Back catalogue: All genres

Review: You still won't find a more perfect electro album than Kraftwerk's Computer World, and it was the album that pretty much invented the style. That much is clear from this fresh 2020 reissue, which presents the iconic 1981 set on translucent yellow vinyl, accompanied by a slick booklet of fitting Kraftwerkian imagery. While 'Computer World', 'Pocket Calculator' and 'Computer Love' are near perfect electro-pop songs, it's the sheer heaviness and funkiness of the B-boy friendly beats on 'Home Computer', 'It's More Fun To Compute' and, most famously, 'Numbers' that make it such an essential. Put simply, Computer World still sounds like the future.

Review: There isn't a more hit-packed Kraftwerk album than The Man Machine. First released in 1978 and here reissued on red vinyl accompanied by a fresh booklet of vintage images, the album boasts some of the German band's best loved songs, including 'The Robots', cheery sing-along 'The Model', the staggeringly good 'Neon Lights', and the bubbly title track. It shows how good the album is that such gems as 'Metropolis' and the picturesque 'Spacelab' - cuts that most other bands would kill to be able to write - tend to be ignored or overlooked. If you love electronic music, you need a copy of The Man Machine in your collection.

Review: To our ears, 1975's Radioactivity is Kraftwerk's most ghostly and otherworldly album. It was famously their first set made entirely with electronic instruments - some home-made - and now sounds like a bridge between the more krautrock-style hypnotism of the earlier Autobahn and the slicker, more tuneful albums that followed it. In other words, it's as weird, alien and otherworldly as it is ground-breaking and pop-leaning. This 2020 reissue is well worth picking up, not least because it comes pressed on translucent yellow vinyl and comes accompanied by a glossy, 16-page booklet full of iconic Kraftwerk images.

Review: Kraftwerk never bothered releasing a standard 'greatest hits' album. Instead, in 1991 they offered up The Mix, a set of brand-new digital recordings of some of their best-loved tracks. It received a lukewarm reception at the time, in part because it was marketed and reviewed as a remix album (which it isn't), but it's actually a thrill-a-minute romp that has formed the basis of their live shows ever since. It contains some fantastic re-arranged takes on such familiar favourites as 'Radioactivity', 'The Robots', 'Computer Love' and 'Autobahn', the latter of which is quite radically different (and, surprisingly, jazzier). This time round, it comes presented on ice-white vinyl and comes accompanied by a smart looking 20-page booklet.

Review: Autobhan, the 1974 album that began Kraftwerk's ascent to legendary status, is still capable of making the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The headline attraction remains the absorbing, mesmerising, 22-minute title track, a musical whizz down an imaginary three-lane highway that's as evocative and atmospheric as they come. That said, the album's lesser-celebrated, more experimental flip-side tracks (and in particular the jaunty 'Kometenmelodie 2'), are also inspired. Here it gets the 2020 reissue treatment via a tasty blue vinyl pressing that comes packaged with a 12-page booklet of historic photos and typically utilitarian imagery.

Review: Kraftwerk first toyed with the idea of making a concept album based on the Tour De France in the early 1980s, so it was probably inevitable that the cycling-mad group would eventually deliver on that promised. First released in 2003 and now reissued in re-mastered form on red and blue vinyl, the album is the most techno-centric set in the band's discography. While it still boasts their usual recurring melodic themes, tuneful motifs and robotic vocoder vocals, many of its hypnotic and euphoric tracks (particularly the three-part title track that dominates the first half of the album) are far weightier and more club-focused than their earlier releases. For that reason alone, it's worth a place in your collection.

Review: It would be fair to say that 1977's Trans-Europe Express album was one Kraftwerk found their niche. More polished and accessible than its predecessors, the album's blend of futuristic synth-pop songs, trance-inducing electronic grooves and recurring melodic motifs became a blueprint that they would later return to again and again. The B-side suite of train-travel inspired tracks ('Trans-Europe Express' to 'Endless Endless') remains one of their most evocative, atmospheric and perfectly constructed musical works, while opener 'Europe Endless' is arguably one of the most beautiful and life-affirming tracks in their canon. This 2020 edition, pressed to clear vinyl, boasts brilliantly re-mastered sound and a bonus booklet containing iconic images of the band from the period

Review: Originally released digitally two years ago and here finally available on wax, Krafwerk's Remixes pairs a swathe of vintage reworks (mostly from the '90s and early-to-mid-2000s) with a handful of surprise 2018 reworks from the legendary German band. In this latter category you'll find a fantastic, slowed-down take on 'Musique Non-Stop' and two versions of 'The Robots' based on their 21st century live versions. Other highlights include Orbital's weighty, club-ready revision of 'Expo 2000', an early '90s Francois K extension of The Mix remake of 'Radioactivity', superb Motor City techno takes on 'Expo 2000' from DJ Rolando and Underground Resistance, and two storming Hot Chip remixes of cuts from the Tour De France LP.

