Kraftwerk "Radio-Aktivität (1986 Reissue, W. Germany, EMI-Electrola, CDP564-7 46132 2)"

Radio-Activity (German title: Radio-Aktivität) is the fifth studio album by German electronic music band Kraftwerk, released in November 1975. The band's first entirely electronic album is also a concept album organized around the themes of radioactive decay and radio communication. All releases of the album were bilingual, with lyrics in both English and German. The album was accompanied by single release of the title track, which was successful in France and Belgium.

Following the success of its 1974 predecessor Autobahn, an album based on Germany's eponymous motorway network, Kraftwerk embarked on a tour of the United States with the "classic" lineup of the band formed by Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos—who joined in February 1975—and Wolfgang Flür in April and May 1975.

Radio-Activity's album title displays Kraftwerk's typical deadpan humour, being a pun on the twin themes of the songs, half being about radioactivity and the other half about activity on the radio. Bartos revealed that the title was inspired by a chart column in the American magazine, Billboard, which featured the most played singles under the title "Radio Activity". According to Wolfgang Flur, the concept arose as a result of the many radio interviews that Ralf and Florian had given on their American tour.

The album's cover depicts a Volksempfänger radio which was produced in Germany during the Third Reich regime.

The album was recorded in Kling Klang Studio, Düsseldorf, and it was self-produced by Hütter and Schneider. It was their first purely electronic album, and the first one to be performed by the "classic" band line-up. Karl and Wolfgang worked on electronic percussion. LP liner notes state music and production was by Hütter and Schneider, with Emil Schult collaborating on lyrics. For this album, the band had decided to record some vocals in English and Schult's command of the language after studying for a while in the United States was better than Hutter's or Schneider's. Tim Barr pointed out the impact his experiences had in the United States on his ability to speak the language and in more subtle ways as well. Schult also designed the artwork, which was based on a late-1930s 'Deutscher Kleinempfänger' radio.

The overture instrumental piece "Geiger Counter" used Geiger counter beats based on musique concrète. The album featured use of the distinctive Vako Orchestron keyboard to provide vocal choir on title track. "Antenna" used an echo chamber effect, and Hütter's Farfisa electronic piano was used on "Transistor". For the recording, extensive use was made of the vocoder.

In September 1975, the band toured the UK, playing 17 shows. By 1975, Hütter and Schneider's previous publishing deals with Capriccio Music and Star Musik Studio of Hamburg had expired. The compositions on Radio-Activity were published by their own newly set up Kling Klang Verlag music publishing company, giving them greater financial control over the use of songwriting output. Also, the album was the first to bear the fruit of Kling Klang as an established vanity label under the group's new licensing deal with EMI.

Radio-Activity was released in November 1975. For their promotion, their record company sent them to a "real Atomkraftwerk" to take promotional photos. In these photos, the group was dressed in white protective suits and anti-radiation boots on their shoes. The album reached No. 59 on the Canadian charts in February 1976. The title track "Radioactivity" was released as a single in May 1976 and became a hit in France, selling 500,000 copies, and Belgium in the charts.

Track listing

1. "Geiger Counter" ("Geigerzähler") Ralf Hütter/Florian Schneider  1:07
2. "Radioactivity" ("Radioaktivität")   Hütter/Schneider/Emil Schult   6:42
3. "Radioland" Hütter/Schneider/Schult   5:50
4. "Airwaves" ("Ätherwellen") Hütter/Schneider/Schult  4:40
5. "Intermission" ("Sendepause") Hütter/Schneider   0:39
6. "News" ("Nachrichten")    Hütter/Schneider   1:17
7. "The Voice of Energy" ("Die Stimme der Energie")  Hütter/Schneider/Schult  0:55
8. "Antenna" ("Antenne") Hütter/Schneider/Schult  3:43
9. "Radio Stars" ("Radio Sterne") Hütter/Schneider/Schult   3:35
10. "Uranium" ("Uran") Hütter/Schneider/Schult   1:26
11. "Transistor" Hütter/Schneider   2:15
12. "Ohm Sweet Ohm"    Hütter/Schneider   5:39

