October 2024 sees veteran German synthesist Harald Grosskopf turn 75.
To celebrate, he releases a brand new album ‘Strom’ and publishes his autobiography ‘Monsieur Séquenceur’ in Deutsch which will be of interest to anyone remotely interested in Deutsche Elektronische Musik.
Harald Grosskopf had been the drummer of WALLENSTEIN, THE COSMIC JOKERS and ASHRA, working with Manuel Göttsching in the latter while some of his most notable sessions were with Klaus Schulze on his albums ‘Moondawn’, ‘Body Love’ and ‘X’.
But while in between projects, with the encouragement of friend and composer Udo Hanten, Grosskopf’s desire for making music led him experiment with a Minimoog, Korg PS3200 and an ARP 16-Step Sequencer alongside his drums. The end result was his wonderfully dreamy solo debut ‘Synthesist’ released in 1980; fans of the record included Andy McCluskey, Mark Reeder and Jean-Michel Jarre.
Grosskopf’s desire not to repeat himself has meant he has not been prolific as a solo artist, although over the years, he continued working with Manuel Göttsching in ASHRA as well as undertaking various collaborations Steve Baltes, Eberhard Kranemann, Thorsten Quäschning and Axel Heilhecker. Now after several years in the making comes ‘Strom’, translated from German as “electricity” and looking not that dissimilar the English word “storm” which could also sonically apply to this work.
Opening salvo ‘Bureau 39’ demonstrates an aural heritage with ‘Synthesist’ which is no bad thing, absorbing yet acting as a relaxant within a kaleidoscopic soundscape that twists with bursts of Doppler engine noise. Moving into more grinding territory, ‘Blow’ possesses a fierce marching rumble. There is a sharp use of rhythm on this album, as can be heard on ‘Später Strom’ but its overall gallop and texturing wouldn’t have sounded out of place on ‘Synthesist’, save the percussive sample template.
There are the more breezy overtures of ‘Gleich Strom’ but experimental and noisy, both ‘After The Future’ and ‘Um Pah Pah Uh’ almost do away with melody and reveal some quite unsettling voices, the former growling “NEVER” like a twisted character from The Brother Grimm while the latter also plays with eerie Middle Eastern overtones.
Like a passing express locomotive, the strident ‘Stylo Kraut’ is the album’s driving centrepiece, building towards a cosmic metallic fervour. Meanwhile the closer ‘Stromklang’ wouldn’t sound of place in a club, displaying a stomping affinity to dance culture over a sinister backdrop with cutting stabs of synth duelling with more spacey shimmers and rolling arpeggios.
‘Strom’ is an album that merges Harald Grosskopf’s classic melodic synth sound with the digital machine of today for a fully charged body of work. It retains enough familiarity while going off on various sonic tangents and abstract adventures to satisfy many a listener of more esoteric electronic forms.
German music veteran Harald Grosskopf has lived a wonderfully busy life, working with noted fellow countrymen like Klaus Schulze, Manuel Göttsching, Eberhard Kranemann, Udo Hanten, Lutz Ulbrich, Steve Baltes, Thorsten Quäschning and Axel Heilhecker.
As well as the drumming for of WALLENSTEIN, THE COSMIC JOKERS and ASH RA TEMPEL, he is a respected solo artist whose 1980 debut album ‘Synthesist’ is now held up as an exemplary electronic work of the period; fans of the record have included Andy McCluskey, Mark Reeder and Jean-Michel Jarre.
Turning 75 this October, Harald Grosskopf celebrates the occasion by publishing his German language autobiography ‘Monsieur Séquenceur’ and releasing a brand new album ‘Strom’ on Bureau B. The album title translates from German as “electricity” and fuses his classic melodic synth sound with the virtual tools of today for a fully charged body of work.
Harald Grosskopf kindly spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the genesis of both his book and latest music creation…
The last time we spoke, it was for the expanded 40th Anniversary edition of ‘Synthesist’ in 2020, are you happy with how it was received?
Oh yes! The limited edition was sold out in weeks.
This new album ‘Strom’ has been a while coming, how did you decide it was time for a new solo creation?
I have to go into great detail to answer this question. I am a musician, and standing still is not part of my concept. Making music is a great passion that has grown throughout my life. Finally being able to work independently in my own studio is a privilege I had to wait a long time for until it finally became a reality in 2007.
After my first solo album ‘Synthesist’, the music industry sharply declined in the 1980s, and analog studios around the world closed in large numbers. I couldn’t afford the necessary recording equipment, and the few remaining studios were expensive. When the first Atari computers with built-in MIDI hit the market, things slowly started to pick up again. But it wasn’t until the late 1990s, when it became possible to record analog audio signals with relatively affordable music software, that things really began to move forward.
In the beginning I had virtually no experience, firstly with computers and secondly the complex subject of music software. The next step was to teach myself, step by step, and to create a physical space where I could work undisturbed. A studio. It always takes me quite a while to be emotionally satisfied with a track. Thank God I’m not under any commercial production pressure.
