5 - The Sound of Krautrock

Summary

In terms of musical style, the sizeable catalogue of music that falls under the label of Krautrock is as diverse as it is experimental. The difficulty in pinning down a specific ‘sound‘ for this diverse body of music can be traced to its roots in the period of cultural revival in the 1950s and 1960s. The chapter discusses how the desire to create a new German identity, distanced from the crimes of the Nazi present and freer from the influence of American culture, was reflected in this music: Krautrock musicians began to abandon the characteristics of both Anglo-American popular musics such as beat and rock ‘n’ roll, and the prevailing German style of the time, Schlager, endeavouring to create something entirely original. The chapter demonstrates how Krautrock was initially better defined by what it was not, rather than what it specifically was. However, these radically different approaches to newness shared certain characteristics. As the chapter argues, Krautrock musicians embraced innovative approaches to instrumentation, timbre, the voice, texture, and form, generating a new musical vocabulary that they could call their own.