Total length: 37:38

Recording information:

Peter Bollig – technical engineer (Kling Klang Studio, Düsseldorf)

Walter Quintus – sound mix engineer (Rüssl Studio, Hamburg)

Robert Franke – photography

Emil Schult – artwork

Johann Zambryski – artwork reconstruction (2009 Remaster)

Kraftwerk "Kraftwerk (1994 Reissue, Germany, Germanofon, 941001)"

Kraftwerk is the debut studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk. It was released in Germany in 1970, and produced by Konrad "Conny" Plank.

After the commercial failure of Tone Float (1970), Organisation were dropped by RCA Records while Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider signed a new deal with Philips and named their new project Kraftwerk. To begin work, the duo rented an empty workshop in an industrial era near a railway station in Düsseldorf, which would eventually become Kling Klang Studio.

The album was recorded from July to September 1970 and was produced by colleague Conny Plank, who shared the credit with Hütter and Schneider. They were also joined by two drummers during the recording of the album: Andreas Hohmann and Klaus Dinger. Hohmann played on "Ruckzuck" and "Stratovarius", while Dinger played on "Vom Himmel Hoch". The other instrumentation features Hütter on bass, as well as both Hammond and Tubon electric organs, the latter made by Swedish factory Joh Mustad AB in 1966, while Schneider plays the flute.

Ned Raggett, writing for AllMusic, called Kraftwerk "an exploratory art rock album with psych roots" and "sudden jump cuts of musique concrète noise and circular jamming as prone to sprawl as it is to tight focus". Adam Blyweiss described it as "credible jazz, rock noise and funk jiggle".

The song "Ruckzuck" is driven by a motorik groove and powerful multi-dubbed flute riff. Hütter plays a piano line on a modified Hammond organ, and many instruments on the album were manipulated by a pitch-to-voltage converter, which converts sound into voltage that powers a synthesizer. NME characterized "Ruckzuck" as "skirting around the edges of free jazz".

Jason Anderson of Uncut noted that "Stratovarius" features no synthesizers and begins as an "ominous cloud of electronic noise" that evolves into an "acid rock jam", similarly powered by the motorik groove. "Megaherz" is a more subdued track, bringing "traces of ambient music", and the only one on the album to feature no drums. Anderson describes "Vom Himmel Hoch" as a "doomy soundscape" that serves as an "aural simulation of a bombing raid", ending in an apocalyptic explosion. The track has slight pitch curves that emulate the Doppler effect.

Kraftwerk was released in November 1970. The album cover features a drawing of a fluorescent-coloured traffic cone, inspired by the works of Andy Warhol and the pop art movement.

In early 1971, Hütter left the group to study architecture in Aachen, leaving Schneider, drummer Dinger and newcomer guitarist Michael Rother. The three-member Kraftwerk lineup of Schneider, Dinger and Rother made an appearance on Radio Bremen, and also on the TV shows Beat-Club and Okidoki. After this, Dinger and Rother left to form the band Neu!, with Hütter rejoining Schneider to continue Kraftwerk and both parties recording under the mentoring of Conny Plank.

No material from this album has been performed in the band's live set since the Autobahn tour of 1975. In later interviews, Schneider referred to the first three Kraftwerk albums as "archaeology", and while they have never been reissued, unauthorized releases have been widely available. In 2007, Kraftwerk hinted that the album might finally see a remastered CD release after the Der Katalog boxed set. Vinyl releases of the first two albums were scheduled for Record Store Day 2020 but were ultimately cancelled.

"Ruckzuck" was used as the theme song for the PBS show Newton's Apple in the United States. However, its use was unauthorized and the program later substituted a cover version of the song.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben.