After producing an album with KRAFTWERK founder Eberhard Kranemann in 2018, and after we toured in England and performed in China, I began to focus on my solo work again. This led first to a remix album of my second solo album ‘Oceanheart’ (Sky 1985), ‘Oceanheart Revisited’. After that, I began working on the ‘Strom’ album. The entire album was mixed and mastered in an analog studio on reel to reel tape before digitalized again to get an analog feeling.
The title is ‘Strom’ which in English means “electricity”, does it share any conceptual heritage with ‘Synthesist’?
Well, I can’t change who I am. I never work with a musical concept. I always approach things emotionally. That means, unconsciously, there may be references to ‘Synthesist’. However, I certainly don’t try to repeat myself and always allow new experiences to influence my work.
‘Bureau 39’ has already been issued online as a trailer to ‘Strom’, you have your classic sweeping synth sound on it, are you still using your old synths or have you gone for virtual?
I haven’t owned any analog equipment for a long time. I never had a large collection of it anyway. I like the quick access that music software and virtual instruments offer. This way, I can always stay in the flow of spontaneous creativity without wasting time on wiring synths and dealing with tons of processing tools. That doesn’t mean I condemn analog synths. I just don’t use them. It also makes traveling easier. I don’t need to carry much to get to the stage!
‘Blow’ is quite fierce in places?
Deep in my heart, I am still a drummer. Physical intensity is a characteristic of drumming. That’s what drives me to make tracks like these.
There is a sharp use of rhythm on this album, as can be heard on ‘Später Strom’, had there been a particular approach? Did you manually trigger on a kit and quantise or was it all mouse and screen?
Always a mix of handmade drum loops and mouse editing.
‘After The Future’ and ‘Um Pah Pah Uh’ are quite experimental and almost do away with melody, featuring unsettling voices?
I have always seen it as a reminiscence of the early days of electronic music—Stockhausen, Pierre Schaeffer, Oscar Sala, etc, to include a little bit of this direction in my solo albums to keep it alive, without falling into banal copying.
What inspired the feel of ‘Stylo Kraut’?
That began in 2018 when I did a small tour of England with Eberhard Kranemann. We were invited by John Simpson, the CEO of Dubreq Ltd in Hastings, which reissued the legendary Stylophone Mini Synthesizer from 1967 in 2007, to perform a concert in Hastings. John provided us with this little synth buzzer, the Gen X-1 model. As a thank you, I produced this track, which I continued to expand and modify in the studio over time. It is, therefore, a small monument of reverence to this tiny, magical music machine, which was already honored by John Lennon, David Bowie, and KRAFTWERK in the past.
‘Stromklang’ wouldn’t sound of place in a club, doing you feel any affinity to techno or dance culture?
I wouldn’t have a problem if my music were played in techno clubs. I first came into contact with this music when techno reached its peak in the mid-1990s. That was probably due to my age. I was approaching 50 and hadn’t been going to clubs for a long time, so this culture more or less completely passed me by until then.
Steve Baltes, a young musician whom I invited to join us on two of our ASHRA Japan tours, played me tracks that gave me goosebumps. I like this music because it resonates with my drummer’s heart, physical and simple intensity. That has certainly influenced my music-making unconsciously. However, I’m far from making techno, as generally, I don’t care about other music at all when I’m in my studio.
How have you adapted your creativity to today’s equipment and music consumption environment?
Out of necessity, I turned to creating music with computers almost 30 years ago because, as I hinted earlier, I couldn’t afford studio equipment or expensive studio costs. The rapid technological development of digital recording tools and virtual synthesizers is breathtaking. However, I am open to all techniques. For example, I mixed my last albums on magnetic tape in the studio of my friend Tobias Stock before we digitally rendered the tracks for CD and vinyl. As a result, even the CD now sounds very analog.
Over 25 years, Tobias has assembled a top-class analog studio in mint condition, which leaves nothing to be desired, and he maintains it at the highest level in his role as an electronic engineer and musician. The next step will be working with various AI tools. However, I definitely won’t be creating ‘prompt-to-music’ at the push of a button. The rejection of AI as a creative tool strongly reminds me of the incompetent reactions to the emergence of the first synthesizers in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Klaus Schulze always responded to these technology sceptics with irony: “Since when do violins grow on trees, or pianos in fields?”
How did the idea for a book come about? Did you keep diaries or has everything been recounted from memory?
I never kept a diary. About 30 years ago, I started writing down my memories sporadically, without any intention of ever publishing them. It was more for reasons of therapeutic self-reflection. Over time, when I shared stories from my life with friends and acquaintances, I kept getting asked why I didn’t publish them. When my label, Bureau B, became economically involved with Ventil Publishing Company, and I told Gunther Buskies, the CEO of Bureau B, about my writings, everything started falling into place.
Since I originally had around 700 pages, and no one would read such a long biography, we worked with a professional editor to condense it to an acceptable length. And now, the time has come. The version, which until now has only been available in German, will be released in parallel with the ‘Strom’ album. I’m working on an English translation.
Did you have a particular memory that was jogged by a conversation or research that for various reasons, you had forgotten about?
Writing takes longer than quickly recalling images, feelings, and dialogues. When you sit down to write down memories, you have to hold the image of the memory in your mind until you’ve formulated it. This apparently has the effect of bringing back seemingly long-forgotten content, which suddenly becomes alive again, and you can hardly stop yourself from holding it in your mind in order to get it down on paper or hammer it into the computer. It could happen that I sometimes wrote for 6 or 7 hours without a break. A phenomenon that others have also reported to me.
