This chapter argues that the various forms of fallibility historically identified in the genre of the essay – the tentative, the unfinished, and the imperfect – add up to a freedom from mastery that is peculiarly conducive to the consciousness of the postcolonial subject. The author examines essays by writers such as J. M. Coetzee, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, C. L R. James, Jamaica Kincaid, and Arundhati Roy.

This chapter describes the influence of Krautrock on post-punk music in Britain in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and argues that this influence marks a ‘Germanophilic‘ shift in British pop music, in the wake of punk‘s ‘Germanophobia‘. While post-punk was a diasporic and stylistically fragmented genre, it is possible to identify key musical elements clearly drawn from Krautrock bands like Kraftwerk, Harmonia, Neu!, and Can in the music of seminal post-punk groups, including Public Image Ltd., Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Bauhaus. For some of these groups, David Bowie, and especially his ‘Berlin-trilogy‘ albums, provided an indirect connection to Krautrock, which in turn helped to catalyse an aesthetic shift that would lead to the development of new genres, like gothic rock; for others, like former Sex Pistol and PiL frontman John Lydon, Krautrock provided the means to escape the strictures of punk, and would lay the foundation for radically new structural and sonic possibilities in pop music.

This chapter discusses the work of Manuel Göttsching and Klaus Schulze. Both were founding members of Ash Ra Tempel, a psychedelic rock band active in 1970–75. Their self-titled debut album, released in 1971, is recognised as one of the classic recordings of Krautrock. Later, Ash Ra Tempel would have a deep influence on space rock, electronic music, and ambient music. The chapter provides an overview of the evolution of Ash Ra Tempel, its successor Ashra, and traces the solo careers of Göttsching and Schulze, with a focus on Göttsching. His career spans from the era of Krautrock through the heyday of the electronic Berlin School in the mid-1970s and the birth of electronic dance music in the 1980s. Since 1972, Klaus Schulze has also produced an imaginative and unique body of musical work as a solo artist. Besides several collaborations, he created many pioneering electronic solo albums in the 1970s, and his active career has endured five decades until the present day.

This chapter on definitions, concepts, and the context of Krautrock exercises different modes of theorising the music. First, the chapter analyses the origins of the term and considers different semantic connotations. Second, the chapter traces the reception of its sounds during and after its heyday (1968 to 1974) and both inside and outside of Germany. Third, the chapter attempts to define musicological characteristics of Krautrock in relation to other musical forms. In the last section, the chapter illustrates how national and transnational identity as well as spatiality can serve as concepts that connect Krautrock’s history, identity formation, and overall politics.

This chapter explores the music, musicians, social and historical content, and reception of the ‘Krautrock’ band Can – formed by Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt, Michael Karoli, and Hans ‘Jaki’ Liebezeit. It does so by investigating the instigation of the band within its historical context and that of post-1945 German and international pop music, jazz, and new music. The chapter then discusses Can’s innovative, and in many ways unique, musical practice noting their growing successes in Germany and across Europe (particularly in Britain) and how this was received by fans and journalists. This discussion is divided into sections that discuss their practice, releases, and touring in relation to their vocalist at the time – Malcolm Mooney, Kenji ‘Damo’ Suzuki, and the latter period in which vocals were shared between the founder members. It concludes by exploring Can’s influence upon artists across genres including post-punk, indie, alternative and experimental rock, dance music, and hip-hop. The chapter argues that few bands encapsulated the internationally oriented and experimental European countercultural left quite like Can or left such an enduring template for musical practice.

The leitmotif of both American and British Krautrock reception in the 1970s was the continuing popularity of German stereotypes and clichés, with the music press coverage in both countries differing only in nuances. It was not before the end of the decade that those ascriptions and stereotypes slowly started to fade away; by then, in a broad consensus among critics and pop journalists, the ‘future sounds’ of Krautrock were widely regarded as a transformative contribution to pop music and culture. The shift in the Anglo-American music press’s understanding of Krautrock in the 1970s suggests that Krautrock’s mission to create a new and transnational cultural identity, for themselves and for West Germany, can ultimately be considered successful; British as well as American observers clearly placed Krautrock outside the Anglo-American realm of pop music, viewing it as a distinct West German phenomenon detached from pop music’s Anglo-American roots. In addition, and as a result, Krautrock’s soundscapes and performative elements were perceived as the first fundamental contribution to pop music from outside the Anglo-American sphere.

The chapter approaches Kraftwerk‘s oeuvre from a conceptual perspective and treats the band as performance artists. After discussing the artistic major influences, the first three albums from 1970 to 1973, later disowned by the core team of Ralf Hütter and Florin Schneider, are considered aginst the conceptual notion of ‘industrielle Volksmusik‘ (i.e. electronic pop music). Next, Kraftwerk‘s concept albums from 1974 to 1981 are analysed using key themes and lead aesthetics such as retro-futurism, man-machine, and post-humanism. The chapter then examines the impact of digitilisation on the artistic production of the band and discusses the reversal of the primary mode of operaton from the recording of new studio albums towards the curation of the core work in the period between 1983 and 2003. To conclude, the chapter looks at the evolution of their stage craft up to the current fully immersive and ritualistic audio-visual performances. I evaluate to which extent Kraftwerk can be seen as a paradigmatic example of a pop-cultural Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) in the modernist Gesamtkunstwerk tradition, fulfilling Richard Wagner‘s promise of a true Zukunftsmusik (future music).

