Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk month #7 Kover Kollection 4


This one veers heavily into hip hop territory at the beginning but then into more rock and, inevitably, techno areas. I was using voice synthesizers to generate ‘lyrics’ over some tracks and it contains one of my favourite mixes: two versions of ‘Autobahn’ running concurrently in the left and right speakers.

Gorefest and The Balanescu Quartet had both done versions that I noticed were very similar in arrangement and tempo and, being that the track is so long, rather than play them separately I panned each one left and right and played them together, I like the fact that they’re just so opposite in terms of style. This one originally debuted on Solid Steel on 04/08/06


(and no, you didn’t miss pts. 2 & 3 yet, I’m just not putting them up in logical order)

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Kraftwerk month #6 Ralf & Florian – the sitcom & UK LP

I’ve posted this video before but I never tire of it.


Also on the subject of ‘Ralf & Florian’, the UK pressing on Vertigo had a different sleeve to the regular release (see below), much the same as ‘Autobahn’. Both are believed to be the work of designer Barney Bubbles, although this has never been confirmed.

Emil Schult designed a sticker for the German issue of ‘Autobahn’ (right) that used the blue and white road sign and this was adapted and added to for the UK sleeve. Hardformat ran a great piece on it, arguing for Bubbles as the layout designer and there is a discussion on the subject here but the jury is still out. Also, the ‘Ralf & Florian’ UK cover below had embossing around the title and circuit pattern as well as florescent inks on the back cover.

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Kraftwerk month on DJFood.org #1

I’ve decided to make March ‘Kraftwerk month’ on the site, which means I’ll be posting something Kraftwerk-related every day at least. This had been bought on by the recent news of the 8 night residency at MOMA in New York and the subsequent fact that no one I know has managed to get a ticket.

Volume 7 of my on-going Kraftwerk Kover Kollection mix series is way overdue so I plan to have that done by the time the group play their back catalogue (I should attempt vol.8 as well but back in the real world…). Volumes 5 and 6 are already on the web but, due to my old host site BosBos.net no longer being active, I thought I’d put the first four up here as well, one a week, starting with volume …1.

The one that kicked it all off in April 2004, some quite obvious choices here when you start to think of cover versions, don’t worry, they get more obscure as the mixes progress. I’m always on the look out for new versions so please send suggestions but don’t be offended if I don’t include them in future mixes as for every one that makes it, four or five won’t as I’m looking for the odd and left of center rather than the multitude of straight electro / techno covers that are also out there. Also included here is the original artwork I did for the mix: front/back and CD on-body.

Posted in Kraftwerk, Mixes/Solid Steel. | 8 Comments |

Kraftwerk in NYC past and present

Most Kraftwerk fans will have heard about their residency at New York’s MOMA this coming April. For those fortunate enough to go, there is unfortunately a 2 ticket/show limit.

Hitler took this particularly badly

This incredible photo popped up on Facebook today, the caption reads: “Kraftwerk at the Ritz. 1981. I was the Dj at this show. Amazing. I invited Afrika Bambaataa to the show. The rest is history.” Photo by Laura Levine who has taken photos of pretty much anyone who is anyone in music

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Kraftwerk ‘Computer World’ poster

This lovely design was made by Stefanie Posavec, showing the length of cassette tape needed to record Kraftwerk‘s ‘Computer World’. Originally made as a one off for a friend’s club night she’s finally made them for sale.

It’s available as a 915 x 700mm 2-colour litho print (the yellow is fluorescent) on 300gsm, on Challenger Offset paper in a signed edition of 200. You can get it here and 25% of the profits go to the Ganet’s Adventure fund that helps a small primary school in Milawi.

Posted in Design, Kraftwerk, Poster / flyer. | 2 Comments |

Smash Hits & The Kraftwerk Kollection

I’ve been waiting for this issue to crop up on Brian McClosekey‘s excellent ‘Like Punk Never Happened’ blog – the 1981 issue with Adam Ant on the cover –  one that I strongly remember, being mad about anything with an Ant attachment at the time. Brian posts complete issues of Smash Hits, every two weeks, 30 years to the day they were first published and he’ll continue until his collection stops. The pages are viewable via Flickr and are slowly forming an excellent time capsule of late 70’s and 80’s pop, in context, as it happened. I was eleven when this was published and 1981 was Adam Ant’s year, he was everywhere, from the pop charts to TV to the daily newspapers. He looked and sounded great, gave good copy and they couldn’t get enough of him.