So, would you agree that if you can remember recording with THE COSMIC JOKERS, then you weren’t actually there???😉
Of course, memories can deceive us, and surely our brain alters our memories as well. Memories are always fragmented and sometimes hazy. Now to your question: Yes, I can recall those Cosmic Couriers sessions in Dieter Dierks’ studio, half a century ago fairly well.
Two of your most esteemed colleagues Klaus Schulze and Manuel Göttsching are sadly no longer with us, has this had any bearing on how you have approached the book or the album?
No, because I had already written everything related to the two of them during their lifetimes.
What is next for you?
The mastering of the next solo album, titled ‘Glitches Brew’, which will be released in the second half of 2025 on Bureau B. Two more albums featuring collaborations with other artists are also completed. We are still looking for a label for one of these albums. The second one of this kind will be released in March 2025 on the English DIN label. I am not yet allowed to reveal the title and protagonists. Additionally, I am already working on a third solo album and video projection materials for future live performances.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Harald Grosskopf
David Bowie had famously dropped in to see THE HUMAN LEAGUE at The Nashville in late 1978 and hailed them as “the future of rock ‘n’ roll”.
But it was TUBEWAY ARMY fronted by Gary Numan who beat THE HUMAN LEAGUE to the top of the UK singles charts in Summer 1979 with Are Friends Electric?’ while just a few weeks earlier, SPARKS had been become willing conspirators with Giorgio Moroder on ‘The No1 Song In Heaven’ to effectively invent the synth duo.
Although it was the dawn of synth, 1980 was a transitional time when the synth was still the exception rather than the rule. The landscape was changing and the seed of what became the New Romantic movement had been planted.
Following the critical mauling he received for his 1979 album ‘Lodger’ but aware of his burgeoning influence in these futuristic sounds, Bowie headed down to The Blitz with RCA assistant and club regular Jacqueline Bucknell to cast extras including the late Steve Strange for the video of his new single ‘Ashes To Ashes’. It hit the top of UK charts and confirmed that once again “There’s old wave. There’s new wave. And there’s David Bowie…”
While Bowie’s was not an electronic artist in the way some of the next generation of artists had declared themselves, he couldn’t resist a sly dig at the acts that he’d inspired, using the line “same old thing in brand new drag” on the track ‘Teenage Wildlife’ from his next album ‘Scary Monsters’. And he was eventually to beat previous winner Gary Numan to the year’s ‘Best Male Singer’ accolade at the BBC endorsed British Rock & Pop Awards.
Belatedly looking back to 42 years ago before automatic stations came, here are 20 albums which ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK sees as contributing to the electronic legacy of 1980. They are listed in alphabetical order with a restriction of one album per act.
BUGGLES The Age Of Plastic
Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes met while working with Tina Charles and her producer Biddu. Together they would go on to form BUGGLES and score a No1 with ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’. From the parent album ‘The Age Of Plastic’, ‘Astroboy’ developed on the duo’s sonic adventures while ‘The Plastic Age’ and ‘Clean Clean’ provided further if minor hits. Horn would go on become a top record producer.
Before OMD, the electronic duo on The Wirral was DALEK I LOVE YOU. However, by the time their debut album ‘Compass Kum’pas’ was released, OMD were having hits and keyboards man Dave Hughes had left to join their live band. Although Alan Gill’s vocals could polarise opinion, ‘Destiny’ was their most immediate song with a precise percussive appeal while ‘The World’ was eccentric and retro-futuristic.
The success of the singles ‘Back To Nature’ and ‘Ricky’s Hand’ attracted a loyal fanbase, so a FAD GADGET album ‘Fireside Favourites’ was eagerly anticipated. Developing on the minimal industrialism of the singles, the superb ‘Coitus Interruptus’ was a cynical commentary on casual relationships while offering his own brand of romantic macabre in the fear of the imminent nuclear apocalypse was the neo-title song ‘Fireside Favourite’.
On the ULTRAVOX! debut,John Foxx announced “I want to be a machine”. On signing to Virgin Records as a solo artist, he virtually went the full hog with the seminal JG Ballard inspired ’Metamatic’. ‘Underpass’ and ‘No-One Driving’ were surprise hit singles that underlined the dystopian times while the fabulous ‘A New Kind Of Man’ and the deviant ‘He’s A Liquid’ were pure unadulterated Sci-Fi driven by the cold mechanics of a Roland Compurhythm.
‘Metamatic’ is still available via Metamatic Records
Having worked with Klaus Schulze and Manuel Göttsching, drummer turned keyboard player Harald Grosskopf took the plunge to go solo with the mind bending album ‘Synthesist’. A work comprising of eight instrumentals that blended a sonic tapestry of synthesizer soundscapes with drumming that provided colour as opposed to dominance, it musically followed in the exquisite tradition of his Berlin electronic friends.
