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Lithium Records is proud to present the German band that predated electro, house, ambient, and techno by more than two decades.

KRAFTWERK© is playing in Skopje on 16 June 2005 at the Ice Skating venue (Skopsko Lizgaliste, Kale). The band is coming with their backline and complete audio equipment, and the show will last about two hours. There will be no support act or after DJ party at this event.

Tickets can be purchased at 'Jugoton' Records, prices differ on the following dates:

29.05 - 15.06 = 650 den
16.06 = 700 den

Biography

Kraftwerk (German for "power plant") is a German avant-garde electro-pop group from Düsseldorf that contributed much to the development of, and interest in, electronic music, widely regarded as the godfathers of electronic pop music. The techniques that they introduced and the equipment that they developed are now common place in modern music. Today many popular Techno DJs refer to them as one of their most important influences.

Kraftwerk's lyrics dealt with postwar European urban life and technology-travelling by car on the Autobahn, travelling by train, using home computers and the like. The lyrics are usually very minimal, but reveal both an innocent celebration of, and a knowing caution about the modern world, as well as playing an integral role in the rhythmic structure of the songs. Many of Kraftwerk's songs express the paradoxical nature of modern urban life -- a strong sense of alienation existing side by side with a celebration of the joys of modern technology.

The original members were Ralf Hutter (b. 1946, Krefeld, Ger.) and Florian Schneider (b. 1947, Dusseldorf).

Hutter and Schneider met while studying classical music at Dusseldorf Conservatory in the late 1960s, and their early work with a five-piece band called the Organisation showed the influence of the German keyboard band Tangerine Dream. Adopting the name Kraftwerk ("power plant"), Hutter, Schneider, and a series of collaborators forged an austere sound and image as part of a small but highly influential cult of German bands who experimented with electronic instruments long before it was fashionable. The movement, dubbed "Krautrock" by British journalists, also included innovative bands such as Can, Faust, and Neu!, but Kraftwerk became the best known.

The foundation for Kraftwerk's music was the sounds of everyday life, a concept first fully realized on the 22-minute title track of the Autobahn album (1974). Repetitious, monotonous, lulling, and entrancing, "Autobahn" became an unlikely hit in Europe and the United States (where it was played on commercial radio stations in severely edited form). Subsequent albums explored such subjects as radios and trains with a combination of childlike wonder and cold objectivity. The band revolutionized ideas about how a "rock" tour should look and sound by appearing in the United States in the guise of identical mannequins who performed their music exclusively on keyboards. The title of their album The Man-Machine (1978) epitomized the concept. Although the band recorded rarely in the 1980s and '90s and virtually stopped touring, its music was a huge influence on New York hip-hop, particularly Afrika Bambaataa's hit "Planet Rock"; Detroit techno dance music; Neil Young's album Trans (1983); the collaborations between David Bowie and Brian Eno; and the synth-pop of Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, and countless others.
....Greg Kot

The followers of Kraftwerk's music are many, in fact everybody in the electronica scene should pay their respect to Kraftwerk. There's of course some people who give props to them whenever they can, but there's also the ones that don't want to admit the genious of Kraftwerk. In the early days people like David Bowie & Iggy Pop was the ones that acknowledged their music. David Bowie wanted Kraftwerk to be the opening act on his Station to Station tour but they said no. Instead David played a tape almost exclusively made up of Kraftwerk music before he started the concert.
..... Record Collector - 2004

"They always did new things with electronics," adds Richard James, aka Aphex Twin. "But they didn't keep in contact with what they inspired. I reckon they won't do anything inspiring again."

Even if they never record another note, Kraftwerk remain a unique influence on artists old and new. "They've made some pretty important records and their sounds are devastating even now," says Ed Simons of the Chemical Brothers.