KRAFTWERK 2 @ 50

Released in January of 1972, Kraftwerk 2 celebrates its 50th anniversary this month. The album was recorded entirely by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in late 1971 as “Nobody wanted to play with us because we did all kinds of strange things ... feedbacks and overtones and sounds and rhythms. No drummer wanted to work with us because we had these electronic gadgets.”

Despite the above statement, the album is rather uncharacteristic for its lack of synthesizers, with the instrumentation being largely electric guitar, bass guitar, flute and violin. The electronics on display mostly belong to the realm of 1960s tape-based music with heavy use of tape echo and reversed or altered speed tape effects. The overall mood of the album comes across as more muted as the group explored certain auto-mechanical techniques for their music. They were gradually moving away from formlessness into more structured arrangements, but were still some distance away from the machine-like precision of their classic albums.

Along with their eponymous debut and the follow-up to this, Ralf & Florian, the group have yet to embrace this trio of early works into their acknowledged “catalogue” of classic LPs. All three remain without official reissues or remastering attempts. Though some discussion of such has taken place, it is obviously not a priority for the group, or at least for Ralph Hütter, the only remaining founding member who would be responsible for spearheading such a project. The result is that these sometimes lovely, quirky experiments continue to live in a twilight of unofficial “bootlegs”, only pursued by the bands most ardent fans.

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART - THE SPOTLIGHT KID @ 50

 

Released in January of 1972, Captain Beefheart’s 6th studio album, The Spotlight Kid, celebrates its 50th anniversary this month.

After pushing the blues to the outer edges of recognizable music with Trout Mask Replica (1969) and Lick My Decals Off Baby (1970), the empty bank accounts of Don Van Vliet and his Magic Band convinced him that music fans needed something “to hang their hats on”. Occupying the outer fringes of the avant-garde for the previous two years had left his band living off of welfare or handouts from parents, so musically, and he set course for the band to pursue a slightly more accessible sound. To this end, evenly metered beats were given greater prominence and tempos were slowed down, which also served the purpose of helping Don fit his vocals into the music since he was notorious for not rehearsing with the band and struggling to cope with the faster tempos.

As they had done before with Trout Mask Replica, the group lived communally again during the pre-production & rehearsal phases of Spotlight Kid, a situation which ultimately resulted in the return of the same abuses and deprivations which had characterized the previous experience. At one point, the worst of it was when Zoot Horn Rollo (Bill Harkleroad) was literally thrown out into the trash, an all too cruel commentary on his value to the band. Overall, the change in direction didn’t sit well with the band and many still consider the album one of their least successful, citing the sluggish, slow tempos and simplistic arrangements as disappointing compared to the achievements of the previous records. Interestingly, the album is the only one that is credited to Captain Beefheart alone with no inclusion of The Magic Band like all the other albums.

Critically, the album wasn’t badly received with many considering even a weaker Beefheart album better than good albums by lesser artists. Personally, it’s not one of my favorites by far, though there are a couple of notable songs, the best of which are actually the live performances of I'm Gonna Booglarize You Baby and Click Clack from a TV appearance in Germany on Beat Club. The band looks and sounds in top form and rips through these songs with a focused fury that isn’t apparent on the studio versions.