With THE HUMAN LEAGUE learning lessons from their debut ‘Reproduction’, ‘Travelogue’ had more presence by creatively utilising the harsh screeching frequencies from overdriving their studio desk. ‘The Black Hit Of Space’ had its surreal Sci-Fi lyrics while ‘Dreams Of Leaving’ was a fantastically emotive slice of prog synth. There were glorious cover versions in ‘Only After Dark’ and ‘Gordon’s Gin’. While it was a breakthrough, all was not happy…
‘Travelogue’ is still available via Virgin Records
Dropped by Ariola Hansa, JAPAN found a refuge at Virgin Records. The bossa nova driven ‘Swing’ explored exotic grooves while the haunting ‘Nightporter’ was the ultimate Erik Satie tribute. An interest in Japanese technopop produced the brilliant ‘Methods Of Dance’ and saw leader David Sylvian collaborate with YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA’s Ryuichi Sakamoto on ‘Taking Islands In Africa’.
While not strictly an electronic album in full, half of ‘Closer’ was dominated by polyphonic synthesizers. Featuring an ARP Omni and an early version of Simmons drums, ‘Isolation’ was the most electronic track JOY DIVISION ever recorded. On the second side, ‘Heart & Soul’, ‘The Eternal’ and ‘Decades’ provided the solemn but beautiful Gothic backdrop producer by Martin Hannett for Ian Curtis’ elaborate musical suicide note.
LA DÜSSELDORF were fronted by the late Klaus Dinger of NEU! There was a greater presence of electronics and the first half of ‘Individuellos’was dominated by variations on ‘Menschen’, a grand statement sounding like a blueprint for Phil Lynott’s ‘Yellow Pearl’. ‘Dampfriemen’ was a quirky slice of synth oompah with comedic chants and a kazoo section while the piano laden ‘Das Yvönnchen’ provided a beautiful closer.
Time has shown that Tony Mansfield and NEW MUSIK with their strummed guitar alongside pretty synth melodies were underrated. Featuring the hits ‘Living By Numbers’, ‘This World Of Water’ and ‘Sanctuary’ as well as ‘On Islands’ which was later covered by CAMOUFLAGE, the band were dismissed as a novelty act due to the silly voices in their songs. Mansfield went on to produce A-HA, NAKED EYES and VICIOUS PINK.
The negative side of fame got into the psyche of Gary Numan and his new songs took on a more personal downbeat nature away from the Sci-Fi dystopia of his previous work. ‘This Wreckage’ and ‘Please Push No More’ summed up the self-doubt but while ‘Remind Me To Smile’ could have been a single, ‘Telekon’ suffered from not having the hit single ‘We Are Glass’ and ‘I Die: You Die’ included on the original LP release.
OMD released two albums in 1980 but their self-titled debut captured Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys using the most basic equipment, the duo not even having a polyphonic synth at the time. With energetic post-punk synth numbers such as ‘Electricity’ and ‘Bunker Soldiers’, on the other side of the coin were ‘Almost’ and ‘The Messerschmitt Twins’. An early version of ‘Messages’ pointed to a future with hit singles.
Although rooted in the blues via his previous band VINEGAR JOE, Robert Palmer took an interest in synths having become a fan of Gary Numan. That led to two collaborations including a version of ‘I Dream Of Wires’ released before Numan’s own recording and the Eastern flavoured ‘Found You Now’. The electronic centrepiece was the beautifully world weary ‘Johnny & Mary’ while ‘Looking for Clues’ added synthy art funk to the mix.
‘Clues’ is still available via Island Records / Universal Music
Following the acclaim for THE NORMAL, Daniel Miller undertook a new project SILICON TEENS as a fictitious synth group where rock ’n’ roll standards such as ‘Memphis Tennessee’, ‘Just Like Eddie’, ‘Let’s Dance’ and ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ were enjoyably reinterpreted in a quirky synthpop style with Miller adding his deadpan monotone vocal. Frank Tovey aka FAD GADGET played the role of lead singer “Darryl” for videos and press.
Tours opening for Gary Numan and Peter Gabriel took SIMPLE MINDS around Europe to experience Cold War tensions at closer hand. Their wired mood was captured on ‘Empires & Dance’. With its speedy Moroder-esque influence, ‘I Travel’ was a screeching futuristic frenzy and ‘Celebrate’ brought some industrial Schaffel to the party. ’30 Frames A Second’ took a trip down the autobahn but ‘Twist / Run / Repulsion’ messed with the headspace of listeners.
Following the Giorgio Moroder steered album ‘No1 In Heaven’, SPARKS were despatched by Virgin Records to record a swift follow-up. Although Moroder was still nominally at the helm, Harold Faltermeyer took the majority of production duties on ‘Terminal Jive’. ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll People In A Disco World’ seemed to reflect the confused direction but ‘When I’m With You’ was a massive hit single in France, leading to the Mael Brothers’ relocation.
After experiments with vocals on ‘Cyclone’ and live drums on ‘Force Majeure’, with the recruitment on keyboards with Johannes Schmoelling to fill the difficult to fill void left by the departure of Peter Baumann, Edgar Froese and Christopher Franke got back on track, combining a more immediate sequencer drive with the melodic New Age resonances on the two part ‘Tangram’ set that would characterise TANGERINE DREAM’s later work.
