34-421: Holger Schüring (24 March 1938 – 5 September 2017), known professionally as Holger Czukay ( / ˈ ʃ ʊ k aɪ / ), was a German musician best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can . Described as "successfully bridg[ing] the gap between pop and the avant-garde ", Czukay was also notable for having created early important examples of ambient music , for having explored " world music " well before
68-543: A popular music distinct from traditional German music and American pop. The period contributed to the development of ambient music and techno , and influenced subsequent genres such as post-punk , new-age music , and post-rock . Krautrock has been described as a broad genre encompassing varied approaches, but commonly drawing on psychedelia , avant-garde collage, electronic sounds, and rock music , while typically featuring "improvisation and hypnotic, minimalistic rhythms." Los Angeles Magazine summarized
102-612: A "genuine sense of awe and wonder." We were trying to put aside everything we had heard in rock 'n' roll, the three-chord pattern, the lyrics. We had the urge of saying something completely different. Core influences on these German artists included avant-garde composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and Terry Riley , and bands such as the Mothers of Invention , the Velvet Underground , the Beatles , and Pink Floyd . A significant influence
136-473: A considerable number of musicians, notably a series of albums with Jah Wobble and David Sylvian , two younger British musicians who shared his interest in blending pop music with experimental recording and sampling techniques. Other collaborators include U.N.K.L.E. , Brian Eno , Eurythmics , and German Neue Deutsche Welle band Trio . In 2009, after a problematic time with the record company that had been gradually re-releasing his albums on CD, Czukay began
170-466: A humorous umbrella-label for the diverse German scene, and although many such artists disliked the term, it is no longer considered controversial by German artists in the 21st century. Despite this, English-language authors remain critical of it. The movement was partly born out of the radical student protests of 1968 , as German youth rebelled against their country's legacy in World War II and sought
204-514: A new collaboration with the Claremont 56 record label, releasing vinyl-only remixes of tracks from earlier albums, as well as some new recordings. This approach changed Czukay's plans for his back catalogue, so that the original albums Der Osten ist Rot (1984), Rome Remains Rome (1987) and Moving Pictures (1993) are no longer being reissued (in the case of Moving Pictures , because the master tapes have degraded beyond repair). Instead, most of
238-540: A new popular culture. Dieter Moebius , of the bands Cluster and Harmonia , noted that "we were a lot of the times on the streets instead of studying. As young people we were not very proud to be German [...] we were all tired of listening to bad German music and imitations of American music. Something had to happen." The movement saw artists merge elements of varied genres such as psychedelic rock , avant-garde forms of electronic music , funk rhythm, jazz improvisation and "ethnic" music styles, typically reflecting
272-642: A police investigation. His death was eventually assumed to have been from natural causes. Krautrock Krautrock (also called kosmische Musik , German for "cosmic music" ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock , avant-garde composition, and electronic music , among other eclectic sources. Common elements included hypnotic rhythms, extended improvisation , musique concrète techniques, and early synthesizers , while
306-510: A succession of other musical styles and developments. Early contemporary enthusiasts outside Germany included Hawkwind and in particular Dave Brock who supposedly penned the sleeve notes for the British edition of Neu!'s first album. Faust's budget release The Faust Tapes has been cited as a formative teenage influence by several musicians growing up in the early 1970s such as Julian Cope , who has always cited krautrock as an influence, and wrote
340-552: Is a subjective British phenomenon", based on the way the music was received in the UK rather than on the actual West German music scene out of which it grew. For instance, while one of the main groups originally tagged as krautrock, Faust , recorded a seminal 12-minute track they titled " Krautrock ", they would later distance themselves from the term, saying: "When the English people started talking about krautrock, we thought they were just taking
374-471: Is also used as a German analogue to the English term " space rock ". The style was often instrumental and characterized by "spacy", ambient soundscapes. Artists used synthesizers such as the EMS VCS 3 and Moog Modular , as well as sound processing effects and tape-based approaches. They often rejected rock music conventions, and instead drew on "serious" electronic compositions. The term "kosmische Musik"
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#1733084951718408-431: The 1960s and early 1970s. The music was partially inspired by broad cultural developments such as the revolutionary 1968 German student movement , with many young people having both political and aesthetic concerns. Youth rebelled against both dominant American influence and conservative German entertainment such as schlager music , seeking to liberate themselves from Germany's Nazi legacy in World War II and create
