Search Results for: Kraftwerk
This one veers heavily into hip hop territory at the beginning but then into more rock and, inevitably, techno areas. I was using voice synthesizers to generate ‘lyrics’ over some tracks and it contains one of my favourite mixes: two versions of ‘Autobahn’ running concurrently in the left and right speakers.
Gorefest and The Balanescu Quartet had both done versions that I noticed were very similar in arrangement and tempo and, being that the track is so long, rather than play them separately I panned each one left and right and played them together, I like the fact that they’re just so opposite in terms of style. This one originally debuted on Solid Steel on 04/08/06
(and no, you didn’t miss pts. 2 & 3 yet, I’m just not putting them up in logical order)
I’ve posted this video before but I never tire of it.
Also on the subject of ‘Ralf & Florian’, the UK pressing on Vertigo had a different sleeve to the regular release (see below), much the same as ‘Autobahn’. Both are believed to be the work of designer Barney Bubbles, although this has never been confirmed.
Emil Schult designed a sticker for the German issue of ‘Autobahn’ (right) that used the blue and white road sign and this was adapted and added to for the UK sleeve. Hardformat ran a great piece on it, arguing for Bubbles as the layout designer and there is a discussion on the subject here but the jury is still out. Also, the ‘Ralf & Florian’ UK cover below had embossing around the title and circuit pattern as well as florescent inks on the back cover.
‘Taschenrechner’ (Pocket Calculator) (live) – I love Florian’s aside to camera near the end. One of the instruments they were playing was a Bee Gees Rhythm Machine painted black, another was a Stylophone and they sent a musical calculator out as a promo for the single.
El Lissitzky – ‘And on the black was established Red Clearly’
(above) UK promo triple gatefold 7″ cover for ‘The Robots / Spacelab’,
(below) 7″ front cover from Belgium and back covers from France and Italy for the same.
‘Highrail’ LP front and back cover, German compilation on Fontana from 1979.
I’ve decided to make March ‘Kraftwerk month’ on the site, which means I’ll be posting something Kraftwerk-related every day at least. This had been bought on by the recent news of the 8 night residency at MOMA in New York and the subsequent fact that no one I know has managed to get a ticket.
Volume 7 of my on-going Kraftwerk Kover Kollection mix series is way overdue so I plan to have that done by the time the group play their back catalogue (I should attempt vol.8 as well but back in the real world…). Volumes 5 and 6 are already on the web but, due to my old host site BosBos.net no longer being active, I thought I’d put the first four up here as well, one a week, starting with volume …1.
The one that kicked it all off in April 2004, some quite obvious choices here when you start to think of cover versions, don’t worry, they get more obscure as the mixes progress. I’m always on the look out for new versions so please send suggestions but don’t be offended if I don’t include them in future mixes as for every one that makes it, four or five won’t as I’m looking for the odd and left of center rather than the multitude of straight electro / techno covers that are also out there. Also included here is the original artwork I did for the mix: front/back and CD on-body.
Most Kraftwerk fans will have heard about their residency at New York’s MOMA this coming April. For those fortunate enough to go, there is unfortunately a 2 ticket/show limit.
Hitler took this particularly badly
This incredible photo popped up on Facebook today, the caption reads: “Kraftwerk at the Ritz. 1981. I was the Dj at this show. Amazing. I invited Afrika Bambaataa to the show. The rest is history.” Photo by Laura Levine who has taken photos of pretty much anyone who is anyone in music
After a couple of recent requests, and due to the fact that the BosBos.net URL that used to host these mixes is dead, I’ve uploaded vol.5 of my Kraftwerk Kover Kollection series to Soundcloud. Vol.6 is already there and 1-4 will follow sometime in 2012.
This lovely design was made by Stefanie Posavec, showing the length of cassette tape needed to record Kraftwerk‘s ‘Computer World’. Originally made as a one off for a friend’s club night she’s finally made them for sale.
It’s available as a 915 x 700mm 2-colour litho print (the yellow is fluorescent) on 300gsm, on Challenger Offset paper in a signed edition of 200. You can get it here and 25% of the profits go to the Ganet’s Adventure fund that helps a small primary school in Milawi.
Well I wasn’t expecting that, Ralf Hutter guest editing Wallpaper magazine and a multi-page preview of their forthcoming 3D book. Even more surprising is that Christian Marclay features as well (there is an alternate cover by him on some issues too). The issue comes with a free pair of 3D glasses and you can see some of the spreads above.