The second TELEX album ‘Neurovision’ continued with the trio’s tradition of deadpan electronic covers and a gloriously metronomic take on ‘Dance To The Music’ showcased their penchant for mischievous subversion. But this mischief came to its head with their lampooning self-composed number ‘Euro-Vision’, a bouncy electropop tune which they actually entered for 1980 Eurovision Song Contest, coming seventeenth!
Following the first VISAGE sessions, Midge Ure was invited to join Billy Currie, Chris Cross and Warren Cann in ULTRAVOX. Providing a sonic continuity from the John Foxx-led era was producer Conny Plank while the robotic spy story ‘Mr X’ voiced by Cann provided another link. Opening with the mighty instrumental ‘Astradyne’ and closing with the synthesized heavy metal of ‘All Stood Still’, the ‘Vienna’ album was a triumph.
Formed as a reaction to the shortage of new electronic dance music to play at The Blitz Club, ex-RICH KIDS members Midge Ure and Rusty Egan recruited its figurehead Steve Strange to front the project under the name of VISAGE. Billy Currie, Dave Formula, John McGeoch and Barry Adamson joined later and captured a synthesized European romanticism that boasted the German No1 ‘Fade To Grey’ as well as two other hits in ‘Mind Of A Toy’ and the eponymous title track.
‘Visage’ is still available via Rubellan Remasters
Harald Grosskopf is the German drummer who entered the world of electronic music while still maintaining his percussive role behind the kit.
Grosskopf made his name in the rock band WALLENSTEIN, but legend has it that a hallucinogenic adventure led to a voice telling him to stop trying to sound like Billy Cobham or Ginger Baker, as he realised he had been imitating other musicians.
With his mind free from having to drum within a set role, he realised rock music was not the best medium for this mode of artistic expression. Two musicians, who were members of the Berliner kosmische combo ASH RA TEMPEL, Klaus Schulze and Manuel Göttsching were to become key in paving Harald Grosskopf’s path into the world of electronic music.
Schulze was a fellow drummer who had served an apprenticeship with TANGERINE DREAM and went on to wholly embrace the meditative synthesizer aesthetic; he invited Grosskopf to play drums on his 1976 masterpiece ‘Moondawn’.
Meanwhile Manuel Göttsching had developed a more transient guitar style to compliment his more electronically-based instrumental backdrop as showcased on the classic long player ‘New Age Of Earth’ as ASHRA. Looking to expand his vehicle to a more-band oriented format, the guitarist asked to Grosskopf to join him for the recording of what became 1979’s ‘Correlations’.
Harald Grosskopf took the plunge to go solo with the mind bending album ‘Synthesist’ which was released on the iconic Sky Records in 1980. A work comprising of eight instrumentals that blended a sonic tapestry of synthesizer soundscapes with drumming that provided colour as opposed to dominance, it musically followed in the exquisite tradition of his Berlin electronic friends.
More recently, Grosskopf has been recording and performing live, both solo and with Eberhard Kranemann with whom he released the experimental cosmic rock album ‘Krautwerk’ in 2017.
For the 40th anniversary of ‘Synthesist’, Bureau B are reissuing the album as a deluxe edition with new remixes provided by the likes of Steve Baltes, Thorsten Quaeschning, Paul Frick and Stefan Lewin among others. From his home in Berlin, Harald Grosskopf kindly spoke about how his career was liberated by electronics.
You started as a drummer, so what got you interested in synthesizers and electronics?
That‘s a long story until I got there. When my friend and colleague Udo Hanten (of YOU who unfortunately died two years ago) asked me in August ’79 “Why don`t you produce solo albums?“
I was astonished and my first thought was “Who will be interested in an album with a line-up of tracks with solo drumming?”. He of course meant working with synthesizers, which I did not have in mind at all. I told him that “I‘m a drummer, I don‘t own synthesizers. All I have is a drum kit, an 8-Track reel-to-reel tape recorder and part of the fee from my work on Klaus Schulze’s ‘Bodylove’ album”. So Udo invited me to come to his home, using his equipment.
In exchange, he asked for my 8-Track to record his own album. I must point out that ASHRA never met regularly, like a rock band to rehearse or produce. We never said “We are a band now forever!“. ASHRA always was based on spontaneity in all concerns. There were quite some breaks in between touring and studio sessions. So I had lots of time and my desire for making music was killing me during 1979.
After a few days thinking about Udo‘s proposal, I decided to do it. To tell the truth, I had no clue how to record nor how to operate synthesizers, even though I had worked with Klaus Schulze, one of the godfathers of electronic music. During studio sessions I never had to, nor did I care about studio techniques. The only thing I occasionally operated was a volume fader during mixing.
In that entire era, I felt I was a drummer, nothing else. Even after ‘Synthesist‘ was done and out. Putting it live on stage seemed technically impossible in 1980. So my first album was kinda born out of an emergency situation; no band activities and left behind with a huge unsatisfied desire to making music.
The beginnings of those recording sessions were technically pretty rough. I had to learn all about recording from scratch while I was recording. But conversely, operating synths was an easy challenge. At the end I wasn’t even sure, almost very insecure whether an audience would share the joy and trouble I went through in the process. And what I emotionally and music wise had put into it. But the naivety and emotional innocence behind that album might be the main reason why it seems to have touched people right up to today.
