The continued interest in Krautrock several decades after its emergence is testament to its lasting influence and historical importance. Despite a vastly different musical and commercial landscape today, search engine data shows that Krautrock has sustained a wide-reaching interest across English-speaking countries, Europe, Russia, and South America.Footnote ¹ Yet, most academic work on the topic has largely focused on the canonical artists and albums first associated with the term, with less said about the role of Krautrock in music today. In their respective discussions, Ulrich Adelt, John Littlejohn, and Jan Reetze all provide examples of contemporary Krautrock, but draw primarily from the later work of established bands who were active in Germany during the 1960s and 1970s.Footnote ²

Earlier in this volume, Adelt highlights difficulties with thinking of Krautrock as a single coherent musical practice, yet our engagement, too, with Krautrock today is markedly different from the period in which it was first conceived. This is true both in terms of the contemporary musical landscape and listeners’ ways of engaging with music. Historically, Krautrock was encountered by an English-speaking audience primarily in a recorded format and was mediated by publishers and importers who could bring the music to local shores (whereas in Germany it had a greater life in a live performance context).Footnote ³

Today, the availability of streaming services, digital outlets that connect independent bands directly with fans, and various reissues of earlier albums have together afforded renewed accessibility of Krautrock to contemporary audiences. Although incomplete, the works of many well-known Krautrock acts can now be found on digital services, including Amon Düül II, Faust, Neu!, Cluster, and so on. Rarer items are also available on streaming services, such as the only release from German Oak, Down in the Bunker (1972), which sold few physical copies during the 1970s but became highly sought-after as a collector’s item and was previously only available through bootlegs or unofficial releases.

Understanding Krautrock

As a broad anglophone construction, the term ‘Krautrock’ operates more in common with the commercially motivated umbrella term ‘world music’ than as a precise musical style category, and the validity of conceptualising Krautrock as a movement has been critiqued elsewhere.Footnote ⁴ Most frequently, Krautrock is understood in relation to a canon consisting of bands who were active during 1968–74 in West Germany and were ascribed the label Krautrock: Faust, Can, Neu!, Harmonia, and so on.Footnote ⁵

Although musically diverse, for David Buckley, ‘Krautrock bands were united by the common ideology of wanting to create a uniquely German pop culture after those decades post-World War II when Anglo-American culture was pre-eminent.’Footnote ⁶ This argument for a unifying Krautrock ideology is supported by commonalities in Krautrock bands’ approach towards guerrilla gigs, eschewing celebrity, and employing experimental musical vocabulary. Littlejohn also points to some general stylistic norms: extended form, extended instrumental techniques or the use of unconventional sound sources/processing, and (in many cases) instrumental tracks without extended lyrics.Footnote ⁷ Harden also explores how the available music technology informed the ‘sound’ of kosmische Musik (exemplified by Ohr Records’ Kosmische Musik compilation from 1972) in terms of the creative use of simulated phonographic space (through panning, delay, reverb, and so on), sound-sources that are often either abstracted from acoustical sources or with no acoustical equivalent, and particularities in terms of performance style.Footnote ⁸

Due to the sweeping changes in music production and reception since the 1970s, this chapter takes a purposefully broad approach, to include: bands who either associate themselves with Krautrock or are ascribed the label in listener discourse; those who share musical similarity with Krautrock’s originators; and acts endorsed or supported by acknowledged Krautrock figures.

Krautrock in Contemporary Germany

Following the mid-1970s, many Krautrock acts either disbanded or began to move away from the progressive/psychedelic sounds of their earlier work. Kraftwerk honed their practice with a greater emphasis on popular song structure, while several bands (including Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Harmonia) contributed to a growing body of electronic ambient music. Nevertheless, several original bands also reunited in the 1980s and 1990s to release music comparable to their Krautrock origins: the 1980s saw Can reunite to create Rite Time, and an offshoot of Amon Düül II form in Britain, led by original guitarist John Weinzierl; in the early 1990s, Frumpy recorded two further studio albums, while Faust also reunited for a series of live performances and studio albums.