I’ve been waiting for this issue to crop up on Brian McClosekey‘s excellent ‘Like Punk Never Happened’ blog – the 1981 issue with Adam Ant on the cover – one that I strongly remember, being mad about anything with an Ant attachment at the time. Brian posts complete issues of Smash Hits, every two weeks, 30 years to the day they were first published and he’ll continue until his collection stops. The pages are viewable via Flickr and are slowly forming an excellent time capsule of late 70’s and 80’s pop, in context, as it happened. I was eleven when this was published and 1981 was Adam Ant’s year, he was everywhere, from the pop charts to TV to the daily newspapers. He looked and sounded great, gave good copy and they couldn’t get enough of him.
Another page in this issue caught my eye later on though, a half page advert for five Kraftwerk albums. They had a freak number one in the UK with ‘The Model’ in February 1982 – a traditional post-Xmas quiet spot for record releases. It seems Phonogram were eagerly flooding the market with reissues of their back catalogue at this point though because they’d just released the Computer World album. When I first saw the ad (obviously, re-reading the mag later) I thought, “What? how can they have five albums?”, little knowing that there were another four at least to add to this list. Unfortunately none of these made it to my local record shop but I did manage to get copies of ‘Computer World’, ‘The Man Machine’ and ‘Trans Europe Express’ – all on cassette – the latter of which I took back to the shop, complaining to them that the tape only had one track on side 2 when it listed four. Again, little did I realise all four tracks segued into one so there weren’t any breaks in between (!) I love the way they’ve spelt picture with a ‘k’ in the text and my god do I wish I’d been old enough to see them on that tour.
Here’s something interesting I stumbled across whilst perusing the Kraftwerk Facebook page that’s been set up by fans. A limited edition of the band’s Tour De France 12″ that comes with a built in player like those cheesy birthday cards you can get that play a tune when you open them.
The designer’s name is Woes Van Haaften and there are 5 different sleeve colours to choose from but they don’t come cheap let me warn you! Full info and a little film here
Last weeks’ Solid Steel mix – the Kraftwerk Kover Kollection vol.6 – now up on Soundcloud. 1 hour of songs covering, sampling or influenced by the other Fab Four. The full 6 volumes + artwork and track lists are up for the download at BosBos.net too!
Absolutely my last Kraftwerk post for a while (I promise). Because ‘The Catalogue‘ is released today, here’s a couple of YouTuber’s attempting to play one of my favorite tracks – Pocket Calculator – on the original instruments used. Mattel Bee Gees Rhythm Machine? I want one!
Another Kraftwerk post (I’ll have to give them their own category) and time for the sixth installment of my Kraftwerk Kover Kollection to coincide with the final release of the remastered Catalogue box set on Monday.
It’s up for a week, streaming via the Solid Steel site and I’ll be making it available via Soundcloud when the next show replaces it.
For those unfamiliar, I do these hour long mixes every year or so featuring cover versions, sample-heavy tracks or songs that obviously owe a debt to the Dusseldorf quartet. I had the idea to string these sources together several years ago and the more I dug, the more I found, the amount of material out there is mind boggling. Not so strange for such an influential band who rarely release new material, I suppose fans have to fill the gap somehow. For anyone wanting to play catch-up, the first 4 are available here with full artwork and track listings and I’ll be putting 5 up with 6 next week too.
At a festival in Warsaw the other week, DK and I had the pleasure of seeing ex-Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos play. I was surprised at how much of the set was old material mixed with his solo stuff. His stage show pales compared to his former bands’ but he had full visuals and 5.1 sound all mixed live and hearing a new take on classic tracks was well worth the time we took to check him out.
When I started seriously researching these cover versions, I couldn’t quite believe how many there were and how diverse the bands were who were doing them. I’ve now completed my 8th Kover Kollection mix, each with an average of 35 tracks in it, that’s 280 covers and they’re just the good / weird ones that I liked enough to use. For every eastern European rendition on woodblocks there are five pumping euro trance versions that sound horrible. What I try to do is filter the best of these and find the weirdest, most leftfield covers because Kraftwerk’s songs are so simple that it seems they can be transposed into nearly any style you can think of. Balanese, gamelan, country, death metal, classical, rockabilly, even played by an orchestra of instruments made entirely of vegetables (see part 2 for this one). There seems to be no end to their influence over today’s music makers.
