di nuovo sulla strada ma kerouac non lo trovi più Kraftwerk - Autobahn (1974) A-1. Autobahn 00:03 B-1. Kometenmelodie 1 (Comet Melody 1) 22:55 B-2. Kometenmelodie 2 (Comet Melody 2) 29:23 B-3. Mitternacht (Midnight) 35:17 B-4. Morgenspaziergang (Morning Walk) 39:06 Personnel Original album credits Ralf Hütter – vocals, electronics. Florian Schneider – vocals, electronics. Klaus Röder – violin, guitar. Wolfgang Flür – percussion. Konrad Conny Plank – sound engineer. Emil Schult – cover painting. Barbara Niemöller – Back cover photo. 1985 credits When the album was re-released in 1985 there was the following amendment : Klaus Röder – electric violin Mitternacht. 2009 credits The 2009 remaster contained further changes and additions: Ralf Hütter – voice, electronics, synthesizer, organ, piano, guitar, electronic drums, artwork reconstruction. Florian Schneider – voice, vocoder, electronics, synthesizer, flute, electronic drums. Wolfgang Flür – electronic drums Kometenmelodie 1–2. Klaus Röder – electric violin Mitternacht. Johann Zambryski – artwork reconstruction. Side one Autobahn (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Emil Schult) – 22:43 Side two Kometenmelodie 1 (Comet Melody 1) (Hütter, Schneider) – 6:26 (inspired by Comet Kohoutek) Kometenmelodie 2 (Comet Melody 2) (Hütter, Schneider) – 5:48 Mitternacht (Midnight) (Hütter, Schneider) – 3:43 Morgenspaziergang (Morning Walk) (Hütter, Schneider) – 4:04 Autobahn is the fourth studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released in November 1974. The 22-minute title track Autobahn was edited to 3:27 for single release and reached number 25 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 22 in the Australian chart, and performed even higher around Europe, including number 11 in the UK and number 12 in the Netherlands. This commercial success came after the band had released three experimental and purely instrumental albums. The single was believed to be Vertigo Records only ever international hit. Background[edit] Autobahn is not a completely electronic album, as violin, flute, and guitar are used along with synthesizers. The title track features both untreated and vocoded vocals; the remaining tracks are purely instrumental. Kraftwerk used a Minimoog, an ARP Odyssey, an EMS Synthi AKS and various devices of their own design and implementation, such as their famous electronic drums. The title track is intended to capture the feeling of driving on the Autobahn: from travelling through the landscape, the high-speed concentration on the fast lane, to tuning the car radio and the monotony of a long trip. It describes the A 555 from Köln to Bonn—the first Autobahn ever. It was built under the mayor Konrad Adenauer in 1929 to 1932 without any intersections. The remaining tracks have a two-part structure – an introduction followed by a main section – and are loosely based around a theme of the night, beginning with twin tracks Kometenmelodie (Comet Melody) 1 and 2, then an ominous-sounding Mitternacht (Midnight) and the final track, Morgenspaziergang (Morning Stroll). This last track begins as a dawn chorus bird-song effect created by the electronic instruments, with an extended conclusion that uses a repeating variation of the melodic phrase heard in the first instrumental section of Autobahn. The front cover of the original German album was painted by Emil Schult, a long-time collaborator of Ralf and Florian, who also co-wrote the lyrics to the song Autobahn. The version released in the UK on the Vertigo label in 1974 had a differently designed cover, produced by the label’s in-house marketing department. The rear cover of the original LP showed Hütter, Schneider, Röder and Emil Schult seated as if in the back of a car. Wolfgang Flür’s head was added to the group photo (superimposed over Emil Schult’s) when it was decided that he would stay as a permanent member of the band. However, for the 2009 remaster booklet this image has been replaced by the version originally photographed. Klaus Röder was not a member of the band for very long, and had left before the recording sessions were completed. Konrad Plank had reputedly played a large role in developing the Kraftwerk sound, and much of the recording and all of the mixing of the work took place at his studio in Cologne. Planks contribution to the sound was evident when comparing the album version of Kometenmelodie with the demo-quality