The name krautrock is an umbrella term given to the broad genre of music created by a multitude of German bands in the early 70s. Reportedly, the faintly pejorative phrase was doled out by one of the hacks working in the UK music press at the time: it is what is, and it stuck. Needless to say, at the time, the musicians in these groups certainly didn’t think of themselves as being in a krautrock band creating krautrock music. Ultimately, krautrock was always far more an attitude than it ever was a style.
An alternative name oThen used is ‘kosmische musik’ (cosmic music) and the bands involved were uncompromisingly committed to expanding the existing frontiers of art and music. West Germany was still in the aThershock of World War II and the younger generation were searching for sonic innovation and unique sounds of their own. The one path these bands knew they didn’t want to tread was the song-based rock ‘n’ roll formula of their British and American counterparts. To this end, many of the German bands were in thrall of electronics, early synthesisers, tape collages and sound manipulation.
There was an emphasis on epically extended instrumentals with minimal, hypnotic motifs; there were no sub-threeminute pop songs being manufactured here. Similarly, their inspiration wasn’t gained from cars and girls, but from exotic sources such as Eastern mysticism, science fiction, the mechanics of industry and, of course, mind-bending hallucinogens.