Aside from reunions of bands that were already a part of a recognised canon, new generations of musicians emerged who were familiar with their predecessors’ musical vocabulary and shared, to varying extents, comparable social complications of post-war Germany. With the ramifications of the Cold War and the legacy of Nazism pervading the public consciousness, several bands emerged from Germany who shared the experimentalism and sonic character of Krautrock. Electric Orange and To Rococo Rot are two such examples, emerging from Aachen in 1992 and Berlin in 1994 respectively. The influence of kosmische musicians such as Klaus Schulze and early Tangerine Dream on German prog-rock band Electric Orange can be heard exemplified in ‘More End/Cyberdelic’ (Cyberdelic, 1996). Throughout, the nine-minute track is underpinned by dissonant synthesiser textures, decorative non-diatonic synthesiser effects, and sound effects that resemble reversed tape loops. Although there are two distinct sections in the track, much of the track’s textural variation is achieved through gradual fades. In terms of production, several similarities with Krautrock can also be heard, especially in terms of the wide stereo panning and use of effects (in this case, reverb and distortion, which were both common in the 1970s).

Berlin’s To Rococo Rot, meanwhile, suggest a greater similarity with Faust, Neu!, and Cluster, quickly becoming known for electronics-led post-punk with accompanying digital media performances. The 1996 release of their eponymous first album led to a career in which the band released eight main albums in total; most recently, Instrumentals (2014). As with many canonical Krautrock productions, To Rococo Rot’s music is characterised by its instrumental nature, use of electronics alongside bass and guitar, and lengthy repeated grooves. Supporting To Rococo Rot’s Krautrock credentials, ‘Friday’ from their 2010 album Speculation was conceived with Hans-Joachim Irmler, a founding member of Faust. Throughout, the track avoids clear metre, but does incorporate some repetitive, percussive gestures. A sense of tonal centre is offered by drone textures throughout the track, although there is no melody or repetitive harmonic gestures, in line with various earlier Krautrock tracks.

Also from Berlin, several years later, came Camera, a ‘neo-Krautrock’ three-piece according to Ben Graham’s review of their 2012 debut Radiate!.Footnote ⁹ In particular, he argues that Camera ‘have more claim than most to be upholders of the kraut tradition, whatever that may be’ based on their origin in Berlin, performance in public spaces, joint gigs with Michael Rother (of Neu!) and Dieter Moebius (of Harmonia), and use of improvisation.Footnote ¹⁰ The band’s biography on their record label’s website makes a further explicit connection with Krautrock, drawing comparison to Neu!, Can, and La Düsseldorf. It reads:

‘E-Go’, which opens Radiate!, offers a helpful example of the band’s idiolect: although there is minimal use of synthesisers and little of the sound effect noises used by various Krautrock bands, the track derives its momentum from a repetitive, motorik-like beat with occasional embellishments, over static harmony, with considerable distortion used on several electric guitar tracks. The track is instrumental and develops a sense of structure primarily using texture rather than tonal ideas. These qualities of texture-driven structure, static harmony, motorik-like drum patterns, and noisy texture provide a blueprint for much of the album.

Krautrock Worldwide

When Krautrock was first coined, Germany was not alone in accommodating this sort of musical experimentalism; France, for instance, was home to bands who similarly explored repetition, form, and texture, as heard in bands such as Magma, Besombes-Rizet, and Heldon. Yet, with Germany still occupying the public consciousness, connections remained: Magma derived many lyrics from German phonetics, while Heldon took their name from Norman Spinrad’s 1972 novel The Iron Dream, which revolves around Adolf Hitler in a fictional alternative history. A similar fascination with German culture is demonstrated by the periods in which Brian Eno, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop spent living in West Germany during the 1970s.

