It is certainly not appropriate to dismiss Krautrock as a nerdy fringe movement for freaks and oddballs – the overall cultural influence was too great. ROLLING STONE provides an overview of the best bands in this groundbreaking genre.
Agitation Free
Experimental band from Berlin that even went on a Middle East tour for the Goethe Institute in 1972. Disbanded in the mid-seventies, reformed in the late nineties.
Amon Düül II
The prototype of the anarchic Krautrock collective, founded near Munich in 1967. Were also active abroad, but the big breakthrough never came.
Ash Ra Temple
Despite the name, they are not raga rockers from Bollywood, but innovative pro rockers from Berlin. Later they increasingly relied on psychedelic and electronic sounds.
Birth Control
They gave the world the disco hit “Gamma Ray”: a solid Krautrock veteran from Berlin, which has been active in countless line-ups since 1968.
Can
What the Cologne band produced from 1968 was absolutely groundbreaking: intelligently staged, rhythmically complex avant-garde rock. Extremely influential to this day.
Clusters
Avant-garde incubator for upcoming Krautrock talents, installed in Berlin in 1969 by Conrad Schnitzler, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius.
Eloy
Opulent fantasy prog rock with English lyrics, often despised by critics, but loved by audiences. Eloy were founded in Hanover in 1969.
embryo
Hippie culture meets jazz rock meets world music: the people of Munich are the only true traveling musicians of the Krautrock era, which can be seen in the film “Vagabundenkarawane”.
fist
Rock music, broken down into its components and staged with illustrious instruments. Faust, founded in Hamburg in 1970, are the pioneers of industrial music.
Flea De Cologne
Founded in 1966 as a political cabaret, the Cologne group blossomed into a rocking agitation platform: their album “Fließbandbabies Beat-Show” (1970) is considered legendary.
Frumpy
While others might act politically and progressively, from 1969 onwards Frumpy in Hamburg simply played honest soul rock. Brilliant: exceptional singer Inga Rumpf.
Rough cut
Formed in Hagen in 1970, the band cultivated an elaborately staged rock theater on stage. In 1977, heavily innovative: the concept album “Rockpommels Land”.
Guru Guru
The anarcho-jazz rockers from the Odenwald: A Krautrock institution that repeatedly broke new ground with long, rhythmically exciting improvisations.
Harmony
Hybrid from the bands NEW! and clusters. The groundbreaking work “De Luxe” was created in his own studio in the Weserbergland in 1975. Brian Eno was also fascinated.
Hoelderlin
The proven aesthetes among the Krautrockers formed in Wuppertal in 1970: German romanticism between psychedelic folk and prog rock.
Their children
Folk-blues-rock-psychedelic with politically committed lyrics: created in Nuremberg in 1968, your children remained an eternal insider tip despite ambitious albums.
Jane
Krautrock, English-speaking: Born in Hanover in 1970, Jane rocked quite hard and down-to-earth throughout her life – and quite successfully at that.
Kraan
The pure joy of playing or the export hit from Ulm: Kraan’s high-class descents with their jazzy and funky undertones were even appreciated in the USA.
power plant
The Düsseldorfers put Germany on the international pop map with “Autobahn”. Without them many things would be different. Like electronic music.
La Düsseldorf
From the duo NEW! emerged, but commercially much more successful: enormously progressive synth avant-garde pop that was even played on the radio.
Miss Beastly
Herfords Finest: free-form, experimental acid jazz rock, born in 1968. Four albums were released by 1978, then it was over. Others probably earned the big money.
NEW!
Klaus Dinger’s controlled drumming, Michael Rother’s meandering guitar tracks: that’s all the Düsseldorfers needed to make rock history.
Novalis
We are the country of poets and thinkers: Novalis from Hamburg rely on romantic lyrics and baroque sounds. Kitsch for some, cult for others.
Ougenweide
Minnesang, electrically amplified: German medieval rock begins in Hamburg in 1970. The well-deserved folk rock musicians are still active today.
Popol Vuh
Founded in Munich in 1970 by Florian Fricke, they were best known for their soundtracks for Werner Herzog: synth ambient with a New Age touch.
Klaus Schulze
The Berlin electro lone warrior was already eliciting spherical sounds from the then highly complex Moog synthesizers in the early 1970s. A pioneer of ambient.
Tangerine Dream
Edgar Froese invented the band, which is still active today, in Berlin in 1967: The navigation device for all cosmic couriers was nominated several times for Grammys.
Clay stones shards
Without their music, squatting was only half as much fun: Germany’s most prominent political rock band, founded in Berlin in 1970.