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Kraftwerk - Autobahn
[1] Autobahn
[2] Kometenmelodie
1
[3] Kometenmelodie
2
[4] Mitternacht
[5] Morgenspaziergang
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Germany
brings us two great motorway related things - no speed limits
on their automobile related excursion shorteners, and this album.
By the looks
of the band, they’ve taken time out from selling used cars
to make the album, and a hell of a lot of time they’ve taken,
too - the initial track lasts for the best part of twenty three
minutes. When it finishes, you'll be a better person. You’ll
have experienced the warmth, the sweetness, the glow in which
Kraftwerk treat their songs. It’s so far removed from the
idioms of electronic music, and indeed Germany, that you might
think you’re senile, and are in fact listening to a small
gathering of robins. Unless you're reading this in the bird sanctuary,
you'll have to believe me that you're not.
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But of course,
you’ll need to be told what the album-titling song is. You
really do. It’s an electronic simulation of a motorway (Autobahn)
journey. Sounds boring. It isn’t. “Autobahn” is
the type of song that completely envelops you in its combustion
engined goodness – twenty three minutes turns into two. It
really is a musical experience of the spiritual kind. As for the
rest of the album, there’s another three songs worth of vocoder
experimentation, which rarely elevate themselves above a collection
of beeps, bleeps and possibly the odd sheep for effect, but never
do they reach what “Autobahn” does – that song,
nothing else, is what makes this album great. |
The
four other songs listed on the back cover are initially disappointing,
and to be honest, that disappointment probably won’t be dispelled
to any great end by the time you’ve finished with it. Even though
it all comes to forty minutes in total, you just can’t help but
think that another “Autobahn”-styled epic would make this
album a classic. But be aware, this electronic über music is the
future.
Alex
Tamosius
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