With other musicians, Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider and Karl Bartos pioneered electronic music, invented ‘techno’ music and made mechanical ‘robot pop’ in the 70s and 80s. It’s delicious not to know how serious Kraftwerk are in their craft:
I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
When I press a special key
It plays a little melody
I am adding
And subtracting
I’m composing
And controlling
I adore the way Kraftwerk tightrope-walk neatly between organic and mechanised sound. Karl Bartos went on to work solo under the name ‘Elektric Music’, releasing the album Esperanto (1993).
The more precise music is, the more sensitive we become to subtle inaccuracies in it.