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Early Kraftwerk
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Lascivia
Lascivia
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Re: Early Kraftwerk
Jan 17, 2003, 19:38
You're right about the order the albums come in, and the first two Kraftwerk albums are even madder than the ones you have. The jazz influence on the Organisation LP is gone, to be replaced by the beginnings of their mechanical rhythms (though they're still very un-pop at this stage).

"Kraftwerk 2", for instance, opens with "Kling Klang", which after several minutes of pinging chimes, develops an amazing pulse of flutes; instead of the standard modulation to the fifth found in pop, several times they _speed up_ the tape for very amusing effect. "Wellenlänge" could easily be mistaken for a great unsung bit of post-punk instrumental. There's a track on the first album that features ethnic-sounding music (zither?) which segues into vast breathing, like a god inflating the universe. And of course, there's the opening track of "Kraftwerk 1", "Ruckzuck", which was used as the theme to a U.S. children's science show (Newton's Apple); how they ever got rights to that I have no idea, since Kraftwerk insanely won't let the early albums be officially reissued.

The early Kraftwerks are harder to find these days. The originals go for thirty or forty dollars. There was a 2LP set containing both of the original albums, with different artwork (an oscilloscope signal). There was also a "best-of" sampler called "Exceller 8" containing tracks from their first two or three albums.

The albums have been bootlegged by both Germanofon (defunct, out of Luxembourg) and Crown (out of Italy). I haven't seen the Crowns for a while either, so they might have gotten caught as well. I know the sound quality on the Germanofons is not exceptionally high, probably the same as your "Ralf und Florian" on Crown.
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Early Kraftwerk (alan lake soon)
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