The Sound Of The Machine: My Life In Kraftwerk & Beyond

Memoir from the co-composer of some of the German electronic music pioneers’ finest works.

With their matching outfits and on-stage presentation, Kraftwerk always seemed to be an egalitarian operation in which all aspects of the machinery of their music were of the same, functional significance. However, there was a significant divide in the group, with Wolfgang Flür, ostensibly co-percussionist in the group, and Karl Bartos very much junior partners. When Kraftwerk first toured America, group founders Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider stayed in a swanky Central Park hotel, while Bartos and Flür had to bunk up in a much seedier dive.

Furthermore, although he actually earned less early on with Kraftwerk than he had done playing with his covers band The Jokers, Hütter disallowed Bartos from pursuing any other musical projects. Bartos was, he says, a freelancer with a single client. He eventually left Kraftwerk in 1990 after a lengthy recording hiatus in which it became clear that Hütter and Schneider, both from wealthy backgrounds, were oblivious to his need to earn money.

Bartos clearly values his association with Kraftwerk however, as can be seen in his accounts of the making of the work for which he was responsible. These go into technical detail, which will fascinate Kraftwerk aficionados, if not necessarily the general reader. He also provides excursive digressions on the Futurists, Bach and rocket pioneer Wernher Von Braun, which show his awareness of Kraftwerk’s broader influences and context.

As someone steeped in 60s beat music and jazz and also trained in percussion at the Robert Schumann Conservatory, Bartos has a broad sensibility and can justly claim to have been responsible not just for the electronic percussion links in Kraftwerk but also for the shape and direction of the group’s sound.

There are little insights into Hütter and Schneider’s eccentricities – the former’s penchant for black leather gloves, the latter’s for bizarre shoes. We also learn of the time Schneider almost burnt his father’s house down at a barbecue. And then there’s the endless cycling - for a group who were deliberately sweatless on stage, they probably generated more off it than any other rock or pop group of their generation.

Funny, cultured, detailed, The Sound Of The Machine at least partially lifts the lid on the doings of Düsseldorf’s finest.