With the availability of music imports, Krautrock helped to shape developing musical scenes elsewhere. In Britain, the burgeoning post-punk scene (including bands such as Cabaret Voltaire, Joy Division, and Simple Minds) drew heavily on the sounds of Krautrock, despite the creative impetus of several Krautrock bands to develop a form of music not associated with anglophone pop or rock. Indeed, throughout the 1980s, prolific Krautrock producer Conny Plank became a key collaborator for new wave acts such as Ultravox and Eurythmics. Accordingly, it is unsurprising that contemporary examples of Krautrock can be found across Continental Europe, Britain, and the United States. Critical discourse has even credited Krautrock as an influence for such high-profile albums as Radiohead’s Kid A (2000) and Gorillaz’ Plastic Beach (2010).Footnote ¹²

Continental Europe

In contemporary France, we can find several examples of bands that draw from Krautrock. In 2010, Biarritz was home to the formation of La Femme, whom The Quietus describe as being ‘to all intents and purposes a Krautrock band’.Footnote ¹³ In 2013, La Femme released their debut album entitled Psycho Tropical Berlin, which was subsequently awarded a Victoires de la Musique award by the French Ministry of Culture. The album consists primarily of roughly four-minute-long tracks combining bass, synthesiser, drums, guitar, and vocals. For the most part, their music consists of a small number of musical ideas that are repeated, often alternating a texted section with instrumental breaks in the same bass and/or harmonic setting (in contrast to the interpolation of a texted chorus). In combination with the use of short, repeated vocal ideas (rather than extended sung phrases), these qualities offer some similarity with the work of Can.

In a comparable manner to Munich-based Popul Vuh, Aluk Todolo formed in Paris in 2004, taking their name from a religious practice indigenous to a mountainous region of Indonesia. In sharp contrast to La Femme, Aluk Todolo’s work is characterised by long-form tracks of roughly ten minutes, which incorporate passages of clear metre, and passages in which the band use textural development as the point of focus. Sonically, the use of heavily distorted texture and ambivalence towards musical pitch draw some similarity with aspects of Faust’s work or early work by Cluster, while the application of drums (featuring mostly dense, repetitive grooves) reflects a character of the earlier work of Can and Neu! These devices can be heard particularly clearly throughout Occult Rock (2012) album.

The Finnish band Circle provide a contrasting combination of Krautrock and heavy metal. Marketing themselves as part of the ‘New Wave of Finnish Heavy Metal’, the band formed in 1991, described as a combination of ‘metal, Krautrock, psychedelia, ambient, jazz, prog, art rock, soft rock, and other assorted fusions’.Footnote ¹⁴ Yet, despite drawing on a diverse range of musical influences, the band share similarities with Krautrock originators in the form of the sheer range of members’ side projects and in their cynical attitude towards the recording industry. Circle’s Incarnation (2013) album was in fact recorded by different musicians, while the members of Circle recorded Frontier (2013) under the name Falcon.

In contrast to Aluk Todolo’s use of slowly developing drones, Circle’s music incorporates vocals and a clear metric structure. Circle’s debut, Meronia (1994) includes several clear examples of Krautrock’s influence. ‘Wherever Particular People Congregate’, for example, captures a frenetic quality comparable to Faust’s up-tempo works through its use of dissonant textures and manipulation of garbled vocal phrases that take on the character of experimentations with tape manipulation by Neu! Nevertheless, as heard in ‘Meronia’, the band also apply lengthy repeated segments in which the main musical developments are led by changes in texture, a frequent characteristic of the Krautrock canon.

Unlike several of the bands discussed, the Croatian band Seven That Spells explicitly relate their work with Krautrock via a trilogy of albums released between 2011 and 2018 entitled The Death and Resurrection of Krautrock comprising AUM (2011), IO (2014), and Omega (2018). Making such an overt connection between their work and Krautrock is uncommon, although musical similarities can be observed. In each album, the band incorporate instrumentation comparable with a large volume of Krautrock music: drums, bass, guitar, synthesiser, and vocals. Although the band incorporate idiomatic modal elements of metal music not generally heard in Krautrock, the band’s use of polymetric rhythms and modal scale patterns do evoke some similarity with Agitation Free and Amon Düül II’s early studio releases.

