Kraftwerk (album)
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Kraftwerk is the first album by Kraftwerk. It was released in 1971 (see 1971 in music). Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider have refused to reprint this album on CD or any other media, as they do not consider it a Kraftwerk album or even acknowledge its existence, although bootleg CDs were widely availble in the 1990s on the 'Germanofon' label.
The album was produced by the influential Conny Plank.
Hütter and Schneider managed to get through two drummers during the album, Andreas Hohmann and Klaus Dinger. Their playing gives a hard, dynamic, almost brutal edge to the music in places, quite distinct from Schneider & Hütter's previous band, Organisation, or the subsequent two Kraftwerk albums.
The other instrumentation contains a lot of Hütter's Hammond organ, and an electronic bass instrument called a 'tubon', whilst Schneider supplied manipulated flute ("Ruckzuck" is driven by a powerful multi-dubbed flute riff), electric violin and guitar, these instruments often connected to further electronics via an EMS pitch-to-voltage converter.
Track listing
- (07:47) "Ruckzuck" (translates as "push-pull" or similar)
- (12:10) "Stratovarius" (pun on Stratocaster guitars and Stradivarius violins)
- (09:30) "Megaherz"
- (10:12) "Vom Himmel Hoch" ("From Heaven above")
Guitarist Michael Rother joined the band after this album, and remarkably, Hütter actually left the band for a brief period at this time. The 3-piece Kraftwerk line up of Schneider, Dinger & Rother made a TV appearance on Bremen TV show Beat Club. After this, Dinger & Rother left to form revered band NEU!, with Hütter rejoining Schneider to continue Kraftwerk, both parties recording under the mentoring of Conny Plank.