So, it took no less than the centenary of the Tour de
France, by far one of the most demanding sports events
on the planet, for the German masters of electronic
music to come out of their retreat. Twelve years after
their last official album, The Mix, and nearly
seventeen years after Electric Café,
their last proper studio album, Kraftwerk, by far one
of the most influential bands of the twentieth century,
put on a par with the Beatles by David Bowie no less,
return with what nobody dared even thinking about anymore:
a brand new album.
Formed in the early seventies by Florian Schneider and
Ralf Hütter, the band had expanded to a quartet
by the time they released their fourth album, Autobahn,
in 1974, their first to be released in the USA. As their
sound was by then entirely relying on electronic instruments,
with the members regularly engineering their own machines,
Kraftwerk established themselves at the forefront of
contemporary music. Radio-Aktivität, which
followed in 1975, the band’s first album to be
released almost simultaneously in German and English,
explored the concept of radio communication, indicating
their global appeal, with Trans-Europe Express
and The Man Machine following within three
years. When Kratfwerk repeared in 1981 with Computer
Love, their influence was starting to be felt in
the world of pop music with the apparition of bands
such as Cabaret Voltaire, Human League or Depeche Mode.
After a further five-year hiatus, Kraftwerk returned
with Electric Café. By then, the pop
world had caught up with the German quartet, and Kraftwerk
didn’t appear as much a bunch of precursors as
they did ten years earlier. Their 1991 remix album The
Mix, targeted at club culture, although an interesting
effort, appeared to simply blend with the rest of the
emerging electronica/IDM movement, with the likes of
LFO or Aphex
Twin openly prowling and updating the band’s
sonic catalogue.
Nevertheless, the release of a brand new Kraftwerk album
remains one of the most important events of this year’s
musical calendar. If Hütter and Schneider are still
firmly in charge of the machinery here, Karl Bartos
and Wolfgang Flür have been replaced by new members
Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz. Presented in an almost
identical artwork to the 1983 Tour De France 12”
and the unreleased Techno Pop album, which
was originally due that same year, Tour De France
Soundtracks still feeds on some of the minimalist
structures championed by the band in their heyday. Past
Prologue, the first three versions, or etapes,
of Tour De France prove a tad disappointing
as the band revisit the same theme from three different
angles. The final reworking of the original single,
which closes this album, proves a far more interesting
affair, with the band offering a slightly tweaked vision
of their 1983 electro funk classic. The rest of the
album relies almost totally on classic Kraftwerk textures.
If nothing seems highly groundbreaking anymore, there
are however some extremely good moments here. The old
school Vitamin sees Kraftwerk reassessing their
Computer World area with class, while Elektro
Kardiogramm, with its Trans-Europe Express
flavours, proves to be one of the most elaborate compositions
of this album. Aero Dynamik is yet another
classic Kraftwerk moment, yet here, the band also inject
some fine up-to-the-minute beat articulations, giving
this track a welcomed contemporary dynamic.
Kraftwerk might have seen their music influencing genres
from early synth-pop to hip-hop and today’s electronica,
but it transpires that they are still very much in touch
with modern electronic music as a whole. Their 2000
single Expo 2000 might have appeared rather
empty of content, but this is fortunately not the case
of the majority of this album. Tour De France Soundtracks,
if not as defining a piece of recording as Radio-activity
or Trans-Europe Express, still credibly fits
in with most of the current electronic movement.
3.9/5 |