Britain and the Americas

As Alexander Simmeth explores, record imports, radio, and national coverage in music media helped Krautrock to reach significant audiences in both Britain and the United States.Footnote ¹⁵ Indeed, at the time in which Krautrock emerged, allied troops still maintained a presence within West Germany, contributing to intercultural exchange. As early as the late 1970s, the United States was home to musical scenes that created their own spin on Krautrock. One such example is The Nightcrawlers, who formed in Pennsylvania around 1979 and published many cassette albums, now unavailable, in the style of Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, and the broader Berlin scene earlier in the 1970s. Although mostly unavailable today, there has been some attempt from fans to document and preserve coverage of the band and their contemporaries.Footnote ¹⁶

The 1990s was a time of particular interest in Krautrock, fuelled by new bands and the publication of Cope’s Krautrocksampler. In 1990 in London, Stereolab formed from the leader of British indie pop band McCarthy, French vocalist Lætitia Sadier, bassist Martin Kean, and drummer Joe Dilworth. Simon Reynolds’ 1994 interview with the band explores a Krautrock influence on Stereolab’s music, particularly the work of Neu!Footnote ¹⁷ Such an influence can be heard on tracks such as ‘Orgiastic’ from the band’s first studio album, Peng! (1992), conveyed through the use of the motorik beat, limited use of lyrics, and prosaic delivery. Sonically, the recording is dominated by low frequencies, giving the track a subdued character (as opposed to the crisper sonic character that comes from a mix balanced with greater strength in higher frequency bands), evoking a ‘low-fi’ quality compatible with many early Krautrock releases.

Several years later, the duo Immersion formed in 1994, bringing together the lead singer/songwriter of post-punk band Wire and the bassist/vocalist of 1980s Israeli post-punk band Minimal Compact. To accompany the release of their album, Sleepless (2018), the pair’s website highlights the influence of Tangerine Dream and Popul Vuh.Footnote ¹⁸ ‘Propulsoid’ from Sleepless perhaps offers the best window into the pair’s Krautrock influences, an up-tempo but slowly developing track that is supported throughout by a motorik drum beat and a repeated one-bar synth bassline. Instrumentally, the track is comparable to a Krautrock ensemble: the bass synth tone is a simple buzzy timbre with gradual modulation of a low-pass filter throughout, and it is joined later by a simple distorted electric guitar texture and electric organ, which provides the only sense of harmonic movement in the track. Similarly, ‘Immersion’ from their debut album Oscillating (1994) is underpinned by a repeated bassline on a sampled alto saxophone, accompanied later by sustained synth pads, a monophonic lead synthesiser, and sequenced decorative elements. Here, the mobility and ambit of the monophonic lead synth, as well as the modulation of a low-pass filter, reflect common practice for Klaus Schulze.

While Stereolab and Immersion were beginning their careers in Britain, Tortoise were being formed in Chicago. The band incorporated significant Krautrock and dub influences, and soon became an important contributor to the American post-rock movement of the era. ‘Djed’ from the band’s 1996 album Millions Now Living Will Never Die provides one such exposition of their Krautrock-influenced work. The track lasts for more than twenty minutes with several abrupt shifts of musical texture. Here, the opening best illustrates the band’s Krautrock influences; a distorted percussive loop provides a polymetric feel against a dissonant modal interplay of electric guitar and bass, accompanied by decorative electronic gestures and a delay sound effect. After two-and-a-half minutes, a motorik drum pattern enters with a slight flange to the high-hat, while the bass and electric guitar grooves change to patterns that repeat for several minutes and together evoke the character of the mid-1970s work of Neu!

Several years later in Orlando, Tonstartssbandht formed and have gone on to release a large number of studio albums, developing a musical style described by Pitchfork Magazine as ‘the sound of Guided by Voices swapping out their arena rock fantasies of being in The Who for being a member of Amon Düül’s Munich commune instead’.Footnote ¹⁹ The pair’s work incorporates a range of influences to create a psychedelic rock oeuvre that draws in equal measure from Krautrock musical textures and its sense of critiquing or challenging anglophone pop’s use of lyrics. ‘Midnite Cobras’ from Tonstartssbandht’s debut album An When (2009) demonstrates a more extreme affinity, perhaps, with distorted textures than would be found in Krautrock, but nevertheless shares several telling traits. Thinking of production, the track constructs a large sense of space using panning, delay, and reverb. And, while the track includes extended lyrics, they are delivered with imprecise timing and pitch, evoking the use of unskilled or unpolished textures common in Krautrock.

