Electric Wizards JR Moores · Reaktion, 2021

CHAPTER 05

The 1970s Experimental European Underground

Krautrock, zeuhl and the continental underground

22 works, in the order the book names them

  • 001/Album/1975

    Mothership Connection

    Parliament

    On the front of the Parliament album Mothership Connection (1975) he can be seen in the door of a spacecraft, wearing a silvery suit with matching knee-high boots, legs akimbo.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 002/Album/1987

    Songs about Fucking

    Big Black

    Big Black, Albini’s 1980s noise rock band whose industrial credentials included using a drum machine in place of a human drummer, recorded a crunching cover of Kraftwerk’s ‘The Model’ for their final album, Songs about Fucking (the title itself mocking the principal lyrical concern and preferred leisure-time activity of rock ’n’ rollers across the ages).
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 003/Album/1973

    Faust iv

    Faust

    ‘Krautrock’ is the name of the first song on Faust’s 1973 album Faust iv.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 004/Album

    We’re Only in It for the Money

    The Mothers of Invention

    Faust were fans of The Mothers of Invention, whose We’re Only in It for the Money had lampooned the Fab Four.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 005/Album

    Trans-Europe Express

    Kraftwerk

    They began working on the album that would turn out to be called Trans-Europe Express.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 006/Book

    Krautrocksampler

    Julian Cope

    Focus has remained fixed on the German acts of the 1970s, with interest in them stoked on a regular basis by the publication of books like Julian Cope’s Krautrocksampler and, more recently, David Stubbs’s Future Days, not to mention the juicy articles that can be churned out whenever one of the well-known krautrock records hits an anniversary with a nice round number (‘30 Years On: What Cluster’s Zuckerzeit Taught Me about Comorbid Insomnia!’).
    Open in Goodreads ↗

  • 007/Album

    Future Days

    Can

    Focus has remained fixed on the German acts of the 1970s, with interest in them stoked on a regular basis by the publication of books like Julian Cope’s Krautrocksampler and, more recently, David Stubbs’s Future Days, not to mention the juicy articles that can be churned out whenever one of the well-known krautrock records hits an anniversary with a nice round number (‘30 Years On: What Cluster’s Zuckerzeit Taught Me about Comorbid Insomnia!’).
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 008/Album

    Zuckerzeit

    Cluster

    Focus has remained fixed on the German acts of the 1970s, with interest in them stoked on a regular basis by the publication of books like Julian Cope’s Krautrocksampler and, more recently, David Stubbs’s Future Days, not to mention the juicy articles that can be churned out whenever one of the well-known krautrock records hits an anniversary with a nice round number (‘30 Years On: What Cluster’s Zuckerzeit Taught Me about Comorbid Insomnia!’).
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 009/Album

    Känguru

    Guru Guru

    Because so many people now know all about it, we can look back and feel a sense of superiority to all the philistines from the olden days who were preoccupied with purchasing the Osmond family’s singles from Woolworths instead of mail-ordering a first pressing of Känguru by Guru Guru.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 010/TV series

    Celebrity Mastermind

    BBC

    Try mentioning Heldon or Lard Free, however, and the very same person could just stare back at you as blankly as a sports personality on Celebrity Mastermind.
    Open in IMDb ↗

  • 011/Book/1972

    The Iron Dream

    Norman Spinrad

    The name Heldon was lifted from Spinrad’s alternate-history novel The Iron Dream (1972), a book that satirized the way fascist ideologies were projected and perpetuated in science fiction as well as in popular culture and Western society more generally.
    Open in Goodreads ↗

  • 012/Film

    The Omen

    Richard Donner

    King Crimson can stake a decent claim to being the heaviest prog band of all, at least outside the heinous world of prog metal, a mongrel genre that succeeds in being tougher to love than Damien from The Omen.
    Open in IMDb ↗

  • 013/Album/1974

    Red

    King Crimson

    As the 1970s wore on, their sound only grew heavier, culminating in 1974’s Red, which was recorded as a power trio and, for a short moment, threatened to be King Crimson’s aggressive final statement.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 014/Album

    (No Pussyfooting)

    Fripp & Eno

    The ‘Frippertronics’ techniques showcased on (No Pussyfooting), Fripp’s 1973 collaborative album with Brian Eno, made a further impression on the Frenchman.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 015/Album/1976

    Un rêve sans conséquence spéciale

    Heldon

    The heaviness became particularly pronounced on Heldon’s concluding trio of albums, beginning with Un rêve sans conséquence spéciale in 1976.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 016/Album/1977

    Interface

    Heldon

    Building on those advances, and no matter how abstract at times, there is a cheerful underlying funkiness to 1977’s Interface, implying that Pinhas’s wig-outs had become less indebted to Fripp and were now sharing something in common with various Parliament-Funkadelic luminaries.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 017/Album/1979

    Stand By

    Heldon

    ‘Bolero’ from 1979’s Stand By has a colder and more robotic feel, echoing the parallel progress that film-maker John Carpenter was making in the field of sci-fi and horror scores.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 018/Album/1976

    Nyl

    Nyl

    Take Nyl’s self-titled and sole LP, for example.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 019/Book

    FrenchRockSampler

    Aymeric Leroy

    Along with the usual methods of digging through crates in record shops and scouring the listings on the Discogs website, listeners can discover further French underground treats by tuning in to Warren Hatter’s FrenchRockSampler programme on Resonance FM. Hatter accepts that the French scene can’t compete with krautrock in terms of the latter’s more clearly traceable impression on hip-hop, film soundtracks and modern-day bands.
    Open in Goodreads ↗

  • 020/Composition/1964

    In C

    Terry Riley

    Guitarist and music student Bo Anders Persson was galvanized to form Pärson Sound after his involvement with Terry Riley’s performance of the minimalist milestone In C (1964) that took place in Stockholm in early 1967.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 021/Album

    A Saucerful of Secrets

    Pink Floyd

    One blog writer calls this track ‘a painful half an hour jam that is based on the second idea in “Let There Be More Light” from Pink Floyd’s A Saucerful of Secrets . . .
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 022/Film

    Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

    Mel Stuart

    As a comeback record, Merkurius was as delightful as watching Gene Wilder do his somersaulting grand entrance in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
    Open in IMDb ↗