442-521: The American and British groups' emphasis on jazz and classical elements in favor of "a droning, pulsating sound that owed more to the avant garde than to rock & roll." Some common musical features exhibited by krautrock artists include: Despite a common approach and generational attitude among artists, the New Statesman argues that "in truth, no two Krautrock acts sound remotely alike. Compare
476-611: The Beatles ' 1967 song " I Am the Walrus ", a psychedelic rock single with an unusual musical structure and blasts of AM radio noise. This opened his ears to music by rock experimentalists such as The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa . Czukay co-founded Can in 1968. He played bass guitar and undertook most of the recording and engineering for the group. During live performances Holger wore his signature white gloves using them while playing bass to protect his fingertips for tape editing, and also to absorb sweat. Rosko Gee , former bassist of
510-488: The British band Traffic , joined the band in 1977, with Czukay handling only tapes and sound effects on the album Saw Delight , his final LP with the group before departing for a solo career. Czukay had been sidelined due to creative disputes and his failure to progress as a bassist, admitting his shortcomings on the instrument which he had taken up "almost by default" in the early days of Can. After his departure from Can, Czukay recorded several albums. One of his trademarks
544-499: The UK, in April 1971. The music emerging in Germany was first covered extensively in three concurrent issues of the UK music paper New Musical Express in the month of December 1972, by journalist Ian MacDonald . Its musicians tended to reject the name "krautrock". This was also the case for "kosmische Musik". Musicologist Julian Cope , in his book Krautrocksampler , says "krautrock
578-426: The aural qualities of radio broadcasts (anticipating his use of shortwave radio broadcasts as musical elements) and became familiar with the rudiments of electrical repair and engineering. Czukay studied music under Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1963 to 1966 and then worked for a while as a music teacher. Initially Czukay had little interest in rock music , but this changed when his student Michael Karoli played him
612-593: The book Krautrocksampler on the subject. Krautrock was a significant influence on Simple Minds albums Real To Real Cacophony (1979) and Empires and Dance (1980), as well as on artists such as Brian Eno , Gary Numan and Ultravox . The genre also had a strong influence on David Bowie 's Station to Station (1976) and the experimentation it inspired led to his ' Berlin Trilogy '. Ash Ra Tempel 's first album, released in 1971, informed later krautrock music. Modern bands, such as Osees , King Gizzard &
646-459: The dreamy synthesiser washes of Tangerine Dream with the alien noise collages of Faust or the psychedelic funk of Can ." However, a common feature is the " motorik " beat: the 4/4 beat often used by drummers associated with krautrock, characterised by a kick drum -heavy, pulsating groove, that created a forward-flowing feel. The motorik beat was used by Can in the song " Mother Sky ", by Neu! on their debut album , and by Kraftwerk in
680-451: The genre as "American psychedelica meets icy Germanic detachment." Melody Maker described the style as "where the over-reaching ambition and untethered freakitude of late '60s acid rock is checked and galvanised by a proto-punk minimalism ... music of immense scale that miraculously avoided prog-rock 's bombastics.” AllMusic described it as expanding on the territory associated with art rock and progressive rock, but diverging from
714-400: The music generally moved away from the rhythm & blues roots and song structure found in traditional Anglo-American rock music . Prominent groups associated with the krautrock label included Neu! , Can , Faust , Tangerine Dream , Kraftwerk , Cluster , Ash Ra Tempel , Popol Vuh , Amon Düül II and Harmonia . The term "krautrock" was popularised by British music journalists as
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#1733084951718748-469: The new experimental directions that emerged in jazz during the 1960s and 1970s (mainly the free jazz pieces by Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler ). Moving away from the patterns of song structure and melody of much rock music in America and Britain, some in the movement were drawn to a more mechanical and electronic sound. Until around 1973, the word Deutsch-Rock ("German Rock") was used to refer to
782-528: The new groups from West Germany. Other names thrown around by the British and American music press were "Teutonic rock", "Überrock" and " Götterdämmer rock". West Germany's music press initially used Krautrock as a pejorative, but the term lost its stigma after the music gained success in Britain. The term derives from the ethnic slur " kraut ". "Kraut" in German can refer to herbs, weeds, and drugs. The term