Towards the end of the 2000s, three further bands of note emerged: Wume (United States), Beak (Britain), and Föllakzoid (Chile). Wume are perhaps the United States’s best-known contemporary Krautrock export and even derive their name from the river Wümme in northern Germany (where Faust’s commune/studio was located). From a production perspective, the access to, and availability of improved recording technology affords Wume a far cleaner sound than original Krautrock bands. From a musical perspective, however, we can observe several similarities: their music is realised using a combination of drum kit and synthesiser, often incorporating repetitive beats or sequences in complex time signatures or in order to construct polyrhythms.

‘Control’, which opens Wume’s Maintain (2015) album provides a clear example, lasting approximately four-and-a-half minutes via a gradual development of texture but no repeating sections. It begins with a repeating sequence with gentle delay and the use of a low-pass filter (both common for Krautrock originals). When the drums enter, they too repeat a single idea with minimal variation. Synthesiser textures are also used for bass and harmonic elements, in each case using simple timbres of the sort that were available during the Krautrock era. Two-thirds through the track, a syncopated vocal idea is added, although the lyrics are used primarily as punctuation; the words themselves are unintelligible in the mix.

In the same year as Wume formed, in Bristol, Geoff Barrow (known primarily for his role in Portishead) created Beak. Heather Phares describes Beak’s work as ‘inspired by dub, Krautrock, and the Beach Boys’, going on to describe how the band’s debut album was recorded over twelve days without any overdubbing.Footnote ²⁰ ‘Failand’, released in 2014, makes several audible allusions to earlier Krautrock, particularly via a sparse selection of musical ideas across a long form, making use of distortion, reverb, and delay, which were the most widely available (and widely used) effects across the breadth of the Krautrock canon. The track broadly falls into two main sections: from an unintelligible vocal opening, the first section is primarily noise-based with considerable distorted electric guitar; the second, however, makes use of a less distorted, muted guitar-like lead, which repeats a single idea with occasional variations for around four minutes, alongside a motorik-like drum beat.

Finally, from Chile hail Föllakzoid, a trio with a large online following who are often connected in critical discourse with Krautrock, although the band themselves instead characterise their music as ‘heavily informed by the heritage of the ancient music of the Andes’.Footnote ²¹ Indeed, when interviewed, the band’s vocalist appears lukewarm about the association with Krautrock:

The compatibility that Föllakzoid describe between their music and the ‘ritualistic vibe’ of canonical Krautrock bands is apparent in a similar use of texture and supported by production aesthetic. Föllakzoid’s instrumentation immediately lends a sense of familiarity, combining bass, synthesiser, drums, distorted electric guitars, and sparse vocal phrases. In addition to this textural similarity with Krautrock, the band incorporate extensive improvisation into their work to create free-form musical structures that share similarities with Ash Ra Tempel or, to some extent, Neu!.

Issues in Contemporary Krautrock

Over the past five decades, the intermingling of Krautrock with other styles of music making have diversified an already eclectic body of music, establishing a global community of musicians who illustrate greater diversity in terms of gender, age, and geographical origin. Via this globalisation, the sound of Krautrock continues to be heard in new forms today. And, although this outlasts the association of Krautrock’s sound with the development of a distinct German cultural identity (exemplified strongest by Föllakzoid), it reinforces the cultural role that the Krautrock canon has played for modern music. Indeed, the readiness with which critical commentary and bands themselves refer to Krautrock demonstrates the body of work’s lasting cultural appeal.

A keyway in which the contemporary bands explored in this chapter diverge from canonical Krautrock musicians lies in the use of the Internet as a tool for distribution and discovery. This democratises Krautrock in the sense that it affords the opportunity for musicians outside of its original context to participate in a shared body of musical practice. However, while the internet also offers ways of reaching fans that were not available in the last century, many of the bands discussed make limited use of social media; few even offer any substantive biographical details about themselves on social media channels or official websites (if applicable). In doing so, they reflect a common approach of earlier Krautrock musicians who similarly avoided celebrity, as David Stubbs describes in his commentary of Can’s Future Days.Footnote ²³