Opening with a phone message from DK asking me to whip up a mix as he was stuck in Mexico we have a round up of stragglers from 20002. DK always seemed to be jet-setting around the globe back in the day, he’d go off for a few weeks here and there on ‘business’ and then be back only to jet off on tour again. Anyway, opening with one of two comedy skits based on Ja Rule’s then ubiquitous features on pop or rap records by an unknown comedian, these were probably downloaded from the web in those heady early days when the entire world of music seemed to be up for grabs on the feeblest of internet connections. A web search reveals that they were made by someone named David Brody for radio station Z100 NY and apparently later turned up on a 50 Cent mixtape without permission. ‘White Love’ was probably my best mash up and one I regularly played out for years to general approval from the dance floor – a ‘White Lines’ / ‘Like I Love You’ combo that just works, here in an extended form. The Splinter Group was another appearance by DK alongside old Ninja mucker Dean Smith in a one-off single that was an off-shoot from another project (splinter-geddit?).
Freeform’s ‘The Hallaboink’ was the b-side of a 7” on Skam and another Mancunian connection, Andy Votel, follows with his ‘Komedahead’ single which still gets an airing sometimes. More mash-ups with Frenchbloke and Son’s Kraftwerk/Right Said Fred collision that really shouldn’t work but does something neither could do in isolation – hence it joining the ranks of the very best of the genre. I had to look up where Luke Vibert’s ‘Feel Real Mad’ came from because it doesn’t appear on any album from that time, debuting at it did on the first Law & Auder release; a 3-track 12” also featuring Muslimgauze and Bedouin Ascent called ‘High Density 01’. Law & Auder was an interesting label that kind of caught the fall out from the demise of Rising High records for a bit, continuing to put out interesting compilations of leftfield electronic music including what must be one of the first all-female comps in 2011 which in itself was compiled 10 years before.
A prime bit of electro breakbeat from Polar next on the Certificate 18 label, straying away from DnB into other territories and then the Kid Koala-esque cut-up of Jack Planck with a mix which was in time but shouldn’t have been attempted with the swing it had on it. This was another alias of Jackknife Lee that appeared on an odd 7” on Rodeo Meat who released all sorts of oddities before being picked up by One Little Indian for a full album later on. A left turn into screeching organ funk with the Apparat Organ Quartet on David Holmes’ short-lived 13 Amp label with a car crash end mix as the former track wigs out just in time for the beat from Chief Xcel to drop. Xcel’s track mixes ‘Dear Prudence’ strings with a political message and played out the ‘Constant Elevation’ compilation on Astralwerks and here slides simply into ‘Charlie’s Theme’ from Jimi Entley Sound – an Adrian Utley / Geoff Barrow collaboration with a cover of ‘Apache’ on the flip. This now goes for silly money, hope I still have my copy.
Ja Rule is back! The second skit of Ja Ruling the cover version market mixes over the uptempo section of the former track before morphing into the frantic Busdriver ‘Imaginary Places’ where I get very scratch-happy, sorry about that. Seriously though, this track (without my scratching) is amazing, although the origin of the flute sample is alluding me right now. If only more rap was as forward-thinking as this – I was very happy to see him signed to Big Dada for three albums later on. John Kennedy’s superb remix of Aim’s ‘The Girl Who Fell Through The Ice’ is a bit of a lost classic although it doesn’t help that I’m mixing out-of-tune horns over the end of it from Jadell’s ‘To Morning’. My ear for tuning definitely wasn’t what it is now back then, there’s some wince-making moments on some of these mixes, of course, a lot of it was on the fly so sometimes you didn’t know until it was too late. Proper good soundtrack business from Jadell here with a bit of Burroughs slung over the top, this was one of the last things he did it seems, not seen him for years now.
Apologies for the rough mix into the Roots Manuva remix of The Free Association, that really was wonky but I used to love these dubs Rodney did, loose as you like, nice tempo switch up in the middle there too. Mr. Guder (featuring Dr. Rubberfunk on drums) crash in with a raw version of Herbie’s ‘Chameleon’ from Super Guder Breaks vol.1. Otto Von Schirach released a lot of his early material on Schematic out of Miami but this little number comes from a pink 7” on Imputor? (yes the ? is part of the label name) from Seattle, check their label profile on Discogs for a mission statement https://www.discogs.com/label/3497-Imputor?sort=year&sort_order=asc
Mr Dan (aka Dan Carey) plays us out with the excellent ‘Together’ which shows off his pop credentials despite being a electronic beat-fest – he’d be co-writing and producing Kylie’s ‘Slow’ that same year – and we end with another phone message from DK.
