One of the very few memories I have of being in the Vancouver Children’s Bach Choir is the conductor, Mr. Pullan, saying that the beauty of Mozart is in his simplicity. His music unfolds so naturally it’s just instinct to love it. This is the same case with Kraftwerk their music is perfectly simple and simply perfect. Minimum-Maximum, the new double-CD which features tracks from their thirty-odd year history, performed during their 2004 world tour, demonstrates this in the most unadorned glory possible.
The tracks don’t seem to be in any particular order, least of all chronological. But it is apparent which are old and which are new, even if you aren’t a fanatic. Kraftwerk (German for ‘power plant) was fixated on technology and its effect on society. The first albums’ whimsical songs and mostly analogue equipment show a tempered and awed embrace of computerized life. Later on in life their music becomes more playful and carefree as they are no longer cautious, let alone intimidated.
The very first song on Minimum-Maximumis The Man-Machine. The intro, with the vocoder, just pulls you right into Kraftwerk’s world and shows you exactly what you’re in for. This live version doesn’t deviate from the original. Hearing it always fills me with wonder to how I would have felt if I had heard this as a young adult in 1978. Same with The Model. It is definitely a song and not a track but then there are these sounds; what did people think when they heard these sounds? It’s obvious how Kraftwerk felt about technology but how about the plebs? Nowadays we hear beeps and bleeps emitted from all the appliances and machines that are in our lives but back in the late ’70s there would have been ultra few.
One of the crowning glories of the ’70s was the pocket calculator and that’s my fave track on the CD. There is also a Japanese version,Dentaku. The song in English is so cute and bouncy but in Japanese it’s way kawaii because you hear the audience singing along. I’d kill for some of that footage.
If you ever meet an extraterrestrial I think you should introduce it to both Mozart and Kraftwerk (and maybe Johnny Cash). They are wonderful examples of the aural beauty this civilization has created amongst all the noise it has produced as well.
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