Who was/is Various - Kraut! ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more

KRAUT! is a fine Krautrock cross-section in four editions, sorted by region - North, Central, South and Berlin, with the greatest hits, much long forgotten music and the most important songs.

At the end of the 60s, the Federal Republic of Germany developed a very individual and unique soundtrack to the social upheaval that was taking place at the same time. A large part of the young generation at that time revolted against the bourgeoisie, against the determining opinion sovereignty of the Springer press, against the bias of the media, against the muff under the gowns and against the general US-American guardianship. The breaking away from the Republic of the parents, but also the rejection of the real-existing socialism of the GDR, was accompanied by an additional resistance against the existing cultural values. Driven by the idea of finding a new path to a German identity in modern pop culture with penetrating curiosity and naive openness, musicians all over Germany went in search of a soundtrack that would be absolutely unique.

The social and musical roots of Krautrock lie in the time of the student revolt in the mid-1960s. With the emergence of psychedelic rock, hard rock and progressive rock, new special forms of rock music emerged worldwide - even sound visionaries like Karlheinz Stockhausen had a great influence. There were certainly overlaps with British prog rock bands. However, the creative approach of the Krautrock bands, who wanted to free themselves from international role models as well as fixed schemes of music making, was completely different. In general, it was a progressive basic idea, which expressed itself in strongly structured and freely improvised forms.

But the term 'Krautrock' was also a synonym for rock music from Germany, which did not want to give in to the mere imitation of rock 'n' roll or beat models from the English-speaking world. For a long time, 'Krautrock' was rather a collective term and a disparagingly used expression for everything that stomped Teutonic, i.e. wooden and bulky. The English music press also wanted to make fun of the growing self-confidence of German rock bands. Krautrock' stood for Teutonic meticulousness, ponderousness, pathos and rhythmic cramps in the German bands of the time. Nobody really had an exact definition, but everyone knew what was meant when it was mentioned - everything German was Kraut!

In the mid 70s the Krautrock boom ended as suddenly as it began and it took more than two decades to remember the qualities of that time. For since many techno musicians in the second half of the 90s referred to the Krautrockers' desire to experiment, Krautrock experienced a renaissance. The revival was nourished by various re-releases of old records.

Burghard Rausch, born in 1947, born in Berlin: DJ, radio presenter, author and music journalist - among others for RIAS-Berlin, Radio Bremen and ByteFM - vinyl collector and drummer (Agitation Free, Bel Ami), co-author of 'Stationen - Die Trends der Rock-Epoche Mitte der 80er' (with Joachim Deicke), co-author of the 'Rockmusik- Lexikon' (with Christian Graf), editor, compiler, biographer and author of the four-part CD series 'NDW - Aus grauer Städte Mauern' (NDW - From grey cities walls)

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