# Krautrock/Kosmische - your favourite albums



## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

I have been digging out some classic Krautrock (or more PC Kosmische) Music. It is a genre that embraces both the melodic miniature and the almost symphonic and the best artists have a complete mastery of texture. I don't know if the artists themselves were heavily influenced by classical music but the ebb and flow of the best albums I think must appeal to classical fans?

My recent favourites include the following, what are your favs?

1) Can - Future Day
A majestic drifting shimmering masterwork. A mix of ambient, jazz and world music.

2) Neu 75
A cool blend of driving rhythms and beautiful lullaby like melodies of side one explodes into the punk riffing of side 2.

3) Faust - Clear
Sounds like a jam in a German beer hall, takes a while to get a handle on but strangely perfect in it's conception. 

4) Tangerine Dream - Zeit
Reminds me of Bruckner and Debussy, cold ashes of cello and synth into the depths of space!

5) Harmonia - Deluxe
Supergroup made up of Cluster and Neu, charming bucolic music with elements of Can and Neu and a song about Gollum.

6) Cluster - Sowiesoso
Ambient classic, quirky melodies and snatches of world music. Sounds like a bubbling stream of music.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harmonia - Musik von Harmonia
Popol Vuh - Hosianna mantra
Faust - Faust IV
Can - Tago mago
Klaus Schulze - Cyborg
Conrad Schnitzler - Gelb
Neu! - Neu!


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I'm more into the electronic side of things and not so much rock. 
I like more music of the guys below (mostly from the 70s), but this is cut down to my very favorites: 

Klaus Schulze - Moondawn, Mirage
Tangerine Dream - Rubycon, Ricochet
Ash Ra Tempel/Manuel Göttsching - New Age of Earth, E2 / E4

Favorite tracks are Floating, Crystal Lake, Rubycon Part 1, Ricochet Part 2. That is the height of the Berlin School.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

This is the music I came of age with and I attribute it with setting the stage for an appreciation of and preference for instrumental music, particularly western classical instrumental music.


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

when we were kids a friend of mine somehow came up with two Michael Rother albums-Flammende Herzen-around the same time (if memory serves me right) Can's 'Landed' (Hunters and Collectors!) was a big 'play' and Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express seemed to represent the past.the future and everything in between!


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## Aleksandar (Feb 21, 2015)

Can - Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi & Future Days
Gong - You (well they're French, but it's that type of sound)


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Grobschnitt - Rockpommel's Land
Klaus Schulze - Mirage
Rigoni & Schoenherz - Victor


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

Just enjoying Popul Vuh's first LP Affenstunde. Very minimal and despite the synths very organic.






Also Between - Dharana, similar ethnic and ambient vibe but four years later.






And Embryo - We Keep On, jazzy jamming with world music elements.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

For those who enjoy 1970s Berlin School sequencer music, you can't go wrong with Redshift. Retro done right!
https://redshift2.bandcamp.com/

Their sound is just overwhelming at times. Put on headphones and turn up the volume.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

DeepR said:


> For those who enjoy 1970s Berlin School sequencer music, you can't go wrong with Redshift. Retro done right!
> https://redshift2.bandcamp.com/
> 
> Their sound is just overwhelming at times. Put on headphones and turn up the volume.


I'm enjoying this
Very much an early TD type of sound


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

You may want to look up *Agitation Free*, a very interesting kraut band.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

cwarchc said:


> I'm enjoying this
> Very much an early TD type of sound


Except in much higher quality. They use mostly analog synthesizers including a big Moog modular.


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## Leggiero (Oct 13, 2016)

My ramblings-on about Hunters and Collectors' Krautrock-indebted _Run Run Run_ can be found here: https://leggierosite.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/pub-rock-run-run-run/


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

All the stuff on the Blue Sky label is good. After the Heat, Cluster and Eno, solo albums by Roedelius and Moebius, especially if Eno is part of it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If you liked Redshift, you should hear Michael Hoenig, Departure from the Northern Wasteland.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Then, going way back, we have Jade Warrior on Island:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)




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## Guest (Feb 5, 2018)

Amon Düül II - Phallus Dei






Dark and seedy lyrics, fine music.


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## The Deacon (Jan 14, 2018)

GILLES ZEITSCHIFF lp is one I like.
I have a copy and you do not. This is so because I am a Prog Masterman and you, a person of no consequence.

This lp moves fast in documentary-style. In fact it is a sampler lp, an audio guide to the Cosmic Couriers. It has remixed bits of the Cosmic Jokers lp,the more rock-inclined, Galacic Supermarket lp and Planeten Sit-In. There is a wee bit of non-lp Schultze also.The tracks flow one onto each other & narration (how Leary came to "Join-In" the Berlin Cosmic funhouse.

