Carla and Brad Talk About Krautrock

Send us Fan Mail Today we talk about Krautfolk duo Bernd Witthüser and Walter Westrupp.  These two budding musicians met on the Essen basement hipster folk scene, became fast friends, fell out (yeah: a girl), and reconnected after the Essener Songtage in 1968. After a first splash with their, um, Flipper the Dolphin single, W and W stole the show at Fehmarn.  (Some might say Hendrix never recovere...

Send us Fan Mail Today we get our Swiss on, as we look in on the Cosmic Couriers' collaborations with Bernese scholar/ mystic Sergius Golowin and Yenish artist Walter Wegmüller. First we depart this grim terrestrial plane and ascend to the mountain paradise of Goloka, where the vibe is chill and Lord Krishna reigns supreme.  Now Wegmüller takes charge of our party and walks us through the Tar...

Send us Fan Mail Eau de Cologne. Floh de Cologne. Oh, that Floh de Cologne! Blending old-time cabaret tradition and '60s radical left-wing politics, the Flohs brought biting wit and considerable musical range to bierkellers and Uni stages all across West Germany.  And it wasn't long before they laid a concept album/ beat-show down to tape.  That record, Ohr Records’ first release (!), wa...

Send us Fan Mail We were overdue to check in on Krautrock's unwitting supergroup, the Cosmic Jokers.  But we weren't gonna do it without first going *deep* on Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser and Gille Lettmann.   At various times visionary, provocateur, entrepreneur, programmer, pamphleteer, carnival barker, and snake oil salesman, Kaiser was an essential figure in the Krautrock project.  His life-pa...

Send us Fan Mail Took a minute but we're back with a vengeance and a heaping helping of Synthy Berliner Klaus Schulze!   We gushed about Klaus's drumming in our Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel episodes.  Funny thing, though: Klaus's FIFTY-PLUS-YEAR career as a solo artist was a largely drums-free endeavor.  Starting with 1972's Irrlicht, which he hacked together with a wonky...

Send us Fan Mail Today we accept a listener's invite up to Hamburg, for a visit with A.R. + Machines. Achim Reichel grew up near the docks, listening to sea shanties.  He found work at the Star-Club waiting tables, but soon enough he was on its stage playing with the Rattles—and running with Lennon & McCartney. Come 1971 he ditched his bandmates for a tape machine.  Krautrock followed.  T...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode, Carla and Brad tip their caps to the ten or more young Bavarians who stood up to Mom and Dad, demanded money for a swank downtown apartment, and most assuredly drove their neighbors nuts with the ensuing band rehearsals.  Well, maybe we tip our caps more to the parents who funded this grand and glorious adventure. Musical Münchner communards choose attitud...

Send us Fan Mail It's a tale as old as time.  Boy meets Moog III synthesizer.  Boy drops a wad of cash to buy it.  Boy and Moog blissfully record two studio albums and a film soundtrack together.  Boy abruptly breaks up with Moog and finds religion. Boy is, of course, gifted and accomplished pianist Florian Fricke.  His project, and at times even his alter ego, is Popol Vuh.  In this episode...

Send us Fan Mail Schoolyard friends Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke loved the Beatles and the blues ... like everybody else in a Berlin rock band in the late '60s.  But then they got hold of Blue Cheer's record and some blow-the-doors-off British amps.   Soon wunderkind drummer Klaus Schulze was at their door, sniffing around the new equipment.  Things were gonna get LOUD.   Ash Ra Te...

Send us Fan Mail No figure loomed larger over Krautrock, as a genre, than legendary producer/ sound engineer Konrad "Conny" Plank ... and we've been looking for an opportunity to talk about him.  Then we discovered the Rastakraut Pasta LP that he and Dieter Moebius recorded and released in 1980.  Problem solved! From behind the board in Cologne's Rhenus Studio and then his own...

Send us Fan Mail We interrupt this podcast's regularly scheduled programming for a SPECIAL REPORT: We've made a Krautrock Playlist . The original idea was to have a "song draft": having dug deep enough into Krautrock, we would take turns claiming songs for ourselves.  We figured this way we'd learn what each of us likes in particular, and what we like best. What happened i...

Send us Fan Mail It's 1969.  Accomplished Belgian classical/ jazz/ R&B pianist Joel Vandroogenbroeck and English rock guitarist Ron Bryer have ditched their Basel-based blue-eyed soul band and will shortly link up with lysergic femme fatale Dawn Muir.  The result?  A square of light, a circle of thought, a triangle of NOTHING.  It's BRAINTICKET! Join us as we talk about Brainticket&a...

