Council Meeting Memo #028

Kraftwerk: Remixes (Parlophone, Compilation)

Why?

I ask as a lifelong Kraftwerk fanboy starting at age 8 when ‘Autobahn’ was released, so I’m invested in the question. I love and own the Catalogue 3D DVD and CD boxes (the sound is amazing and it’s very funny that the ‘live’ versions of the albums are even shorter than the originals — perhaps after ‘Minimum Maximum’ it should have been called ‘Less Is More’). I’m not going to try to persuade anyone that the 3-D project is essential because it isn’t, but these remixes are something else again. I’ve relistened to them so you don’t have to — and I had to skip through quite a few of them to avoid groaning in pain. This compilation was released digitally in 2020, but it’s now coming out on vinyl. Somehow the physical product makes things that much worse by being less ignorable.

Let’s start with the good stuff which, inevitably, is Kraftwerk’s own Kling Klang mixes: ‘Non Stop’ is the most interesting thing here and sounds like something rescued from the shelved ‘Technicolor’ album, the two ‘Robotronik’ and ‘Robotnik’ versions of ‘The Robots’ and the gorgeous ‘Expo 2000’ versions, though one of the remixes is missing sadly.

The rest? Walk on, there’s nothing to see here, really. They’re either unnecessary / uninteresting (the ‘Home Computer’ single edit, the Orbit and Kervorkian remixes of ‘Radioactivity’), disappointing / awful (with the exception of the ‘UR Thought 3 Mix’, the various UR / Detroit remixes, I guess a version of the supergroup syndrome) or travesties (Hot.Chip — I repeat Hot.Chip).

If you want to hear really great interpretations of Kraftwerk, try ‘A Man’ by Yasmine Hamdan (Y.A.S.), The Balanescu Quartet’s beautiful string quartet renditions, The Pan Machine’s steel pan covers or Señor Coconut’s brilliant ‘El Baile Aleman’.

We were also moved to think of what artists really should have been invited to interpret Kraftwerk’s ouevre, so please close your eyes and imagine the following:

1. The Robots: Gescom
2. Uraniam: Matmos
3. Pocket Calculator: Afrodeutsche
4. Spacelab: Sohrab
5. Trans Europe Express: Sote
6. The Model: Eliane Radigue
7. Radioactivity: Chris Watson
8. Ohm Sweet Ohm: Kevin Drumm
9. Autobahn: Ambiq
10. Neon Lights: FUJI||||||||||TA
11. Home Computer: T++
12. Expo 2000: Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer (produced by Manfred Eicher)
13. Titanium: Jlin
14. Musik Non Stop: Mala
15. The Man Machine: Mark Fell
16. Computer Love: Rhythm & Sound featuring Paul St. Hilaire