In tandem, Krautrock’s cultural place has diversified. For early Krautrockers, their music was intended to run counter to the dominant forms of music making available in Germany and attracted a significant audience but gained its largest following overseas. Adelt argues that Krautrock’s otherness (in terms of both being a foreign import and the unusual sonic palette of Krautrock when compared to Anglo-American music making of the time) helped the music to accrue significant subcultural capital.Footnote ²⁴ While this continues in the form of journalistic discourse that reifies Krautrock, we can also observe greater malleability of Krautrock’s cultural capital via its role in high-art contexts. To Rococo Rot, for instance, illustrate the successful integration of Krautrock and digital media installations. And, in Britain, exhibitions celebrating the contributions of Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk both demonstrate a contemporary appreciation of Krautrock within gallery or museum contexts.Footnote ²⁵

The continued practice of Krautrock-influenced music making today provides an opportunity to consider its role in relation to the original Krautrock canon. For both Camera and To Rococo Rot, their interaction with earlier musicians become focal aspects of the bands’ narratives. Similarly, both Wume and Seven That Spells acknowledge the genre through their naming choices. In doing so, these later bands contribute to the historicisation of Krautrock, reinforcing a canon of earlier German musicians who – in the main – did not endorse such categorisation. As Föllakzoid illustrate, this can also distract from artistic foci. In their case, they choose to distance themselves from previous Krautrock bands and instead reassert the importance of their work’s spiritual origins.

Despite being geographically and historically separate, the bands surveyed in this chapter share in Krautrock’s ideological aspects, employ similar creative practices, or hold connections to the genre’s surviving originators, allowing them to establish credentials as Krautrockers. For some, the influence of Krautrock is explicit via reference to the style label itself or overt musical similarity. For others, the influence of Krautrock has been less direct, influenced by bands operating in other styles that derived in some part from Krautrock. The long-lasting significance of Krautrock offers several opportunities for further study. One particular opportunity lies in exploring the role of Krautrock as an act of cultural memorialisation; for Andrew Hurley, for instance, the noise and cultural memory of wartime life were key creative impetuses for the 1980s German band Einstürzende Neu-bauten.Footnote ²⁶ Such an approach may reward investigation in relation to bands covered above across Europe. On a related note, while Krautrock has received growing recognition from the academic community, similar experimental music scenes, such as in 1970s France, have not yet received comprehensive study.

We have focused on popular music makers in the Western world, primarily as Krautrock itself is a Germanic form of music making by those to whom most available popular music was either German or Anglo-American, however that is not to say that Krautrock has not also inspired music elsewhere. Adelt, for instance, briefly draws a connection between Krautrock and Yellow Magic Orchestra, indicating an opportunity to consider Krautrock’s cultural role in Eastern countries.Footnote ²⁷ Indeed, bands such as Boredoms, who originated during the mid-1980s in Osaka, Japan have developed an idiolect comparable to Krautrock in terms of texture, repetition, and form.

The musical and geographical breadth of musicians surveyed in this chapter illustrates the diffusion of Krautrock’s originators’ sonic vocabulary in different musical practices today. In doing so, it opens a plurality of understandings of Krautrock. At its most restrictive, we might conceive of Krautrock as a stylistically diverse range of originators who have since become a part of an acknowledged canon to commentators and fans (those operating in West Germany around 1968–74). At one remove from these canonical acts, we could consider contemporaneous non-German musicians (including David Bowie or Brian Eno) who created work that drew considerably from their Krautrock contemporaries. At a further remove, we can consider musical practice that came after the Krautrock era but shared stylistic aspects with Krautrock (including several grunge and new wave artists such as Soundgarden, Joy Division, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Love Battery, and Simple Minds). And, finally, in the most inclusive sense, we could view Krautrock as an ongoing, now-global practice, including acts who occupy a vastly different cultural and commercial landscape, but nevertheless share some aesthetic commonality with canonical Krautrock musicians.

Essential Listening

• Beak, ⋙ (Invada Records, 2018)

• Camera, Radiate! (Bureau B, 2012)

• Föllakzoid, III (Sacred Bones, 2015)

• To Rococo Rot, To Rococo Rot (Kitty-Yo, 1996)

• Tonstartssbandht, An When (Dœs Are, 2009)