Send us Fan Mail Accomplished jazz practitioners hear the siren song of psychedelic rock and find themselves a young, ripping guitarist to plug in with.  Hold on: are we talking about Can again? Not at all.  It's Guru Guru today: three amazing musicians laying down the soundtrack for when the aliens arrive.  Or put differently, "music that's intended to mess with the cerebellum.&quo...

Send us Fan Mail In the spring of 1973, guitarist Michael Rother looks in on two old acquaintances at their ramshackle farmhouse/ recording studio in Forst.  Rother hopes to tour the UK with his current band, Neu!, and he *thinks* Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster might provide just the juice he needs for his live act ... Now what was it John Lennon said about life and making ot...

Send us Fan Mail Today we depart from our usual programming to post a LIVE SHOW ALERT. Turns out Brad sneaked off to London last month to catch surviving member of Neu! Michael Rother's live performance at the Clapham Grand!  Joining Michael on stage were Hans Lampe (of La Düsseldorf, on drums), Franz Bargmann (of Camera, on guitar) and electronic composer and recent Rother collaborator Vitto...

Send us Fan Mail With Neu! in the rear-view mirror, Klaus Dinger stepped into his white overalls and reached for fame and fortune with his second act, La Düsseldorf.   And boy oh boy did he find it. Today we talk about LD's second LP, Viva.  Notable for its space-age guitars, synth washes, and of course "Dingerbeat," Viva serves up a shimmering blend of glam, punk, and electronica. ...

Send us Fan Mail Eight episodes deep, and still we haven't checked in on The Most Important Band of All Time (This Side of the Beatles)?  That ends today. It's time for Carla and Brad to talk about Kra[f]t[wer]k.  Kling-Klang, Ralf + Florian, "Precise and Maximum Expression."  Ruckzuck, Radio-Activity, Trans-Europe Express, The Man-Machine ... AUTOBAHN. It's 106 kilometers...

Send us Fan Mail Well, it's back to the lab again, yo — that is, the Zodiak Free Arts Lab ... where today we find Edgar Froese, Conrad Schnitzler, and Klaus Schulze, banging out five-hour live sets in the first incarnation of Tangerine Dream. **SUPERGROUP ALERT** **SUPERGROUP ALERT** Crackling raw acid rock with hammer-drop organs, shaken dried peas, and a train ticket read backward?  Klaus S...

Send us Fan Mail Conrad Schnitzler, Brian Eno, Michael Rother, Conny Plank.  All the cool kids wanted to hang with Moebius and Roedelius — so naturally we do, too.   What time is it, listeners?  Is it time for the CBK bus to take a turn "im Suden?"  Is it time to tap into Roe's pastoral Romanticism and Moe's sparky bleeps and blips?  Time to put Eric Clapton into "the Krau...

Send us Fan Mail In this special double-length episode (!), modular synth guru Sean Rieger talks to Carla and Brad about the many technical and electronic sound elements that Krautrock artists applied to enrich their music. If you want to know about oscillators, ring modulation, sequencers, analog synths, tape overdubs, and vocoders ... If you're asking what was in Faust's "black bo...

Send us Fan Mail Are you worried about losing your time?  Your teeth?  Well, fear no more, listeners, because Carla and Brad are here to talk about Faust.  Eclectic, unyielding, forward-leaning, and fun — Faust brought their A-game to the studio, time and again.  Today we focus on their manic and beautiful 1973 masterpiece, Faust IV. Irmler!  Sosna!  Wüsthoff, Zappi, Peron!  You're up!  FAUST...

Send us Fan Mail Fresh off their tour of Egypt, Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus, Carla and Brad have landed in West Berlin!  In this episode we break down the synth-singed psych rock of Agitation Free's 1972 debut LP, Malesch.  Come for the wax figures, pyramids, and street recordings, stay (or not) for the Hammond solos. You might say we're doing it for "the Lüülz."  In any case, w...

Send us Fan Mail Did anybody see this snowman, standing in the wind alone?  Damo did ... and Holger, Irmin, Jaki, and Michael, too. Today we're talking about Can — and specifically, their 1971 double LP, Tago Mago .  John Cale, "I Am the Walrus," and Aleister Crowley get their due, but in the end this is all about the mad genius of five men jamming in a castle. We are all mushroomhe...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Carla and Brad talk about Neu! ... and specifically their 1973 sophomore effort, Neu! 2 .  (Spoiler Alert: we're big fans.) Order and chaos, beauty and aggression, Rother and Dinger.  Join us as we speed toward the horizon with Neu!  

Send us Fan Mail Today Carla and Brad talk about Amon Düül II -- and specifically, their signature 1970 double album, Yeti . Mind-mashing psychedelia sprung from a Munich radical art commune?  Virtuoso bongo play wrapped in otherworldly guitars?  Count us in.  (But don't call it prog-rock ...) Don't be left out in the cold!  Join us today, as we begin exploring the peaks of Krautrock.