Another page in this issue caught my eye later on though, a half page advert for five Kraftwerk albums. They had a freak number one in the UK with ‘The Model’ in February 1982 – a traditional post-Xmas quiet spot for record releases. It seems Phonogram were eagerly flooding the market with reissues of their back catalogue at this point though because they’d just released the Computer World album. When I first saw the ad (obviously, re-reading the mag later) I thought, “What? how can they have five albums?”, little knowing that there were another four at least to add to this list. Unfortunately none of these made it to my local record shop but I did manage to get copies of ‘Computer World’, ‘The Man Machine’ and ‘Trans Europe Express’ – all on cassette – the latter of which I took back to the shop, complaining to them that the tape only had one track on side 2 when it listed four. Again, little did I realise all four tracks segued into one so there weren’t any breaks in between (!) I love the way they’ve spelt picture with a ‘k’ in the text and my god do I wish I’d been old enough to see them on that tour.

Posted in Kraftwerk, Magazines, Music. | 3 Comments |

Originals #4 • Roger Mainwood – Autobahn animation cels

Autobahn 1Roger Mainwood – ‘Autobahn’ animation cels, Halas & Batchelor, 1979
(330 x 270 mm, pen and paint on acetate).

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In 1979 animation studio Halas & Batchelor were commisioned by EMI to make a video to accompany Kraftwerk’s song ‘Autobahn’ for a possible laser disc compilation of the label’s back catalogue. These are two original cels from the film, the background and goggle reflections are lost, the laser disc was never released.

You can watch the film in two parts on YouTube, this frame appears at approx 4.22 in Part 2.

Part 1 Part 2

 

Posted in Kraftwerk, Originals. | 2 Comments |

OTOBahn this Friday

otobahn

Love this Kraftwerk parody for a FREE gig this Friday in Dalston, London.

FRIDAY 15th October 2010
Times : 8pm

FREE ENTRY

“An adventurous collage of raw and intoxicating sounds from the last century and beyond…” A free evening of music with DJs Mandrew B, Mapsadaisical, Mike Modular & Radioolio, playing ambient, kosmiche, jazz, dub, radiophonics and more…

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Kraftwerk Tribute 12″ of a different kind

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prologue_woes_web_1

Here’s something interesting I stumbled across whilst perusing the Kraftwerk Facebook page that’s been set up by fans. A limited edition of the band’s Tour De France 12″ that comes with a built in player like those cheesy birthday cards you can get that play a tune when you open them.

The designer’s name is Woes Van Haaften and there are 5 different sleeve colours to choose from but they don’t come cheap let me warn you! Full info and a little film here

Posted in Art, Design, Kraftwerk, Oddities, Records. | No Comments |

Moog T-shirt from Chalk Brighton

This has been in the pipeline a while, I think I did the design last autumn but had been collecting the contents for longer. Chalk Brighton, the brainchild of old friends Dean Ricca-Smith and Simon Skevington, is a new company specialising in limited edition T-shirt prints with a difference. One of their debut designs spelt out SOUL in bold letters entirely made up of titles of their favourite soul records and was a big hit. They plan to continue the series and I submitted my entry in the form of Moog. Not an obvious follow up but Chalk isn’t an obvious kind of company.

Moog shirtMoog designThe tracks within my design either refer to records with Moog in the title or famous songs which feature the Moog somewhere in the kit list (did you know that the bassline to Donna Summer‘s ‘I Feel Love’ was played on a Moog?). Anyway, the shirt is big on design but minimal of contrast so it blends together nicely when printed and is actually a lot more subtle than these photos suggest. Also you have to love the attention to detail with the names on the neck tag :)  Get them while they’re hot…

Chalk store
Moog detailChalk tag

Moog covers

Posted in Design, Kraftwerk, Music, Openmind designs. | 4 Comments |