Kraftwerk
Studio album by Kraftwerk
Released	1970 (Germany) Released later in other countries
Recorded	July-September 1970
Genre	Krautrock Electronic music
Length	39:39
Label	Philips
Producer(s)	Conny Plank & Kraftwerk
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link
Kraftwerk chronology
Tone Float (1970) Kraftwerk (1970) Kraftwerk 2 (1972)

Kraftwerk is the first album by Kraftwerk. It was released in Germany in 1970, produced by the influential Konrad "Conny" Plank. Image File history File links K1-D-front. ... A studio album is a collection of previously unreleased, studio-recorded tracks by a recording artist. ... Kraftwerk (pronounced [], German for power station) is a German musical group that has made key contributions to the development of improvisational rock and electronic music, most notably within the latter categorys sub-genres known as synthpop, electro, techno, house and IDM. Early musical templates formed within the industrial and... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s. ... It has been suggested that Electronica be merged into this article or section. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Philips HQ in Amsterdam Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Philips Electronics N.V.), usually known as Philips, (Euronext: PHIA, NYSE: PHG) is one of the largest electronics companies in the world, founded and headquartered in the Netherlands. ... In the music industry, a record producer (or music producer) has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes. ... Konrad Conny Plank (frequently spelled Planck) (born about 1943 in Austria, died December 18, 1987 in Cologne) was a record producer. ... Kraftwerk (pronounced [], German for power station) is a German musical group that has made key contributions to the development of improvisational rock and electronic music, most notably within the latter categorys sub-genres known as synthpop, electro, techno, house and IDM. Early musical templates formed within the industrial and... The All Music Guide (AMG) is a metadata database about music owned by All Media Guide. ... Image File history File links 3_stars. ... Kraftwerk (pronounced [], German for power station) is a German musical group that has made key contributions to the development of improvisational rock and electronic music, most notably within the latter categorys sub-genres known as synthpop, electro, techno, house and IDM. Early musical templates formed within the industrial and... Tone Float is an obscure LP by German band Organisation. ... Kraftwerk 2 is a 1972 album by Kraftwerk. ... Kraftwerk (pronounced [], German for power station) is a German musical group that has made key contributions to the development of improvisational rock and electronic music, most notably within the latter categorys sub-genres known as synthpop, electro, techno, house and IDM. Early musical templates formed within the industrial and... Konrad Conny Plank (frequently spelled Planck) (born about 1943 in Austria, died December 18, 1987 in Cologne) was a record producer. ...

Hütter and Schneider managed to go through two drummers during the album, Andreas Hohmann and Klaus Dinger. Their playing gives a hard, dynamic, almost brutal edge to the music in places. This proves to be quite distinct from Hutter and Schneider's previous band Organisation, or the following pair of Kraftwerk albums, Kraftwerk 2 and Ralf und Florian which were both recorded entirely as a duo by Hutter and Schneider. According to later interviews with Dinger, he plays on side two, while Hohmann plays on side one, which was completed before Dinger joined the sessions. Klaus Dinger is a German musician and songwriter most famous for his contributions to the seminal Krautrock outfit, Neu!, and his invention of the Motorik beat. ... Kraftwerk 2 is a 1972 album by Kraftwerk. ... Ralf und Florian is a 1973 album by Kraftwerk. ...

The other instrumentation contains a lot of Hütter's Hammond organ and an electronic bass instrument called a 'tubon', whilst Schneider supplied manipulated flute ("Ruckzuck" is driven by a powerful multi-dubbed flute riff), electric violin and guitar, these instruments often connected to further electronics via an EMS pitch-to-voltage converter.

The album features no vocals, and "Ruckzuck" is the closest the album comes to a structured rock song. TV footage exists of it being performed in concert by Hütter and Schneider's previous band, Organisation.

The cover design, credited to Ralf Hütter, is a curious nod to the influence of Andy Warhol and the then contemporary Pop Art movement, featuring a fluorescent-coloured traffic cone drawn in a Warhol-esque manner. The image on the inside of the gatefold sleeve is of a powerplant electricity substation, photographed by Düsseldorf conceptualist artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, known for their photographic 'Typologies' series that celebrated the industrial and urban environment – and by extension, the society that built it – by showing multiple variations of ordinarily mundane building types. Front cover of the book Typologies of Industrial Buildings (2004). ...

Guitarist Michael Rother joined the band after this album, and remarkably, around the same time Hütter actually left the band for a few months in 1971. The 3-piece Kraftwerk line up of Schneider, Dinger & Rother made a TV appearance on Bremen TV show Beat-Club. After this, Dinger and Rother left to form revered band Neu!, with Hütter rejoining Schneider to continue Kraftwerk, both parties recording under the mentoring of Conny Plank. Neu! (the German word for new, pronounced noy) were a German band, probably the archetypal example of what the UK music press at the time dubbed Krautrock. ...

No material from this album has been performed in the band's live set since the Autobahn tour of 1975, and to date, the album has not been reissued on compact disc, with the band seemingly reluctant to consider it a part of their canon (Schneider described the early albums as "archaeology"). However, pirated CDs of the album have been widely available since the mid-1990s on the Germanofon and Crown labels. A Compact Disc or CD is an optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio. ...

Track listing

1. "Ruckzuck" - 7:47 (translates as "Very quickly" with a slight connotation of "Push-pull")
2. "Stratovarius" - 12:10 (pun on Stratocaster guitars and Stradivarius violins)
3. "Megaherz" - 9:30 ("Mega-heart" - a pun on "Megahertz", the unit of frequency)
4. "Vom Himmel hoch" - 10:12 ("From Heaven above" - the first words of Martin Luther's famous Christmas hymn)

A Fender Stratocaster with rosewood fingerboard and three-tone sunburst finish. ... Antonio Stradivari, by Edgar Bundy, 1893: a romanticized image of a craftsman-hero One of the violins in the Stradivarius collection of the Palacio Real, Madrid, Spain A Stradivarius (or Strad) is a stringed instrument built by members of the Stradivari family, especially by Antonio Stradivari. ... MegaHertz (MHz) is the name given to one million (106) Hertz, a measure of frequency. ... Martin Luther (November 10, 1483 – February 18, 1546) was a German monk,[1] priest, professor, theologian, and church reformer. ...

Credits

• Ralf Hütter – organ, tubon; cover design.
  
• Florian Schneider-Esleben – flute, violin, electric percussion.
  
• Andreas Hohmann – drums.
  
• Klaus Dinger – drums.
  
• Konrad "Conny" Plank – sound engineer & production.
  
• Klaus Löhmer – assistant sound engineer.
  

Ralf Hütter (born 20 August 1946 in Krefeld, Germany) is the lead singer, keyboardist, and reportedly band leader of Kraftwerk and is usually the one interviewed. ... Florian Schneider-Esleben (born April 7th, 1947, Germany) is one of the founding members of influential and pioneering electronic music band Kraftwerk. ... Klaus Dinger is a German musician and songwriter most famous for his contributions to the seminal Krautrock outfit, Neu!, and his invention of the Motorik beat. ... Konrad Conny Plank (frequently spelled Planck) (born about 1943 in Austria, died December 18, 1987 in Cologne) was a record producer. ...

Miscellanea

"Ruckzuck" was the theme song for the defunct PBS show Newton's Apple, produced in Minneapolis, MN. It was used without permission. Not to be confused with Public Broadcasting Services in Malta. ... Newtons Apple was an educational television program distributed to PBS stations in the United States that ran for fifteen seasons from 1983 to 1998. ... This article is about the city in Minnesota. ...

Release details

Inside design of the gatefold cover.

The UK version merged the first two albums.