The Best Krautrock Artists to Know

Calling a group of bands a genre often implies they sound alike. With krautrock, that implication falls apart almost immediately. Can, Faust, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream share a period and a country, and not much else. Getting to know the individual artists is more useful than looking for a common sound — because the music itself will tell you what the scene actually was.

Can

Can are the most musically inventive of the major krautrock bands, and arguably the one with the broadest influence. Their approach combined free improvisation, funk, jazz and psychedelic rock with intensive studio editing. Drummer Jaki Liebezeit is central: his playing is simultaneously fluid and mechanical, holding everything together with extraordinary rhythmic intelligence. Vocalist Damo Suzuki, who joined in 1970, brought an abstracted, intuitive singing style that fit the music's own improvisatory logic.

The core albums are Tago Mago (1971), Ege Bamyasi (1972) and Future Days (1973). Ege Bamyasi is the most immediately engaging; Tago Mago is longer, stranger and contains some of the most extraordinary drumming the decade produced. Future Days is gentler, almost ambient in places.

Neu!

Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother formed Neu! after leaving Kraftwerk. Between them, they represent two fundamental krautrock impulses. Rother's guitar playing is melodic, textural and hypnotic; Dinger's drumming is forceful and rhythmically obsessive. The motorik beat — the steady, driving 4/4 pulse for which krautrock is best known — is primarily Dinger's invention.

Their first two albums, Neu! (1972) and Neu! 2 (1973), are the canonical starting points. Neu! '75 is more varied, introducing punk and glam-influenced material. The consistency of quality across all three albums is remarkable for such a short-lived partnership.

Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk began as an experimental rock band and gradually transformed into one of the most influential electronic acts in music history. The early albums — Kraftwerk (1970), Kraftwerk 2 (1972), Ralf und Florian (1973) — are more organic and improvised than their later work. Autobahn (1974) was the turning point: its title track reached the charts internationally and demonstrated what electronic music could sound like when it was disciplined and direct.

By the time of Trans-Europe Express (1977) and The Man-Machine (1978), Kraftwerk were making something closer to electronic pop than to anything usually called krautrock. Their influence on hip-hop, electronic dance music, synth-pop and virtually every subsequent form of electronic music is enormous and well documented.

Faust

Where Can assembled something groove-based and coherent, and Neu! found beauty in repetition, Faust were deliberately abrasive. They used collage, tape manipulation, found sounds, rock instruments and electronics in combinations that could be brutal, funny, or strangely lovely — sometimes within the same track. Faust IV (1973) is the easiest entry point, but So Far (1972) and the debut Faust (1971) are equally rewarding for listeners prepared for something less conventionally structured.

Tangerine Dream

Tangerine Dream moved furthest from rock. Their early work, like Zeit (1972), is extremely abstract. Phaedra (1974) and Rubycon (1975) represent the mature version of their approach: long, slowly evolving synthesiser landscapes built around sequencers, drones and layered timbres. These albums are foundational for ambient and electronic music, even when their krautrock credentials are debated.

Harmonia and Cluster

Cluster — the duo of Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius — made abstract electronic music of unusual texture and character. When Michael Rother joined them to form Harmonia, the resulting collaboration merged Cluster's electronics with a more rhythmically recognisable framework. Musik von Harmonia (1974) and Deluxe (1975) are among the most beautiful krautrock records, and important precursors to ambient music. Brian Eno worked with the group in the mid-1970s, and the connection to his and Bowie's Berlin work is audible.

Amon Düül II

Amon Düül II represented the heavier, more psychedelic end of the scene. Yeti (1970) and Tanz der Lemminge (1971) are their most important albums: extended, improvised, dense with electric guitar and ensemble interplay. They were one of the more overtly "rock" acts in the krautrock canon, and a useful corrective to the assumption that all the music was minimal or machine-like.

Popol Vuh, Klaus Schulze and Ash Ra Tempel

These artists define the cosmic, spiritual and purely electronic streams. Popol Vuh used electronic, acoustic and orchestral instruments to create music of meditative depth, some of it associated with Werner Herzog's films. Klaus Schulze made long-form synthesiser and sequencer compositions. Ash Ra Tempel combined psychedelic space rock and electronics. All three are important for understanding what "kosmische Musik" encompasses beyond the rock-based core.

For the context behind these artists, see the history of krautrock. Their essential recordings are covered in essential krautrock albums explained. For individual track highlights, see the best krautrock songs. New to the genre? The beginner's guide is the place to start.

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