single Kohoutek-Kometenmelodie, that had been recorded without his input. Flür had played with the band since late in 1973, first appearing with them on a Berlin TV performance to promote their Ralf und Florian album. On that show, he debuted the band’s custom-built electronic percussion pads, and these feature heavily on the Autobahn album. A newly remastered edition of the album was released by EMI Records, Mute Records and Astralwerks Records on CD and digital download in October/November 2009, with heavyweight vinyl editions released in November/December 2009. A quadraphonic mix was released on Q8 eight-track cartridge, possibly without the bands knowledge. On 6 February 2013 the group played the entire album at the first of their eight-night retrospectives at the Tate Modern in London. Recensione di Paolo Pontini (storiadellamusica) (5 stars) Alla fine del 1973 Ralf Hutter e Florian Schneider sono già due figure di culto in Germania: ex allievi di Stockhausen, esordiscono sotto la sigla Organisation nel 1970 con lalbum Tone Float. Cambiano nome in Kraftwerk e danno alle stampe tre album dai risultati incoraggianti come vendite (50/100.000 copie per ognuno) grazie ai quali guadagnano un discreto seguito locale, apparizioni tv, una solida reputazione di gruppo di culto. Decisi ad allargare in maniera stabile la line-up, Hutter e Schneider reclutano dapprima il percussionista Wolfgang Flur (già batterista in una band in cui militava Michael Rother, futuro Neu!) e, dopo un tentativo fallito con tal Klaus Roder, solo a session di Autobahn già iniziate subentra nel neonato Kling Klang studio di Dusseldorf Karl Bartos, studente di conservatorio in odor di esami finali, a completare così la storica formazione a quattro per i quindici anni doro a seguire. Con questo album Ralf e Florian decidono di abbandonare le elettro improvvisazioni del passato a beneficio di una disciplina ed autoregolamentazione musicale dai connotati fortemente mitteleuropei, schiudendo con questa mossa le porte dellelettro minimalismo pop al grande pubblico. Anche visivamente la band dà un taglio netto al passato, via capelli lunghi, barbe incolte e jeans, distaccarsi dal prototipo di pop rocker anglo-americano è esigenza primaria, nasce lalgida figura di superuomo mitteleuropeo. Lalbum esce nel novembre 1974 aperto dalla titletrack, suite di 22 minuti tutta sintetizzatori pulsanti e drum pad/ rhythm box assolutamente inedite, un sistema percussivo decisamente futuristico che i nostri si vedranno costretti a brevettare per evitare spiacevoli inconvenienti, una versione radio edit del brano sarà un piccolo successo da ambo i lati delloceano e consentirà loro di avventurarsi nel primo tour americano. Kometenmelodie si divide in due parti: la prima è pura synth kosmische music eterea, per viaggi mentali senza ritorno, la seconda più fruibile e decisamente pop. Con Mitternacht (mezzanotte) i toni si fanno cupi, spettrali, immobilismo sonoro per quattro minuti scarsi che sembrano descrivere i mutamenti della notte, Morgenspaziergang (passeggiata mattutina) conclude con un filo di luce un album che si rivelerà imprescindibile per la musica a seguire: dal Bowie berlinese ai Pet Shop Boys, dai Depeche Mode alla Yellow Magic Orchestra di Ryuichi Sakamoto, dagli Ultravox di John Foxx ai Devo, passando per i fuoriclasse Brian Eno, Manuel Gottsching e qualsiasi cosa in odor di techno pop, electro funk, dance, sino ad arrivare ai nostri giorni. Semplicemente sovrumano. Review by Med57 EMERITUS (sputnikmusic) (5 stars) Yknow, it really cant be emphasised enough just how important Kraftwerk are to electronica. As The Beatles were to rock, as Black Sabbath was to metal, these guys really pretty much are the original archetypal electronic band. Seriously. And extending the tortured analogies with other bands, if Pink Floyd had The Dark Side Of The Moon, and Led Zeppelin had IV, Kraftwerk had Autobahn. Unlike both of those 2 albums, however, Autobahn is also Kraftwerks best album, and therefore truly definitive for anyone who has never heard anything by the band before. In typical Kraftwerk fashion they also managed to completely confound expectations with this record. For a start, although this is actually their 4th album, their first 3 have all been deleted at the request of the band, meaning that they are now basically impossible to find, meaning that their first song now readily available is a true