This chapter deals with the ‘flip side‘ of Krautrock, exploring which political, social, and cultural developments in West Germany in the 1970s were clearly not reflected in Krautrock. The aim is to show that German pop music in the Krautrock era – contrary to its glorification as progressive, avant-garde, and internationalist – was actually conservative, if not restorative, in essential aspects. The chapter demonstrates that, firstly, feminist tendencies are discernible outside Krautrock (e.g. Inga Rumpf or Claudia Skoda). Secondly, the chapter deals with the vibrant music scene of Turkish migrants, which was ignored by German majority society. Thirdly, the chapter focuses on aspects of the appropriation of national traditions in German pop music of the 1970s. It discusses bands like Novalis and Hölderlin, who took up the tradition of German Romanticism, or Achim Reichel, who used the marginalised language form of Low German for his pop music. The chapter establishes a counter-narrative that challenges the prevailing view of the modernising power of Krautrock. Rather, it suggests that Krautrock was decoupled from the actual modernising trends in 1970s West Germany, such as the women‘s movement and the multicultural diversification of society.

The chapter analyses Faust‘s work, situating their sound within the diverse Krautrock trend and outlining their history to explain their political and artistic aims as a German music group. Faust‘s music celebrates a disruptive, avant-garde approach to rock music, influenced by dada and fluxus artists to create musical cut-ups and sound collages that blur the difference between noise and music. This methodology positions the band outside the structures of civilization, as per the framework of the Romantic hero, and reflects their conflicted disruption of German identity through the coincident political, phenomenological, and spiritual anxieties present in their music, lyrics, and performances. Faust‘s experimentation and aesthetics have influenced the ways noise has been incorporated into popular music, anticipating the development of industrial music.

This chapter explores the multi-decade career of Tangerine Dream and their founder, Edgar Froese, with an equal emphasis on the band’s practices during the 1970s and 1980s. We situate Tangerine Dream’s prolific discography within multiple styles such as kosmische Musik, ambient, techno/trance, and synthwave, while highlighting the band’s influences and legacies in live music and Hollywood film scores. First, Tangerine Dream’s evolution during the 1970s is traced, involving the group’s central role in the ‘Berlin School‘ of electronic music. Classic albums on Ohr, from Electronic Meditation to Atem, led to success particularly in Britain and France. With the signing of the band to Virgin Records, the subsequent sections explore landmark albums such as Phaedra and Rubycon, and the important roles of Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann in the group’s classic configuration. We then highlight Tangerine Dream’s iconic live tours, stretching from Australia to America, as well as influential concerts in Eastern Europe. The band’s extraordinary career in film music, especially in 1980s Hollywood, forms the focus of our conclusion, where the mark of Tangerine Dream’s major influence can be seen in media as diverse as the bestselling video game Grand Theft Auto 5 and the Netlix hit series Stranger Things.

The chapter considers the musical project Popol Vuh in the context of its special relationship to spirituality. Although referred to as a band, Popol Vuh consisted of pianist/keyboardist Florian Fricke and various co-musicians with whom Fricke attempted to express his spirituality through music. The chapter begins with an overview of Fricke‘s early creative phase, beginning with his first album Affenstunde, which, like the first side of its successor In den Gärten Pharaos, was still dominated by the sound of the Moog. A special focus is placed on the process leading Fricke to turn away from electronic music; opting for a sound as natural as possible, he hoped to find spiritual fulfilment in organic sounds. As the chapter discusses, Fricke‘s spirituality originated in the study of Eastern religious texts, which he combined with his own interpretation of Catholicism, for example on Hosianna Mantra. Finally, the use of Popol Vuh‘s music in the films of German director Werner Herzog is explored to explain how the two artists were able to achieve a unique synergistic effect in these films.

This chapter discusses the musical and cultural impact of the Düsseldorf group Neu!, who consisted of Michael Rother (guitars) and Klaus Dinger (drums). The essay puts Neu!’s work in the context of how Krautrock music was part of the quest to establish a new sense of post-war West German cultural identity by establishing new musical forms that did not owe a debt to the Anglo-American blues tradition or conventional rock structures. Analysing their first three albums released in the first part of the 1970s – Neu!, Neu! 2, and Neu! ’75 – this chapter shows how Neu! arrived at a musical formula that reflected the opposite temperaments of the two group members, reflected in the ambient rock of Rother and the motorik beat of Klaus Dinger, creating an imaginary West German landscape travelling from the past, through the present to the future. The chapter concludes that although they were commercially unsuccessful at the time, Neu! were hugely influential and have established for all time a unique mode of rock musical being, West German in origin, which serves as a source of inspiration for present and future generations.

This chapter explores the fledgling countercultural popular music industry in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s and summarises the economic conditions under which Krautrock developed. Compared to Britain and the United States, Germany was a disadvantaged place for popular music production. The chapter gives an overview of the places, events, and people that prepared the ground for independent popular music production away from the Schlager-focused major labels. The role of music journalist Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser in organising Krautrock’s founding event, the International Essen Song Days in 1968, and his three influential record companies Ohr, Pilz, and Kosmische Kuriere, is highlighted. Independent record labels like Kaiser’s and others such as Brain and Sky enabled musical experimentation and allowed a German avant-garde interpretation of rock music to thrive. The chapter outlines Krautrock’s reception on the international market, considering commercial successes (Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk) and failures (Faust). Independent record producers, most notably Conny Plank and Dieter Dierks, were indispensable for their creative contribution to many Krautrock records and as intermediaries between Krautrock artists and their record companies.