Working with Klaus Schulze on ‘Moondawn’ must have been interesting, given he started as a drummer. What was your brief from him for the recording?
No briefing at all! After my time in the rock band WALLENSTEIN, it was a very unfamiliar experience. WALLENSTEIN, typically German, was very (!) structured and disciplined. We used to work extremely hard on details. Program music at its best!
It never reached the satisfaction and joy I felt working with Klaus and Manuel Göttsching. Klaus gave no advice at all. Never ever! He liked my drumming I guess and he trusted me more than I did doing the right thing. Other than from Klaus and Manuel, I was not used getting positive feedback from any of my colleagues in those rock ’n‘ roll times. After ‘Moondawn’, I decided to leave WALLENSTEIN and rock music.
The first ‘Moondawn’ take ended abruptly after 5 minutes, I somehow didn‘t feel well. Klaus and I started talking about what happened. After only one sentence Klaus spontaneously said: “I see you know where we are going, let‘s do it again!” The second take led to what is heard on the ‘Moondawn’ A-side under the title ‘Floating‘, one long 25 minutes lasting improvisation. No emotional break or technical mistakes. Joy in the clearest mind. After the last note faded, we met in the control room and hugged each other.
‘Correlations’ saw Manuel Göttsching expand ASHRA into a band format, how did you come to be involved?
We first met at Dierks Studios around 1971 and I visited him occasionally when WALLENSTEIN had a Berlin performance. There was ASH RA TEMPEL, TANGERINE DREAM, POPOL VUH and some other important formations who were on the same record label (Ohr and Pilz) as well as WALLENSTEIN. Compared to my experience in the German rock business, these Berliners had an extraordinary self-confidence, friendly and relaxed dudes.
My drumming style and emotional presence seemed to have impressed them. Klaus was the ASH RA TEMPEL drummer at the time, after he had left TANGERINE DREAM and he just had announced his split from ASH RA TEMPEL to start his solo career which didn‘t seem to shock anyone. So Manuel invited me to put my drums on ‘Starring Rosi‘. Rosi was his girlfriend and she´s been a New Yorker since 1982. I had a few gigs in New York and we met there after a 30 year break. When I left Klaus in 1975/76 to live in Berlin, my first activity was to visit Manuel. That was the beginning of my ASHRA involvement.
One thing that is quite interesting is that the tracks on ‘Correlations’ were generally shorter than other ASHRA works, had this been a conscientious decision?
We never talked about commercial intensions. Our main interest was having fun and producing something original. I liked the freedom of not thinking about whom we could reach or sell to what we had made. The combination of the three of us simply made it what it was.
Everybody had ideas and had the chance to put them into the album. Manuel played a very melodic guitar. In those days. Maybe Carlos Santana was a bit of an influence on him. Lutz Ulbrich had another music background than electronics. He was and still is a brilliant rhythm guitarist and for a change, he liked playing with delays and was open to experiments, even though his main goal was traditional guitar music.
Lutz was in love with Nico of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND and they lived together in Paris, New York and Berlin. He was the only person among all her other famous friends (Bowie, Cale, Alain Delon) that brought her body to Berlin, after she had tragically passed away on Ibiza island, struck by an Aneurysm while riding on her bike. A doctor that was called just said: “I do not treat addicts!”…
The follow-up ‘Belle Alliance’ added vocals and was more aggressive, with your voice on ‘Kazoo’; how do you look back on the approach of that album now?
From my point of view for some reason the “good alliance” wasn’t as powerful as on ‘Correlations‘. In retrospect, it lacked homogeneity in style. Maybe the reason behind that Virgin Records didn`t want to release ‘Belle Alliance’ in the first place. So the three of us went to south France to visit the MIDEM in Cannes, that huge music industry fair, to either sell it to another company or have a conversation again with Virgin Records.
The Sony Walkman was just invented and everybody was able to listen to music wherever you were. The visit ended with a longer conversation with Richard Branson who owned the label at the time. Seemed we charmed him, resulting in the release. It‘s still a good album and I liked putting my intensions on ‘Kazoo‘.
As a drummer, how did you feel about the advent of programmable drum machines?
First, I was shocked that machines could replace and endanger my profession as drummer. I could not stand their artificial sounds either. Very unreal and artificial, especially the Roland TR808 that later became cult in techno and rap.
More and more studio session drummers used Linn and Oberheim e-drums to stay in the business and make a living from fast productions, mostly pop productions. Linn and Oberheim used samples for their e-drums and those sounded quite real. It still took quite some time to programme a fill that a real drummer could do in a minute.
I never really got into programming drum machines until the first machines came up that could be played like an analog drum kit (Simmons and D-Drum). I could not afford a Simmons but bought three Simmons e-modules and built one myself by using old Bongo drums as trigger. You can hear them on ASHRA album ‘Tropical Heat‘. By discovering the fascination of techno music, I suddenly understood the magic machine drums can have like the Roland TR808. I bought a D-Drum but its dynamic and limitation on sound bored me after a while.