Review: Kraftwerk has made many terrific albums over the years, but we'd argue few better than 1981's Computerwelt (or, as we'd say in English, Computer World). Hugely influential on the emerging hip-hop scene in New York City - many now standard electro rhythms are based on those found on the album - and Detroit's techno pioneers, the album offers the right balance of far-sighted futurism, melodic brilliance and synth-pop style accessibility. It's an album that should be in everyone's collection, with this translucent yellow vinyl edition being particularly alluring. It boasts warm, heavy remastered sound and is presented in the original German form rather than the more familiar international edition with English lyrics.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight dents to the corners of the outer sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition***


There isn't a more hit-packed Kraftwerk album than The Man Machine. First released in 1978 and here reissued on red vinyl accompanied by a fresh booklet of vintage images, the album boasts some of the German band's best loved songs, including 'The Robots', cheery sing-along 'The Model', the staggeringly good 'Neon Lights', and the bubbly title track. It shows how good the album is that such gems as 'Metropolis' and the picturesque 'Spacelab' - cuts that most other bands would kill to be able to write - tend to be ignored or overlooked. If you love electronic music, you need a copy of The Man Machine in your collection.

Review: While not one of Kraftwerk's most celebrated albums, Techno-Pop (known on its original 1986 release as Electric Cafe) has actually stood the test of time rather well - as this re-mastered, re-packaged clear vinyl reissue proves. The A-side suite of 'Boom-Boom-Tchak', 'Techno-Pop' and 'Musique Non-Stop' provides the perfect mix of clanking, metallic electro percussion, addictive melodies and sassy synth-pop sounds. 'House Phone' - an alternative version of 'The Telephone Call' - is also amongst the German band's heaviest, most club-ready cuts, thanks in no small part to Francois Kevorkian's superb mixing. As with the band's other 2020 reissues, this edition also comes packaged with a glossy booklet containing rare and iconic images of the group.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Creasing to corner of outer sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition***


Autobhan, the 1974 album that began Kraftwerk's ascent to legendary status, is still capable of making the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The headline attraction remains the absorbing, mesmerising, 22-minute title track, a musical whizz down an imaginary three-lane highway that's as evocative and atmospheric as they come. That said, the album's lesser-celebrated, more experimental flip-side tracks (and in particular the jaunty 'Kometenmelodie 2'), are also inspired. Here it gets the 2020 reissue treatment via a tasty blue vinyl pressing that comes packaged with a 12-page booklet of historic photos and typically utilitarian imagery.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve slightly split but otherwise in excellent condition***


You still won't find a more perfect electro album than Kraftwerk's Computer World, and it was the album that pretty much invented the style. That much is clear from this fresh 2020 reissue, which presents the iconic 1981 set on translucent yellow vinyl, accompanied by a slick booklet of fitting Kraftwerkian imagery. While 'Computer World', 'Pocket Calculator' and 'Computer Love' are near perfect electro-pop songs, it's the sheer heaviness and funkiness of the B-boy friendly beats on 'Home Computer', 'It's More Fun To Compute' and, most famously, 'Numbers' that make it such an essential. Put simply, Computer World still sounds like the future.

Review: The 50th anniversary edition of Kraftwerk's Autobahn finally completes its decennial German interstate journey and lands in our drool-covered laps. With founding Kraftwerk member Ralf Hutter revisiting the record's original 16-track master tapes with engineer Fritz Hilpert, the group not only made a brand new Dolby Atmos mix for the CD edition, but have also reissued the original record in the never-seen-before picture disc form you see here. A cosmic pop overland journey, the vinyl remaster also lends the record an extra-dimensionality we didn't know possible; recumbent across it, and brought out to swelling prominence, are its tweezed, filter-cutoff sine chords, evoking the continual movement of rustic landscapes streaming past our eyes. Though at first received only to mixed acclaim, Kraftwerk's fourth LP was rightly hailed in hindsight for its simple automotive theme and change in sound, away from the Robots' emergent kosmische and into self-reflexive electropop. All this emboldened Kraftwerk as a band that could somehow cruise in the fast lane, accelerating with ease through the shifting stylistic sands of the mid 1970s.