KRAFTWERK Schallplatten & CDs

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.

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: 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: 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: 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.