I started editing drums parallel to the invention of digital recording in the late 80s. The Atari 1040 was a first step in that direction. I was in my 40s when most people my generation could or would not cope with computers. A few years later, when digital recording of analog signals became a possibility, I felt a huge release. It freed me from dreaming about hiring expensive analog studios as the only possibility to get creative the way I wanted. I couldn´t have afforded such studios anyway. In the beginning, it was pretty complicated getting into controlling the recording software, but once I managed it, it was a revelation that continues today.
The artwork of ‘Synthesist’ sees you pictured with a Prophet 10, which were your favourite synths and keyboards to work with on this album?
The Prophet 10 was an investment of my manager (R.I.P. Peter) and was bought after ‘Synthesist’ was released. On ‘Synthesist’, you can hear a Korg PS3200 and a Minimoog. The Moog was triggered by an ARP 16-Step Sequencer or used for solo melodies. That was it!
The Moog permanently slipped out of tune and many times, it was more than a pain in the ass to get the bitch stabilized. I had to record the same sequences over and over again.
How did it come together in the studio?
All the basics were recorded during 6 weeks in August and September 1979 at Udo Hanten‘s home in Krefeld, an industrial town in Northern Westphalia, the River Rhine area. Additional tracks were laid at Panne Paulsen studio in Frankfurt, which I knew from the sessions with Klaus and ASHRA. It was perfect for recording my drums and the solo melodies. All on 16 tracks after the basic 8 tracks were transferred.
‘Transcendental Overdrive’ had some distinctive arpeggios but also those very frantic but understated drums?
I take that as a compliment. My intensions lay more on composition and creating magic sounds than drumming. I financially had a week to get it done. It took just 2 days to record all drum parts. There was not much time to think. It just happened.
How do you now look back on ‘Synthesist’ as a whole?
As I mentioned, I was very insecure about what I had done. A negative highlight was a visit to Edgar Froese‘s home where my manager and I asked Edgar to listened to ‘Synthesist‘ before it was released. Edgar listened patiently but did not say a word afterwards. Either he was stunningly shocked or could not stand it. I never found out and the situation led to a bunch of negative speculations.
Back home, I was devastated. The sales after 5 or 6 months also were not super, just around 10,000 vinyl copies. Today that would almost be a hit, but in 1980, it was a massive flop. I did not listen to the album for a very long time until I had several offers from different labels. Young people seemed to have discovered ‘Synthesist‘. DJs all over the world put it on and since I re-released it, they still do. I needed the distance in time to finally to understand and enjoy what I had done.
There is a 40th Anniversary double vinyl and CD package being released by Bureau B featuring remixes, so is remix culture something you embrace and what do you think of the end result here?
40 years flew by! Unbelievable! The remixes on that double album are great. I was surprised about the spontaneous involvement of young musicians. ‘Synthesist‘ had an influence on them and their own music. I met Steve Baltes in 1994. He was 27 years old, a techno DJ, producer and fan of electronic music, whom I had invited to join in with ASHRA for our first Japan tour in 1997. He made a brilliant remix of ‘Earth’.
Thorsten Quaeschning who toured with Edgar Froese and TANGERINE DREAM for 15 years and is now head of the actual TD line-up did a fantastic remix of ‘So Weit, So Gut‘. Paul Frick remade ‘Synthesist‘, he is member of the well-known trio BRANDT BRAUER FRICK from Berlin which I am a great fan of.
Some famous old Krautrock colleagues who are also on Bureau B. label did a great job too. To mention here: PYROLATOR and KREIDLER. Stefan Lewin, an old friend, musician and quality analog synthesizer producer (ACL) worked on the ‘Synthesist‘ title track. Beside these, a few very young label musicians like TELLAVISION, LOVE SONGS and CAMERA also brought some interesting fresh air on their remix versions.
Your second solo album ‘Oceanheart’ didn’t appear until 1986, were there any reasons for this? How does this album stand up for you compared with ‘Synthesist’?
There was no pressure to put out one album after the other. Like others, I did not want to repeat myself over and over. I also had no equipment to experiment the way I needed. Remember it was the pre-computer time. In the meantime, I had a trio named LILLI BERLIN; I owned a Tascam 8-track reel to reel tape recorder and Manfred Opitz, the keyboarder had a Minimoog and a Roland JX-3P. I used those to lay basics. Drums and other sources were added at Christoph Franke‘s studio. The final mix and master was done there too. I think ‘Synthesist‘ has this first time innocence.
In 1997, you reunited with ASHRA to do some concerts in Japan. The live recordings became the ‘@shra’ album, ‘Twelve Samples’ was a particularly glorious track, how much of the performance was pre-prepared and was there much flexibility for improvisation?
We usually met a week before touring or for studio sessions to prepare some basics. In between, we played ‘Hype‘, a game that was based on the development of rock bands. From putting a line up together, to low level touring and album recording, the player who first had a hit album won. The game was created by Virgin Records. Manuel and Lutz rehearsed some basic harmonies and melodies, mostly without even being amplified in Manuel’s flat (Studio Roma).