Track list:
Unknown – Ja Rule Diss
Flexus – White Love
The Splinter Group – Meaning of Life
Freeform – The Hallaboink
Andy Votel – Komedahead
Frenchbloke & Son – I’m Too Sexy to Be a Model
Luke Vibert – Feel Real Mad
Polar – Lectric
Jack Planck – 1974 Square Dance Documentary In Sound
Apparat Organ Quartet – Romantika (Live)
Chief Xcel – Multitude
Jimi Entley Sound – Charlie’s Theme
Unknown – Ja Rule Diss 2
Busdriver – Imaginary Places
Aim – The Girl Who Fell Through The Ice (John Kennedy remix)
Jadell – To Morning
The Free Association – (I Wish I Had A) Wooden Heart (Roots Manuva remix/Dub)
Mr. Guder – Chameleon
Otto Von Schirach & Sindri – Sduisant Lollipop
Mr Dan – Together
Back in 2004 when DK and I had our monthly Solid Steel night residency downstair at Ruby Lo in the west end we decided to put on a boat party for the end of summer. I think it was DK’s idea and he wanted to have a door price that included a free BBQ on entry which was to be served from the deck while people came on board. I won’t post the terrible flyer I made at the time but it did contain the line ‘All hands on decks’ which made me laugh. We co-opted our wives to help serve alongside James Mountain (Solid Steel DJ and Ninja employee at the time) and provided a load of burgers, hot dogs and salad for people our of our own pockets. DJs on the night were Dean Smith (on the top deck whilst food was served), James, Matt Black, PC, Harley Harl, DJ Yoda, Diplo (then still relatively unknown but fast rising as a star in his own right), DK and myself.
Harley Harl and James Mountain (Solid Steel)
Matt Black (Coldcut)
DK (Solid Steel)
The boat we booked was on the dock on the North side of the Thames and the owners were a tad shady, so much so that when we started admitting people it was obvious that other people were coming on board without tickets and going to another part of the boat we didn’t know about. When confronted we were told that there was another private party on board and that it would be Ok, no one would cross over but we knew this was BS. Too late, the party had started and the deck was filling up and the weather was great for a late summer evening. The place was packed and there were three rooms, a main one and a more chilled one plus a couple of bars, at one point we gave everyone free lollies too. The set here is mine from the main room, complete with crowd noise and scrappy mixing but if you imagine a cramped top deck cabin with 100 or so sweaty people crammed in then you get the picture.
PC (DJ Food)
DJ Yoda
Yours truly (DJ Food)
I think I was on either before or after Yoda but sadly missed most of his set as I had to sort stuff out with the food side of things. We had a problem with Diplo as he was flying into the UK that afternoon and coming straight to the boat to play and with no contact we were winging it as to whether he’d turn up in time or not. Luckily he did, literally minutes before he was due to play and proceeded to turn out a storming set – phew! DK went to see the boat owners afterwards to sort out the money and we ended up not having to pay for the boat hire as a result of all the nonsense with the other party – they certainly must have made a fortune on the bar that night anyway.
Me and Diplo on the boat, it was sweaty!
Photos by Elisa Parish, Graham (Fraser?) and another unknown photographer.
I’m not going to go through every track as there are many classics here most will know – keep an ear out for the switch up out of ‘Tour de France’ into Roni Size though – that was a moment. I loved this era of DnB, loads of fun, heavy rolling beats, synth bass lines and pop vocal hooks – check the Britney bootleg. I know Pendulum fell off but ‘Another Planet’ will always be a monster tune for me – never failed back in the day. The Carmel of ’Nujazzkiller’ isn’t the British jazz artist but a one-off on the Fluid Ounce label for 2002.
Track list:
Stas – Solid Steel Intro
Double Trouble – Live At The Amphitheatre
Sugarhill Gang – Rapper’s Delight
Beastie Boys – Triple Trouble
Beastie Boys – Triple Trouble (Graham Coxon mix)
The Chemical Brothers – Leave Home
Boom Bip – Cords Will Be the Death Of Me
Quantic feat. Spanky Wilson – Don’t Joke With A Hungry Man
Awkward – Plug Me In
Gang Starr – Play That Beat ’99
Double D & Steinski – Lesson 1
Steinski – Ain’t No Thing
West Bam – Monkey Say Monkey Do
Think Tank – Hack One
Carmel – Nujazzkiller
Ty – Wait A Minute (acappella)
Brass Incorporated – At the Sign of the Swinging Cymbal
The Beatles – Taxman
Beck – New Pollution
Kraftwerk – Tour De France
Roni Size feat. Rahzel – Out Of Breathe
Kayne West – Jesus Walks
DJ Shadow – Walkie Talkie
Rodney P vs Roni Size – Trouble (Roni Size remix)
Britney Spears – Toxic (D n B mix)
Pendulum – Another Planet
Tribe of Issachar – Junglist (DJ Zinc remix)
Mark 1 – Hoovers & Spraycans
Supergrass – Kiss of Life (Tom Tom Club remix)