(Just to confuse the picture a bit, you also have at the samer time and label, the Sci-Fi Party" lp which samples Gilles Zeitschiff !!!, having as well extracts from Ash Ra Temple "Starring Rosi" and Wallenstein "Cosmic Century".


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

I dig "Cosmic Jokers" and "Galactic Supermarket" out every once in a while. They're a little unfocused (there was allegedly a vast amount of LSD consumption involved) but both albums have their moments considering they're really just improvised jams, although edited together from some that went on for literally hours. 

Vinyl copies of "Gilles Zeitschiff" are very rare though, largely due to the album's discontinuation and withdrawal after Klaus Schulze sued Rolf-Urich Kaiser for releasing what he and the other participants (including Manuel Göttsching) thought were private studio jams without their permission. 

Cutting up and "remixing" bits from already released material to squeeze some more D Marks out of the record-buying public and calling it "Gilles Zeitschiff" (after Kaiser's girlfriend, who whispered some inanities over the top in post-production in a desperate attempt to assert some kind of artistic rights over it) was the final straw as far as Schulze was concerned.


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## The Deacon (Jan 14, 2018)

Kaiser was a real work.
No one seems to know what happened to him in the end - or his "starmaiden". They fell off the face of the earth, loikes.


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## The Deacon (Jan 14, 2018)

I wonder if Kaiser would have gotten on with Muller aka Miller (of psychexploitation fame).


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2018)

Nine Days Wonder


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## oxforddickie (Feb 11, 2018)

This is one area that i've always loved, a day rarely goes by without at least one piece 'European Rock' emanating from my quad set-up. And that's one of the great things about much of the European output in the early to middle 1970's, it was mixed and released in Quadraphonic sound.

From Tangerine Dreams trio of space music, Nine Days Wonder, Omega, Dzyan, Karthago (and what a great album 'Rock 'n Roll Testament' is), well the list goes on. Once decoded these albums sound so much better than just in plain old stereo (sorry for continually banging on about Quad, but....)

It's all a wonderful slice of European music history. I do actually listen to stereo as well, Klaus Schulze is very high on the list, as is the Dutch band 'Earth & Fire'


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I was born too late to having grown up with this music. I discovered Krautrock later through youtube and like several albums. For example here are some that I have stored in my favorites. 
*Siddhartha - Weltschmerz 1975
Erlkoenig - Erlkoenig 1973
Amon Düül II - Yeti (1970)
Ejwuusl Wessahqqan - 1975 *


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## BHKraft (Dec 25, 2018)

*My Favorite Krautrock Albums*


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

All the Krautrock you'll ever need:

*CAN*


Monster Movie
Soundtracks 
Tago Mago 
Ege Bamyasi 
Future Days 
Soon Over Babaluma

I also got myself a copy of this box set, which is EXCELLENT.


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

I think _Zeit_ by Tangerine Dream is my favourite Krautrock album. Several albums by Far East Family Band come second to that.


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## oxforddickie (Feb 11, 2018)

Vronsky said:


> I think _Zeit_ by Tangerine Dream is my favourite Krautrock album. Several albums by Far East Family Band come second to that.


Of the three early albums, I had the biggest problem with Zeit, seeming flat with no real movement, that was until I decoded it (which is obviously the way it was meant to be heard) and heard what was heard when it was being mixed.

Unfortunately, like some other albums, listening to it in stereo doesn't do the album justice.


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

oxforddickie said:


> Of the three early albums, I had the biggest problem with Zeit, seeming flat with no real movement, that was until I decoded it (which is obviously the way it was meant to be heard) and heard what was heard when it was being mixed.
> 
> Unfortunately, like some other albums, listening to it in stereo doesn't do the album justice.


I haven't heard _Alpha Centauri_ of the first three albums, only _Zeit_ and _Electronic Meditation_. I like _Electronic Meditation_ but _Zeit_ is much better in my opinion. Ligeti said in one interview that he tries to implement something metaphysical in his music, that's how I experience _Zeit_ (maybe I'm overreaching, I don't know).

I don't like much of the later stuff by TD, it seems to me they're regressing/repeating the same material over and over.


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## oxforddickie (Feb 11, 2018)

I do enjoy Alpha Centauri and Atem, but I do struggle with Electronic Meditation.

It's fair to say that in amongst the massive TD catologue there is a large amount of repeating/borrowing from previous material but careful searching shows the occasional spark of inspiration that first surfaced in the early albums.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I will always have a weakness for this music.

Klaus Schulze - Friedrich Nietzsche (1978)
One of the greatest tracks, has a very organic quality to it. I don't care much for the rest of the "X" album.






Tangerine Dream - Tangram Set 1 (1980)
Very fun piece. Especially 3:00 - 4:30, that's my favorite part.






Redshift - Redshift (1996)
Obviously inspired by Tangerine Dream's Rubycon. Terrific sequence @ 10:15.


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