KRAFTWERK
“WE HAVE TO
Computer World turns 40 this year. To celebrate, here’s a classic European odyssey with KRAFTWERK from NME 1981. Having recently rebuilt their studio, the band now embrace the dilemmas, freedoms and controls of the computer age. RALF HÜTTER talks German humour, CocaCola and “vertically organised” music. “We see ourselves as studio technicians,” he tells CHRIS BOHN. “We have to impose every question, and find the correct answer.”
KOH HASEBE/SHINKO MUSIC/GETTY IMAGES
PART I “ART is not a ‘profession’. There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the control of his FROM NME JUNE 13, 1981 will, the grace of Heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency to his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies a source of creative imagination.” (From the first proclamation of the Weimar Bauhaus, 1919) 98 • UNCUT • MARCH 2021
PAIN might currently be in turmoil, what with its armed forces’ flexing of musclebound strength posing a threat to its still unsettled democracy, but there are no ripples of unrest to disturb the afternoon siesta of a dozing Barcelona. Only the foolhardy tourists who flood the city every summer brave the unrelenting heat and dust of the streets. Many of them are from Britain and Germany, and it’s easy to see what attracts them: the city’s proximity to the sea, its odd, indigenous architecture and, of course, a good exchange rate. For the Germans its location also fulfils a romantic northern longing for the warmth and promise of the south and the Mediterranean.
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Kraftwerk, too, feel the urge. Their main motivating force, Ralf Hütter, wandered through Spain a decade ago – so he reveals later to a Spanish record company executive from the back of a taxi careering through the night – but he was put off by the hippies clogging islands and resorts like Ibiza. Besides, he doesn’t enjoy the tourist role, preferring instead a more constructive purpose for travelling, like work. Consequently Kraftwerk’s European tour satisfies both their wanderlust and their need for communication/feedback. Despite their modernity, a fear of flying means they are driving themselves across the Continent – so far down from Düsseldorf through Bavaria and the Alps to
