There are an enormous number of accolades that can be placed at Kraftwerk’s door. Their impact on the future development of electronic music making was profound, and their anticipation of the computerisation of the studio was beyond prescient.
Even their earlier output sounded way ahead of its time, with a level of creativity which casts a significant shadow across swathes of contemporary production.
After producing three highly applauded and successful albums in the 70s (Autobahn, Radio-Activity and Trans-Europe Express), Kraftwerk - Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos - wanted to produce an album that would serve as a response to the rise of dance and disco culture. That work would become the seminal The Man Machine, released in May 1978.
At the Paris album launch, newly updated mannequins established Kraftwerk’s ‘robot’ concept, with four dummies sporting newly-fashioned faces to resemble the band, at a considerable expense of 4000DM per mannequin. That’s around $13,500/£10,000 in today’s money.
The use of the dummies stressed a theme that the band had been pondering for years - the increasing interplay between man and machine.
“That’s what Kraftwerk is all about: the harmony between man and machine,” Kraftwerk’s co-head honcho Ralf Hütter told the LA Times. “We play the machines, and sometimes the machines play us.”
The robots have remained part of the Kraftwerk persona ever since; doing interviews and even performing a segment of their own in live shows.
We are all familiar with the concept of jamming with friends, where you might try out musical ideas in a band context. Kraftwerk were no different - aside from the fact that they would often let the machines do the playing.
According to long-time label manager Maxime Schmitt, Kraftwerk would often attend writing sessions with pre-etched material, setting their sequencers running and letting the ideas gestate for hours at a time, before Florian might stand up and add another sequence…
If we take an analytical look at the title track from The Man Machine, it's easy to understand how it might have been birthed within such a jam session.
The track opens with an almost wooden, semi-Hi-Q electronic percussion sound, in a one-bar rhythmic loop. This provides the distinctive hook which runs through the entire song. This element also provides the rhythm for the iconic melodic riff which follows.
Possibly due to the nature of the technology of the era, The Man Machine is relatively sparse in terms of its arrangement.
Rooted in F minor (although it's a little bit out of tune with A440 tuning) the classic riff begins on the minor 3rd (aka Ab). With no other harmonic elements on offer here, it is left to the riff to drop down to the note G and F, to give us clues about its harmonic home.
The end of the riff rises up to a Bb, providing the hint of a sus chord, or nudge in the direction of chord IV (Bb).
As the bass enters - using a fairly filtered synth sound - it also employs the note Ab more than the root note F.
It's only when we hear the 2-note chord, playing both an F and Ab, that we can be sure about the harmony. We can't be entirely sure which synth was responsible for this part, but given the era and their synth preferences, it's likely that an ARP Odyssey would have played a role here.
Being duophonic in operation, the Odyssey would have allowed 2-note chords, allowing an oscillator per voice.
It would've also been the perfect machine for the promoted synth texture, which is based around an ever shifting filter cutoff, probably provided by Sample & Hold routed to the cutoff, although there does seem to be a degree of manual cutoff shifting here too, as the filter rises and falls with each 2-bar phrase.
You can’t fail to notice that the opening track on this album (The Robots) and this closing track (The Man Machine) rely heavily on a vocoder for the vocal melody. It’s one of the classic Kraftwerk calling cards.
Vocoders are a fascinating technology, which have always been heavily linked with the sound of robots. In essence, you speak into a microphone which is patched through to a vocoder, and play the note that you would like your melody to sing, using a synthesiser.
You don’t even have to be able to sing, as spoken lyrics (or other elements such as drum grooves) imprint their modulation and shape on the carrier wave, provided by the synth part. The result is a pure robotic performance - at least in terms of sound.
As many artists have demonstrated, vocoders can sound very soulful, but it was Kraftwerk’s heavy utilisation that undoubtedly inspired a massive number of subsequent users, from Stevie Wonder to Daft Punk.
Returning to our track in focus, the vocoder melody begins on the note F, before rising up to Ab & Bb. This contrasts the main synth riff and bass part, which begin on the note Ab.
This solidifies the harmony, where we appear to alternate from a bar of Fm to Bb, with a chord to-a-bar. This continues through the verse structure, which in pure Germanic-techno style is fairly light on lyrical content.
Man machine
Semi-human being
Man Machine
Super-human being
As we move to the chorus section, the vocoder provides a rising arpeggio figure over 2 octaves, remaining on a chord of F minor, with the odd additional note thrown in for melodic interest.
We also hear the repetitive lyric, ‘The man machine, machine, machine, machine…’ etc. You get the picture!
In fact, the lyric became an artwork feature on the cover of the album, which is still used in the video content for their live shows.
Meanwhile, there is also a slight jolt in the harmony, as we rise up a tone to G minor, where the same chorus based tricks are employed, before dropping back down to F minor.
Kraftwerk were well known for their creativity in designing sonic backdrops. The Man Machine is a perfect example. Post-chorus, we are treated to a number of different sound effect soundbites, all created in an analog world. They conjure an image of whirring machines and cogs, which would've been highly representative of robot technology from this era.
Their sound design didn't just include effects though. The percussive elements which form the backbone of the entire album are integral to the sonic universe. The heavy transient of the kick drum, coupled with the slightly wooden nature of the snare, present a unique sound world which sets Kraftwerk apart from many of their peers, who were reliant upon pre-existing percussion sounds.
The recording for the album took place at Kraftwerk's own legendary Kling Klang studio. This entirely modular studio could also be packed up and taken on the road.
However, mixing for the album was undertaken in a different location. According to former member, Karl Bartos, Kling Klang did not offer a large enough mixing console for the album, so they decided to decamp to nearby Studio Rudas, where studio owner Joschko Rudas manned the desk, alongside Leanard Jackson, who was drafted in from LA. He wasn’t entirely happy about the cold winter climate of Dusseldorf, in contrast to the blue skies of California.
Jackson had earned the nickname ‘Colonel Disco’ and it was hoped that he would make the album sound more commercial.
Despite the highly critical success of the original album from 1978, it took nearly 4 years for the album to hit its highest UK chart peak of No 9.
By late 1981, Kraftwerk had released yet another seminal classic Computer World, and with the release of the track Computer Love as a single, EMI decided to place The Model (from The Man Machine’ album) on the B-side.
In a bizarre twist of fate, radio DJs started playing the B-side, leading to a re-release of the single as a double A-side. The Model hit the number one position on the UK charts in February 1982, leading to renewed interest in The Man Machine, which in turn had a positive effect on the sales of Computer World.
As we are get close to 50 years since the original release of The Man Machine, its future-anticipating techniques and themes feel more impressive than ever. We now literally have the very mechanical artificial intelligences implied across the record, churning out rendered facsimiles of human-made music.
But, we also have hyper-intuitive DAWs and many of Kraftwerk’s technological innovations now form the bedrock of the electronic music-maker’s guidebook.
We often wonder just how much of this was Kraftwerk foreseeing future trends, and how much of it was Kraftwerk taking it upon themselves to invent tomorrow.
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