Krautrock

When someone says "electronic music," what are some of the earliest examples you can think of? The steely new wave and pop-and-lock electro of the '80s, right? While both of those scenes have influenced the beat-savvy tracks of today, many boundary-pushing artists — Depeche Mode, the Chemical Brothers, LCD Soundsystem, and the unstoppable Afrika Bambaataa — pull their finest ideas from Germany's Krautrock movement. If you're a newbie, a quick listen to any of the following songs will undoubtedly blow your mind, as they still sound like they're from a distant time and place, including the space cadet soundtrack of "Spoon," the spellbinding ambient tones of "Main Title," and the future-shocked techno template of "Autobahn."

More of the same (i.e. music that makes your brain feel like a package of marshmallows) is waiting to be discovered in our Next Steps as well.

A quick spin of "Flashback Caruso" might trick you into thinking that Stereolab drafted Belle & Sebastian for a dream-pop duet. Look closely, however, and you'll learn that it's a snippet from The Faust Tapes, a 1973 album that's stretched over two seamless LP sides. Most Krautrock music brings out wide-eyed discovery moments like this, whether we're talking the twisted sonics of Tago Mago — a.k.a. the first Can album to feature Damo Suzuki as its frontman (the band's original singer had a nervous breakdown) — the Led Zeppelin-like leads of "I'm Goin' Mad," by, yes, that "Rock You Like a Hurricane" band, the Scorpions; or the shimmering synth layers that weave in and out of "Isi."

And if you think all of that's not crazy enough, wait until you hear our Deep Cuts.

If you've made it this far down our Krautrock Essentials, you probably know the names Kraftwerk, Neu!, and Can by now. But Xhol, Gila, and Mythos? No, those aren't the kind of artists you hear name-dropped on a daily basis. Let's change all that by exploring every groove of Germany's avant-garde, from the wilting strings of "Besuch aus dem Kosmos" and the laser-like keys of "Monza (Harmonia de Luxe)" to the minimal, lonesome chords of "Engel der Gegenwart" and "Die Weisse Alm." Elsewhere, funk textures get deep-fried ("Aggression," which is just waiting to get sampled by DJ Shadow) and drums ripple, tearing apart the fabric of time ("Hero's Death").

Considering just how visionary Krautrock was during the '60s and '70s, it's hard to believe the term started as a U.K.-based stab at electronic German music. At the time, British journalists didn't quite get the scene's prog-inspired focus on spliced tapes and pulsating synths. After all, American and British musicians were more concerned with rock, jazz, and classical music, making the work of Can and its contemporaries seem like a broadcast from Mars. As Jean-Hervé Peron of Faust once told Wire magazine, "We were trying to put aside everything we had heard in rock 'n' roll — the three-chord pattern, the lyrics. We had the urge of saying something completely different." And say it they did — loudly and proudly — predicting ambient techno (Tangerine Dream), post-rock (Faust, Amon Düül II), synth pop (Neu!), and strands of techno and hip-hop (Kraftwerk) in the process.