1. "Ruckzuck" 7:47
2. "Stratovarius" 12:10
3. "Megaherz" 9:30
4. "Vom Himmel Hoch" 10:12

Total length: 39:39

Recording information:

Conrad Plank – producer, engineer

Klaus Löhmer – assistant

Ralf Hütter – cover

Bernhard Becher – photo

Hilla Becher – photo

Kraftwerk "The Mix (USA, Elektra Records, 9 60869-2)"

The Mix is a 1991 remix album by Kraftwerk. It featured re-recorded and in some cases re-arranged versions of a selection of songs which had originally appeared on the albums Autobahn through Electric Café. Hütter stated in interviews that he regarded The Mix as a type of live album, as it captured the results of the band's continual digital improvisations in their Kling Klang studio. The band had made a return to the stage in 1990, after a nine-year hiatus from touring, and since then the band's live setlist has used arrangements drawn from The Mix rather than the original recordings.

Stated reasons from the group explaining the release include:

1-The group didn't want to release a traditional "Greatest Hits" or "Best of" collection.

2-At the time, the band were in the process of reconfiguring their Kling Klang studio from analog to digital recording technology; integrating MIDI into their setup and creating sound archives from their original master tapes that were stored onto computers. This proved to be an ongoing task, as new upgrades and equipment were continually made available in the years following the album project.

3-Despite no new, original recorded material or live tours outside of Europe, Ralf Hütter did not want Kraftwerk to appear defunct to the public.

The album met with a rather mixed reception on its release. Many were disappointed at the lack of new compositions and, moreover, the production values of the re-recorded tracks did not strike many listeners as particularly cutting edge, something which Kraftwerk had previously been renowned for. The Mix was created entirely digitally, albeit during a period when the technology had yet to reach its maturity, and thus featured a sound which many listeners tend to find somewhat "sterile" compared to the analogue electronics employed on most of Kraftwerk's previous recordings of these songs.

The album sleeve was somewhat obtuse in the information it offered. Production is credited to Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, and Fritz Hilpert, the latter of whom had replaced percussionist and stage set designer Wolfgang Flür after Flür left the group in 1987. Karl Bartos also left the band in 1991 and was replaced by Fernando Abrantes. Bartos claimed in later interviews that much of his programming work was still featured on The Mix, uncredited.

A newly remastered edition of the album was released by EMI Records, Mute Records, and Astralwerks Records on CD, digital download, and heavyweight vinyl in October/November 2009. Because of licensing restrictions imposed by Warner Music Group, this version has only been made available in the US and Canada as a part of The Catalogue box set.

Track listing

1. "The Robots" ("Die Roboter") Ralf Hütter/Florian Schneider/Karl Bartos   8:56
2. "Computer Love" ("Computerliebe") Hütter/Bartos/Emil Schult   6:35
3. "Pocket Calculator" ("Taschenrechner") Hütter/Bartos/Schult   4:32
4. "Dentaku" (Japanese: "Calculator")   Hütter/Bartos/Schult   3:27
5. "Autobahn"  Hütter/Schneider/Schult   9:27
6. "Radioactivity" ("Radioaktivität")  Hütter/Schneider/Schult   6:53
7. "Trans-Europe Express" ("Trans Europa Express") Hütter/Schult   3:20
8. "Abzug"    Hütter   2:18
9. "Metal on Metal" ("Metall auf Metall") Hütter    4:58
10. "Home Computer" ("Heimcomputer") Hütter/Schneider/Bartos   8:02
11. "Music Non Stop" ("Musik Non-Stop") Hütter/Schneider/Bartos   6:38

Total length: 65:15

• "Home Computer" also includes elements from "It's More Fun to Compute"
• "Music Non Stop" also includes elements from "Boing Boom Tschak" and "Techno Pop"

The original 1991 liner notes credit Hütter, Schneider and Hilpert simply with "Music Data Mix", while the 2009 remaster release gives more detailed credits for Hütter and Schneider. Abrantes, while uncredited in the liner notes, appeared in the artwork and other promotional material. Several other individuals are credited with "hardware" and "software", by last name only.

Recording information:

Ralf Hütter – album concept, production, original artwork reconstruction

Florian Schneider – album concept, production

Günter Frohling – black and white photography

Peter Boettcher – color photography

Johann Zambryski – original artwork reconstruction