masterpiece. The title track of Autobahn is their Echoes, their Stairway To Heaven, their A Change Of Seasons; in other words, their legacy. (Seriously, Ill stop with the comparisons now). Weighing in at over 22 minutes long its an epic in every sense of the word, and somehow completely encapsulates the feeling of a road trip. With stuttering electronica interspersed with sounds of horns blaring, wind rushing by and the simple lyrics of fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn, this sounds like it could be a truly boring piece of music, and yet its simply near perfect in its brilliance. As is well known Kraftwerk would later toy with the boundaries between machine and man on their later albums, but theres something near inhuman about how artificially brilliant this song is. You know whats even more surprising about the song though? The fact that it was a hit single in both the USA and Europe. Somehow it was cut down to approximately 3 minutes in length, really catapulting Kraftwerk to fame. This was possibly helped by the fact that the lyrics sound very much like Fun fun fun on the Autobahn, turning one of the greatest electronic songs of all time into a sing-along for children in English-speaking countries. While it may not have been intentional, its undeniably effective. While the title track has become completely ubiquitous with the album, band and genre, it would be grossly inaccurate to paint this album as merely a one song wonder. Autobahn is followed by Kometenmelodie 1 and Kometenmelodie 2, forming another 12 minute plus suite of music. Part 1 of this is hugely eerie, with a chilling synthesised effect moving over a thudding bass and slightly discordant collection of sounds. This is possibly the most overtly experimental song on the album, as well as being strangely soothing. Although Kraftwerk may sometimes be criticised for making music which is hard to relate to, this song definitely does not fall into this category, evoking a wide range of emotions in the listener in its 6 1/2 minute running time. Part 2 of the song is far warmer, initially carrying on from where Part 1 left off before developing into a truly majestic song over a melody that just about every band would sell their guitarist to be capable of writing. As with so much of Kraftwerks work the layering on this track really is quite exceptional with the combination of many instrumental effects and sounds forming a mighty wall of noise in which every individual aspect of the music is still very discernible. By the standards of this album, Mitternacht is something of a oddity, being a very doomy, claustrophobic song. Now I think of it, you know what this reminds me of? It should be the soundtrack to a horror film set in a disued nuclear power plant, with the disproportionately hunched over bad guy creeping around while gas is ejected from vents in the walls and water drips down from the roof. Thats the sort of thing that were talking about here. Just when we seem set for another longer song it ends very suddenly, just as the listener is really getting into the track-possibly the only near-significant criticism that I have of this album. The final track on this album, Morgenspaziergang is completely different from Mitternacht, opening with a Mini Moog (giving the effect of bird whistles), the song builds with flutes, keyboards and bass, all belying the bands reputation for producing pure electronica, in one of the most natural songs that theyd ever produce. This track clearly shows the diversity of the album, and indeed of much of Kraftwerks material as a whole, sounding completely different from anything that has appeared thus far, and ending the album on a strong note. Along with Trans-Europe Express this is one Kraftwerks truly great albums, providing a blueprint for all future electronic based bands to examine. As a band Kraftwerk play the role of both John The Baptist and Jesus; preparing the way for no-one other than themselves to follow, constantly subtly experimenting with their sound, and although they may have recorded their best album at the start (well, now anyway) of their recording career, this in no way acts as a criticism of their subsequent material. A true classic of the genre, and of music as a whole, this must get 5/5. youtube/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ETQwCZU87GI
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 10:42:59 +0000