Formed in 1971 in Dusseldorf, this archetypal Kraütrock band was actually a duo comprising guitar wiz Michael Rother and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Klaus Dinger, both previously with Kraftwerk. Dinger’s mechanical,…

In the early seventies, Germany’s progressive music scene became known in Europe and the US as ‘Krautrock’, a faintly pejorative tag coined by the British…

With German youth crying out for their own brand of heroes, it was unsurprising that Philips signed Cluster in early 1971. Having birthed the Ash Ra…

There were two turning points for West Berlin art student-turned-rock guitarist Edgar Froese. The first was working with – and writing music for – Salvador…

For those who were there in 1971, the shock of seeing Faust’s eponymous debut LP remains starkly etched in the mind’s eye. You could see right…

As enthusiasts are aware, Kraütrock encompasses wildly disparate musical tendencies. But if you tend to the freak-out side and want the opposite of the amorphous ambience/mellifluous…

Classically trained guitarist Manuel Göttsching started his career under the name Ash Ra Tempel in 1970. The most shamelessly psychedelic of the Kraütrock bands, their…

Formed in 1967 as Agitation, this Berlin group was integral to the scene that also birthed Tangerine Dream. But unlike Tangerine Dream, they had to wait…

Formed in Cologne in July 1968, Can surfed the first wave of German innovators, with their debut album Monster Movie referencing Pink Floyd and Hendrix in the context of a radically…