured up ambient textures and soundscapes - without big synthesizers or batteries of keyboards.
CAN's usage of electronics was much more subtle and never simply for it's own sake.
It shows more prominently in the studio / sound-experiments and in Holger Czukay's specially developed montage-techniques. But when the playing, the music didn't call for it, they concentrated on the most simple elements.
CAN's is a kind of musical changeling, who, like if playing with a chemical-laboratory, combines his basic musical elements over and over again, in countless new waya and into many-faced results.
In sharp contrast to Kraftwerk, the purists of sound, CAN were the big Melting-Pot - who, however, through it's distinct minimalism and very own montage-techniques never lost it's invidual note and power. Up to now CANs minimal-magical rhythms belong to the most influential in modern music.
"In the late 70's they became the main inspiration for many 'New Wave' and 'Punk' musicians.
John Lydon (Sex Pistols / P.I.L.), Cabaret Voltaire, The Buzzcocks, The Fall, Wire, The Stranglers, Julian Cope, Siouxsie and DAF, to name just a few, all referred specifically to CAN as one of their main influences. Others, like for instance the Talking Heads and the Eurythmics, owe a lot to them also in stylistic terms."
Pascal Bussy
Just how much today's Techno - Ambient / Drum 'n' Bass / Elektro-musicians feel obliged to CAN's work, had been documented by a great number of the most original ones on a recently released double-CD of CAN-Remix tracks.
|> Globalization

Even Kraftwerk, who, for a long time insisted on their German, resp. european cultural roots, have in recent years begun to open up for foreign influences.
Since Ralf Huetter and Florian Schneider witnessed the birth of the black breakbeats - based a.o. influences a loton their own rhythms - in the New York Clubs, one can also notice a certain feedback into their own music. Their last official album features some of these extremly danceable breakbeats and also some quite funky bass-plucking.

With the world-wide spreading of their machine-beats- and sounds also their own perspective started to widen:

"The mechanical universe of Kraftwerk has been cloned and copies in Detroit, Brussels, Milano and Manchester - it was even psychedelia-lized in the delirium of House-Music. Call it as you like: Sci-Fi Music, Techno-Disco, Cybernetic Rock. I, nevertheless, prefer the term Robot-Pop.
It fit's into our concept to consequently continue our work on the construction of the perfect pop-song for the tribes of the global village.
Our music is good, when black's and white's both can dance to it."
Ralf Huetter [Kraftwerk]
||> Not to be forgotten

The focus on the above mentioned CAN | Kraftwerk | Klaus Schulze + Tangerine Dream does in no way mean, that only these, very different musicians, had a great influence on the development of electronic music.

Especially in the today as Ambient / Trance labeled directions a number of other German pioneers can be found. Brian Eno is most often labeled ab being the inventor of ambient-music - but in fact, these sound were developed and explored years earlier by the Cluster, Harmonia, Tangerine Dream, Ashra [M. Göttsching], Klaus Schulze, a.o. musicians - and this in their entire range.
The works of Manuel Göttsching [head of Ashra] are in many ways exemplary for those of other German musicians: they are deeply influential on musicians especially in the so-called 'Ambient' music; they've explored and paved the way long before the term 'Ambient' was coined. And maybe because of that they are far from being known to the wider audience inasmuch as their truly original work would deserve. To name just one good example for that: Göttsching's solo-album E2-E4, recorded way back in 1981....
E2-E4 is unique in many ways.
One can hear early traces of what would become techno and trance music. It's driving computer rhythms and subtly changing sequencer patterns are both hypnotic and innovative.
A pioneering piece of work - among Göttsching's best.
E2-E4 is genuine, and set the trend for trance/dance music almost a full decade before it became one.
A masterwork from an essential master.
L. Bourland | 'Beyond the Horizon' | USA
Connections from these soundscapes to minimal- and classical music have been drawn e.g. by Cluster - and especially to symphonic music by Klaus Schulze.
So it is hardly surprising, that today's electro-musicians are eager to collaborate with those founders and sound-pioneers. Over the last years Klaus Schulze together with Pete Namlook, the acclaimed you electronist from Frankfurt and Bill Laswell recorded a whole series of CD's under the title 'Dark Side of the Moog'.
And for their latest releases and concerts Ashra has took up a new member: Steve Baltes, a well-known member of Frankfurt's Techno-scene.
While Cluster on their latest American tour were accompanied by young American electronauts -- and the collaborations of Hans-Joachim Roedelius [Cluster / Harmonia] with musicians from all over the world are next to uncountable. The extent of his work in figures and facets - from solo-piano to ethno- and avantgarde electronic-experiments is not to be compared with any other. [His work, as well as the works by Kluster/Cluster & Harmonia will be presented, in the course of this work-in-progress, in much more detail.]
Groups like Popol Vuh [best known through their soundtracks for Werner Herzog's movies), die Dissidenten, Embryo und Chris Karrer [Amon Düül 2] have long before the mass-popularization of World-Music started to play with musical elements from other continents - which they had studied on location[s].

But not only those musical styles, that had initially been developed by using synthesizers and drum-machines, have been influenced by these musicians.
Also the last, truly anarchic - and initially born without marketing-help- musical movevement: Punk, indelibly associated with the 'just 3 chords on the guitar' image, has drawn important impulse's from some German predecessors like NEU! and Amon Düül 2.

"It was the influence of NEU! that lead David Bowie to move into the 'Low' - direction.
And NEU's immediate effect on the Sex Pistols, can be clearly heard, if one simply listen's to 'NEU 75' after any given Sex-Pistols single - all of a sudden british punk explains itself.
It were Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother, who deserve the honours they never really received. Everything NEU! did was Proto- Punk and lightyears ahead."
Julian Cope - 'Krautrocksampler'
...and this brief list is far from being complete.

The knowledge about the pioneering work and the influence of the above mentioned musicians beginst to spread mainly outside of Germany.
However, a comprehensive documentation and acknowledgement of the enormous variety of modern electronic music coming grom Germany is still due to appear - especially in Germany itself.
This is long overdue.

And what's more: all this is far from being the complete [hi]-story - nor is it history at all.

The [hi]-stories and sounds continue |> also today...
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