Musicians - Kraftwerk

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	Musicians - Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk (pronounced , German for "power plant") is a German musical group who have made significant contributions to the development of electronic music. The band was founded by Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter in 1970, but became widely known as a quartet consisting of Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos alongside the founding members. The techniques Kraftwerk introduced, together with the equipment they developed, are now commonplace in modern music. In terms of their influence on the popular music of the latter half of the 20th century, Kraftwerk have been considered by some to be as influential as the Beatles.

History

Kraftwerk was founded in 1970 by Florian Schneider-Esleben (flute) and Ralf Hütter (keyboards), the pair setting up their Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf. The two had met as students in the late 1960s, participating in the experimental music scene of the time which the UK music press dubbed "Krautrock".

The early Kraftwerk line-ups (1970-1974) fluctuated, Hütter and Schneider working with around half a dozen other musicians over the course of recording four albums and sporadic live appearances - most notably guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger, who left to form Neu!.

The input, expertise and influence of producer/engineer Conny Plank was also significant. Plank worked with many other leading German acts (including members of Can, Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia) and largely as a result of his work with Kraftwerk, Plank's studio in Cologne (Köln) became one of the most sought-after studios in the late 1970s. Plank produced the first four Kraftwerk albums, but ceased working with them after the commercial success of Autobahn, apparently over a dispute about contracts.

Painter Emil Schult became a regular collaborator with the band beginning in 1973 (originally playing bass guitar and electric violin, then designing artwork and additional lyrics, and accompanying them on tour).

What is generally regarded as the classic Kraftwerk line-up formed in 1975, for the Autobahn tour. This saw the band presented as an electronic quartet, with Hütter and Schneider joined by Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos as electronic percussionists. This quartet would be the band's public persona for their classic output of the 1970s and 1980s. (Flür had joined the band in 1973 as a drummer, in preparation for a television appearance to promote their third album. This show saw the public debut of the group's striking self-built electronic percussion pads, played by Flür.)

The band is notoriously reclusive, so much so that it is rumoured that their own record company does not have their phone numbers. Another notable example of their eccentric behaviour was reported to Johnny Marr of The Smiths by Karl Bartos, who explained that anyone trying to contact the band for collaboration would be told that their studio telephone did not have a ringtone, as during recording the band did not like to hear any kind of noise pollution. Instead, they were instructed to phone the studio at a certain time on the dot, whereupon the phone would be answered by Ralf Hutter, despite himself never hearing the phone ring. Hutter: "The telephone is an antiquity — you never know who is calling, there is no image, it is an outmoded product which constantly disrupts work." (interviewed in Liberation, 1991)

After years of withdrawal from live performance, Kraftwerk began to tour again more regularly from the late 1990s onwards. Ralf had wanted to play more shows over the years, but the undertaking of shipping all their huge, analog equipment hindered world tours and travel outside of Europe. During this decade the band often stated they were working on new material — though speculation about release dates fell through several times. The growing time between recordings, the rarity of live performances and the increasingly exacting and protracted nature of the recording process were the major reasons behind the departure of Flür and especially Bartos, whose improvisations were an essential part of the earlier Kraftwerk recordings. Following the departure of Flür and Bartos, various Kling Klang studio personnel such as Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz have appeared in the Kraftwerk line-up.

A website, appeared in November 1996, following development work on a . It has been gradually expanded, including a merchadise site since the resumption of audio releases by the group.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Kraftwerk ]

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Musicians - Kraftwerk

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