Fernando Abrantes - Robot Emotions

This is, by appearance at least, a short teaser for "Robot Emotions", a solo project of former Kraftwerk member and portugese citizen Fernando Abrantes. Due out in 2011 on CD and DVD. Could be absolutely anything, but it might be worth checking out.

A Very Kraftwerk Summer

Published late last year, Christopher Hutsul's "A Very Kraftwerk Summer" (Koyama Press) is a tiny little fictional story of a summer spent with Kraftwerk. We follow Geoffrey, a kid hanging out with Kraftwerk - getting haircuts, setting off firecrackers, and going to the movies throwing popcorn at Devo, sitting in front of them.

It's a beautiful little comic book, smaller in size than a typical cd case, with a front cover handprinted on japanese wood veneer paper. And it's "in full color", which in Kraftwerk terms - of course - means red and black only.

Related posts:

Kraftwerk comics

Waaalking!

DAF in Arvika, Sweden 2009

Last year, Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft released a compilation album and decided to play a few shows to support it. I attended one of these shows, in Arvika, Sweden. DAF performed live, with everything on cd-r except the drums (played by Robert Görl) and the vocals (Gabi Delgado-Lopez), and it was surprisingly excellent.

A few days ago, approximately 30 minutes from this brilliantly minimalistic DAF show was broadcast by Swedish radio SR/p3. As they tend to take down the material from the web after a month or so, and as someone has been kind enough to upload a recording of the broadcast to the web, here it is:

Setlist:

1. Verschwende deine Jugend
2. Der Mussolini
3. Sato-Sato
4. Alle gegen Alle
5. Nacht Arbeit
6. Die Lüge
7. Als wär's das letzte Mal
8. Der Räuber und der Prinz

Images borrowed from Rockfoto.

Recommended reading - Disco Rough

From Australia comes Disco Rough, a fanzine whose first issue focuses completely on pioneering Neue Deutsche Welle label ZickZack Records. The fanzine, published late last year, contains interviews with Wolfgang Müller from Die Tödliche Doris, FM Einheit, formerly of Einstürzende Neubauten, Thomas Meinecke from Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle, Holger Hiller as well as label owner Alfred Hilsberg.

Let's hope for a second issue documenting Ata Tak. Or Cassetten Combinat. Or Kosmische Musik, perhaps. But Ata Tak first please.

Unboxing Der Katalog

Sehr Gut Kommt Sehr Gut

Here a release that I guess has confused a music lover or two over the years.

By appearance, this is a compilation featuring tracks by some of the greatest german electronic/ndw bands from 1980 and around. There's a Mittagspause track, and songs by Der Plan, Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft, Kraftwerk and others. But no, it's all one man's work, a man with - as it appears - tons of studio time. That man is Xao Seffcheque (whom we have previously mentioned here). And his "Sehr gut kommt sehr gut" is basically a critical parody of the german hits compilations of the time.

Seffcheque has mixed his own, very well performed, impersonations of more or less know bands with some made up artists and his own, real project Xao & Die Pest, who'se "Fortschrittsträume" here basically is some kind of funky new wave/ska interpretation of DAF's "Kebab-träume" (or it's predecessors, Mittagspause's and Fehlfarben's "Militürk", perhaps), with "Wir sind die Türken von morgen" (we are the turks of tomorrow) replaced by "Wir sind die hippies von morgen" (we are the hippies of tomorrow). And there are more musical references. Die Lemminge's "Why we Hate The Residents" is more or less a weird version of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby". And the same goes for fake band Not Mean Themselves' "Wrong Colours". "Eleanor Rigby" again.

When I got the album a few years ago, it took me a while to locate the fake Kraftwerk songs, "Stalagmit" 1-12. They are listed as being the last songs on each side, but there's just nothing there. But when listening through the album, I noticed notice some short beeps or sweeps between each song - lasting about a second or two each. Well, it turns out these short signals are the "Kraftwerk" contributions. Excellent.

Tracklist, A-side:

1 Die Geldschweine - Sehr gut kommt sehr gut

2 Xao + Die Pest - Fortschrittsträume

3 Vielleichtors - Bring deinen körper auf die party

4 Mittagspause - Es hat keine disco hier

5 Sternhagel - King Kong

6 Not Mean Themselves - Wrong Colours

7 Kraftwerk - Stalagmit 1-5

B-side:

1 The Wirtschaftswunder - Hinweise zum neuen klang

2 Der Plan - Fehlplan (Wir sind so müde)

3 Siluetes 61 - Mannesmann

4 Die Lemminge - Why we hate the Residents

5 Die Nachdenklichen Wehrpflichtigen - Ist Free-Jazz Heilbar?

6 Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft - Sample & Hold

7 Residenz - Alles

8 Der KFC - Endlösung

9 O.R.a.V. - Punk Supermarkt

10 Kraftwerk - Stalagmit 6-12

Xao Seffcheque - "Der Plan - Fehlplan (wir sind so müde)":

Xao Seffcheque - "Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft - Sample & Hold":

Techno Pop, House Phone

As we all know by now, Kraftwerk's Electric Cafe will have it's name changed to Techno Pop when re-released in october this year, as part of The Catalogue. If you don't know why, read the Wikipedia article on the subject. What we didn't know already, is that the tracklisting will also change slightly.

The tracklist for the original Electric Cafe edition looks like this:

1. Boing Boom Tschak (2:58)
2. Techno Pop (7:41)
3. Musique Non Stop (5:44)
4. The Telephone Call (8:03)
5. Sex Object (6:51)
6. Electric Cafe (4:17)

But in the tracklisting for the upcoming Techno Pop release, the tracklist contains an additional song:

1. Boing Boom Tschak
2. Techno Pop
3. Musique Non Stop
4. The Telephone Call
5. House Phone
6. Sex Object
7. Electric Café

The addition, "House Phone", is most likely the remix of "The Telephone Call", engineered by François Kevorkian, that was originally included on the 12" version of "The Telephone Call" single in 1986. My personal guess is that "The Telephone Call" will blend seamlessly into "House Phone", as that is the way Kraftwerk tend to do it. My guess is also, even though I strongly object to the changing of movies and records after they have been released (hello Star Wars), that this might be quite nice.

House Phone can be heard here, courtesy of YouTube.