816-513: The piss ... and when you hear the so-called 'krautrock renaissance', it makes me think everything we did was for nothing." Kosmische Musik ("cosmic music") is a term which came into regular use before "krautrock" and was preferred by some German artists who disliked the English label; today, it is often used synonymously with krautrock. More specifically, it may describe 1970s German electronic music which uses synthesizers and incorporates themes related to space or otherworldliness; it
850-548: The song " Autobahn " on their album of the same name , later being adopted by other krautrock bands. It has been widely used in many different styles of music beyond krautrock. According to XLR8R , the term krautrock is often used by critics to signify the "mesmerizing motorik rhythms pioneered by Can and Neu!", but contested that "they represent merely a tiny fraction of the music that emerged from Germany during krautrock's Golden Age". Krautrock emerged in West Germany during
884-423: The style as "cosmic rock" to signify that the music belonged in a rock idiom. German producer Conny Plank was a central figure in the kosmische sound, emphasizing texture, effects processing , and tape-based editing techniques. Plank oversaw kosmische recordings such as Kraftwerk 's Autobahn , Neu! 's Neu! 75 , and Cluster 's Zuckerzeit . Several of these artists would later distance themselves from
918-463: The term was coined, and for having been a pioneer of sampling . Czukay was born on 24 March 1938 in the Free City of Danzig (present-day Gdańsk , Poland), from which his family was expelled after World War II . Due to the turmoil of the war, Czukay's primary education was limited. One pivotal early experience, however, was working, when still a teenager, at a radio repair-shop, where he became fond of
952-653: The term. Other names for the style, and for sub-genres were "Berlin School" and "Dusseldorf School", both of which are recognised and actively contributed to by artists such as Node, Martin Sturtzer, Propaganda, Kraftwerk, Tannheuser and Fritz Mayr, from the 1980s through to the present day. The style would later lead to the development of new-age music , with which it shared several characteristics. It would also exert lasting influence on subsequent electronic music and avant-garde rock . Krautrock has proved to be highly influential on
986-560: The tracks are being remade and newly organized as limited edition vinyl releases. In 2018, it was announced that Czukay's work was being released in a box set , Cinema , including his solo works, collaborations, and unreleased material. It was released in March 2018. Holger Czukay was married for nearly thirty years to the German painter and singer Ursula Kloss (known professionally as Ursa Major, and later, as U-She), with whom he collaborated on numerous multimedia pieces. Ursula Schüring (as she
1020-464: Was called after marrying Holger Schüring under his real name) died on her 55th birthday (28 July 2017) after having been severely debilitated by illness for over a decade. On 5 September 2017, Czukay was found dead in his apartment, converted from Can's old studio in Weilerswist , near Cologne. The New York Times reported that he had died on the same day, but the cause of his death was the subject of
1054-428: Was coined by Edgar Froese and later used by record producer Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser as a marketing name for bands such as Ash Ra Tempel , Tangerine Dream, and Klaus Schulze . The following year, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser 's Ohr Records used the term when he released the compilation Kosmische Musik (1972) featuring tracks by Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel, and Popol Vuh . Kaiser eventually began referring to
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1088-466: Was originally used by Virgin records in 1972. Various sources claim that "krautrock" was originally a humorous term coined in the early 1970s, either by British disc jockey John Peel or by the UK music newspaper Melody Maker , in which experimental German bands found an early and enthusiastic following. The first use of the term however, was found in a full-page advertisement from Popo Music Management and Bacillus Records promoting German Rock in
1122-565: Was the use of shortwave radio sounds and his early pioneering of sampling , in those days involving the painstaking cutting and splicing of magnetic tapes . He would tape-record various sounds and snippets from shortwave and incorporate them into his compositions. He also used shortwave as a live, interactive musical instrument (such as on 1991's Radio Wave Surfer ), a method of composition he termed "radio painting". Czukay also stated "If you want to make something new, you shouldn't think too far beyond one certain idea". Czukay collaborated with
1156-591: Was the work of American minimalists such as Riley, Tony Conrad , and La Monte Young , as well as the late '60s albums of jazz musician Miles Davis , particularly his jazz fusion work on In a Silent Way (1969). The influence of Jimi Hendrix and James Brown on krautrock musicians was also notable. Some artists drew on ideas from 20th century classical music and musique concrète , particularly composer Stockhausen (with whom, for example, Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay of Can had previously studied), and from
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