Kraftwerk are breaking new ground with their first album in 17 years. They are number one in their native Germany for the first time and they are even doing interviews, writes Jim Carroll
Somewhere in Germany, Ralf Hütter is giggling down the phone line. The representative of one of the most influential, and certainly the most secretive, acts in pop, Hütter is more than likely in Düsseldorf, but probably not at the infamous telephone-less Kling-Klang studio that Kraftwerk have called their workplace since 1975.
Indeed, there's a 50-50 chance that it's not actually him on the other end of the phone, but you take these chances every time you do an interview by phone. It may be some robotic interloper, it may be one of the anonymous musik arbeiters who toil alongside Hütter and Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider, or it may even be some post-modern jape which the record company is playing. After all, when a man who doesn't normally have anything to do with answering questions suddenly begins to answer them . . .
Let's dismiss those doubts and keep the tape rolling. Hütter's very un-Kraftwerk-like giggling comes as he shares the news that Tour de France Soundtracks, the first album of new Kraftwerk music since Electric Café in 1986, has gone to number one in Germany.
"We have never had anything like this before, it is the first time we have ever had a number one," he says, with a touch of considerable wonder in his voice.
Greeted with much critical applause, Tour de France Soundtracks is quite an achievement - and not just because the band finally managed to release it. While most returning idols and icons invariably tarnish their reputation in return for a greater pension fund, Kraftwerk have shown that time has not robbed them of their electronic panache.
They always have been ahead of the curve. The modern world of Internet, laptops and connectivity on every street corner is what they were predicting back in the 1970s and 1980s with such tracks as Pocket Calculator and Computer Love. They make no such McLuhan-style claims today about our global village, instead preferring to let the sublime grooves, magnificent electronic symphonies and superbly sculpted ambience contained in the new album to do all the shouting that needs to be done.
While he's doing a limited number of interviews to coincide with the release, Hütter insists that Kraftwerk maintain a strict church-and-state divide between making music and selling it.
"We look upon our work as Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art," he says. "We put all the aspects of Kraftwerk together - the music, the lyrics, the artwork, the packaging. That is all we do. When the music is ready or the concert is over, our work is done. We do not really concern ourselves with the marketing."
However, such lofty idealism does tend to lend itself to nerdy perfectionism, and there's an element of this to his slightly vague explanation of the album's lengthy gestation period.
"The idea to do this album first came about in 1983," he says. "Back then, after we finished the Tour de France single, we went on to other ideas and projects, but the whole Tour de France concept stayed with us. This is like a film script in some ways, which we have been working on and perfecting. After last year's European shows, when we premièred the mobile Kling-Klang equipment, we went back to Düsseldorf and decided that we must finish the album."
Released to tie in loosely with the centenary of the Tour (but ironically released some weeks after Lance Armstrong went home with another yellow jersey for his wardrobe), Hütter believes the album catches the "spirit of cycling" which they set out to record.
"When you're cycling well and you're feeling good, you're functioning perfectly and you don't actually hear any sound from your bicycle," he says. "It's only when a problem occurs, like the chain starts to rattle or the brake squeaks, that you actually hear loud sounds. Otherwise, it's very gentle sounds, like the spokes gliding or the human breath or the cyclist's heartbeat - and it's this music of silence which we reproduced throughout the album."
Kraftwerk's new mobility and productivity (including tours in Australia, Japan, France and Belgium in the last 12 months) is down to advances in technology.
"In the 1970s and 1980s, there were no PCs or home computers, even though we were mentioning them in some of our tracks," recalls Hütter. "We had a lot of analogue equipment in the Kling-Klang studio, so when it came to editing, we used tapes and razor-blades. I remember getting my first Moog synth in 1972 or 1973 and it cost as much as my Volkswagen, the one on the Autobahn cover, so there were lot of difficulties and costs involved in making electronic pop music.
"You would get problems with concerts too. It might be cold in the venue in the afternoon at sound-check time and the equipment would be out of tune, but when the crowd arrived in the evening, it would be hot with lights, so the synths would go out of tune again. There were so many complications that you would begin to lose concentration over some minor technical details. Nowadays, we're mobile, we plug in and our computers can always cope. It's wonderful, it's a dream come true, it means we can always play Kraftwerk music."
What's also changed, he notes, is where they can play. Thanks to the universality of house, techno and other electronic sounds, an act such as Kraftwerk is no longer an anomaly.
"When we began, we had so many difficulties putting on concerts and events because rock music dominated everything," he says. "The shows we could do were limited to small venues, like universities and art centres. Nowadays, we're on the bill for the Big Day Out rock festival in Australia and it all makes sense."
He sounds chuffed when he talks about the reciprocal respect between Kraftwerk and the countless acts they've influenced over the years, in everything from hip-hop to techno.
"In the 1970s, we had a vision of a new kind of electronic pop music, a folk music with a beat, and today it's a reality," he says. "You have people working in home studios and communicating with the outside world via the Internet or electronic sound files. For us, it's encouraging because of the energy we feel and feedback we receive. It's wonderful to be loved for doing something you love."
Yet prior to this album's arrival in the shops, most considered Kraftwerk to be reclusive electroids, nerds hiding behind robots and the doors of Kling-Klang.
"Sometimes it makes us smile," Hütter says about this intrigue. "We concentrate on reality. We are quiet, normal workers. We have a routine which involves us going to our studio, closing the door so as not to be disturbed by anyone and concentrating on the music. When we come out to do concerts, we concentrate on putting on a decent show. That's our work."
Now that the album has been released and they have discovered the allure of laptop dancing, that work will continue - a world tour is planned for 2004 and Hütter promises an Irish date on this occasion. But because all work and no plays makes Ralf a dull 'Werker, there's always room for leisure pursuits.
Hütter enthuses about how close he came to the action during the recent Tour de France.
"We received an invitation from the Tour director and we were in a car next to his car during the stages in the Alps," he says. "It was quite extraordinary to see. As you know, we're big cycling fans and we have done those stages ourselves several times, but in the rhythm of Kraftwerk. This was different."
Tour de France Soundtracks is on EMI