WELCOME TO KLANG MUSIK
Klang Musik is a website that plays homeage to German Electronic Music pioneers, Kraftwerk, with a series of cover version releases, of music originally recorded by them, coming soon is a 3 track single by UK electronic music artist, KRAFTman, he has recorded a 7 inch version of "The Robots", a taster for his forthcoming album release, "The Man Machine (Recreated)", a complete recording of Kraftwerk's 1978 album, "The Man Machine".
A further Kraftwerk covers album is also in the works, called "Electrique Fabrique", this will feature recordings from across various Kraftwerk albums.
As well as reading about Kraftwerk on this website, you can also read about 2 bands that have influenced KRAFTman, Metroland and 808 Dot Pop.
The Man Machine Recreated
Kraftman has been a long time fan of Kraftwerk and shares his memories about their music and his journey making the album.......
Kraftwerk first caught my attention In 1975, when their single "Autobahn" was in the Top 20, in the UK singles chart, I remember thinking that it was like music recorded from another planet, unique and completely different from anything else that was in the charts around that time. It would be another 4 years before I came across them again, in 1979, Simon Bateswas interviewing Gary Numan on his BBC Radio 1 show and Gary selected a couple of tracks that were played on the show, “Slow Motion” by Ultravox (then fronted by John Foxx), from an album called “Systems Of Romance” and “Neon Lights” by Kraftwerk, from an album called “The Man Machine”. I was blown away by both tracks, so much so, the next day I bought both albums.
When I played “The Man Machine” album for the first time, I was staggered at how futuristic it was, they were singing about Robots and Space, all very futuristic, how on earth they managed to produce such a ground breaking album in 1978, still baffles me to this day.
It didn’t take me long to buy their previous albums, “Autobahn”, “Radio-Activity” and “Trans Europe Express”, all incredible albums, it is amazing to think they were building their own drum machines and creating sequencers, years before anybody else, indeed, Drum Machines hadn’t even been invented back then!
Kraftwerk have always been one step ahead where music technology is concerned.
I have recorded several Kraftwerk cover versions and continue to do so to this very day and had initially, recorded 3 tracks from “The Man Machine” album, “The Model”, “Neon Lights” and “The Man Machine” and then decided to do a cover of “The Robots”, 3 previous attempts at doing that song were aborted, finally I recorded a version I was happy with, it was at that point I seriously thought about recording the other two songs from the album “Spacelab” and “Metropolis”.
So what I have recorded, is my own interpretation of the entire Kraftwerk album “The Man Machine”, some tracks have my own arrangements, whilst on others, I have tried to replicate the versions recorded by Kraftwerk.
I am delighted to have put together these recordings, especially as “The Man Machine” album, was the first Kraftwerk record I bought, never in my wildest dreams, back in 1979, did i ever think I would record my own version of the album!
KRAFTman's 20 Essential Kraftwerk Tracks
Here are my 20 favourite Kraftwerk tracks of all time, covering all 8 of their key album releases
Autobahn (Radio Edit)
Kometenmelodie 2
Ohm Sweet Ohm
Europe Endless
Showroom Dummies
Trans Europe Express
Neon Lights
The Model
Computer World
Computer Love
Pocket Calculator
It's More Fun To Compute
Music Non Stop (7 Inch Version)
Sex Object
The Telephone Call
Tour De France
The Robots (The Mix Version)
Radioactivity (The Mix Version)
Aerodynamik
Elektro Kardiogramm