I had a pair of drumsticks, listened and hit on my knees. As I mentioned before had we long breaks in between such meetings. Sometimes for years. So I never knew what will happen next with ASHRA. But I was positively surprised to receive Manuel`s phone call, asking me to join in performing in Japan. A little tour including 4 gigs. Wow! Japan! Great! My second reaction was of technical concerns, which I did not speak out about.
You must know, touring in the 70s was technically quite basic. On stage, it could take Manuel more than 5 minutes in between the titles to tune his sequencer for the next piece, while I was getting nervous just sitting waiting and staring into the audience. That was the reason I wanted Steve Baltes to join in. I knew he was able to recreate all the basic ASHRA sequences and original keyboard sounds we needed with his skills about sampling and sound design.
After I had introduced Manuel and Steve, Manuel liked him from the first minute, so Steve started producing all the required bass and sequencer loops that enabled us to improvise on stage as we always did in the past, with the difference that Manuel was released from that tuning burden. Steve did a brilliant job. We even sounded much better than ever before. The Japanese audience really liked it. We performed twice in Tokyo and twice in Osaka.
You teamed up with Eberhard Kranemann for the 2017 album ‘Krautwerk’, how would you describe your dynamic with regards creating and performing ?
I met Eberhard Kranemann for the first time in 2016 on a local festival at a castle. We performed on different locations. I did not know him, not even that he was an original KRAFTWERK member. I was very curious about what he did on stage and as we performed at different times, I was able to sneak into his gig. After one minute, I left the performance! Pure loud guitar noise and mumblings with his voice! I could not stand it!
Two weeks later he phoned me, obviously very excited by my performance. He asked me what I thought of a collaboration. Wow! My enthusiasm was not very high but I thought what the f*ck, let‘s try, if turns out bad, I can leave.
Eberhard recorded our session we made in his home, located around the corner where I live with my family. The session output was mainly poor, but in between had some great original parts. I took the session back home, dragged it into my Ableton recording software, extracted those parts I liked and produced loops. In a next step, I took it back to Eberhard where we added some material here and there. He really liked the way I had edited the material.
The result was the ‘Krautwerk‘ album released on Bureau B. We did live performances in England, Sweden and on a festival in China. A second album is ready to be released, but Eberhard preferred to concentrate on his solo work again. Meanwhile Ralf Hütter of KRAFTWERK ordered his lawyers to threaten me in case I would not withdraw my ‘Krautwerk‘ name ownership.
You have new works ready for release, how would you describe them? What musical direction are you heading in?
I work intensely on new material and will soon release an album in co-operation with my old friend and colleague on guitar Axel Heilhecker. Sequencer, guitar loops, melodies. Very atmospheric!
The album will be named ‘Are You Psyched?‘. Parallel to that, I work on new solo material which I hope to release next year. No rush as always. I do not think in terms how to style my music. It`s always spontaneous and unpredictable decisions. The main intention is that I must like it. Even that can change after a few hours, days or weeks and it is always possible to push a piece in another direction.
It’s very hard for me to finally decide when something is finished. I do not listen much to music from others. Mainly only when someone says to me “You got to listen to that!“ That does not mean I´m ignorant but I love most to work on my own stuff.
What are your own favourite tracks and memories from your career?
Definitely ‘Moondawn‘. All the tracks I ever recorded are like own children. You love them all but they are different!
When you entered this world of synthesizers back in the day, did you think that you and your contemporaries would have such a big impact in the popular culture of today?
Not at all. Compared to fast and massive internet activity today, we had very little feedback in those days. National and international. Just a few music magazines existed. And they mostly wrote about pop music or the stars. The only measure we had were sales or live performances. But other than KRAFTWERK, we had no hits.
Andy McCluskey from OMD two years ago shook my hands and said “Did you know how much your music changed my life!?“. I had no idea about that influence when I was sitting in my small Berlin flat trying to figure out how to finance the next week. Since I connected to the internet around twenty years ago, I receive wonderful daily feedback from all over the world. It is a great pleasure to specially get it from a younger generation.
Last year, I had my first DJ appearance in a well-known techno club in Berlin. Right now, all live performances are cancelled or postponed. But isolation is not unusual for me and most artists. That‘s the space where we enable output. I still miss to be on stage. Hopefully it will be soon possible again.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Harald Grosskopf
Additional thanks to Mark Reeder
‘Synthesist’ is reissued as a 40th Anniversary deluxe edition double CD and transparent sun yellow double vinyl LP by Bureau B on 5th June 2020
Eberhard Kranemann is a one-time member of KRAFTWERK who later recorded an album ‘Fritz Müller Rock’ with the legendary Conny Plank.
A graduate of the Dortmund Conservatory, the multi-instrumentalist also worked with NEU! but it was in 1967 while as a member of the band PISSOFF that he met Florian Schneider. More recently, Kranemann has formed KRAUTWERK with Harald Grosskopf who played drums on Klaus Schulze’s ‘Moondawn’ and recorded a number of albums with Manuel Göttsching as a member of ASHRA.
In a merger of the Schools of Düsseldorf and Berlin, Kranemann and Grosskopf transmit their cosmic sonic visions of today, tomorrow and beyond in an updated take on art school kosmische with a lively and rhythmic self-titled debut album. Following an enthusiastic talk at the 2017 ELECTRI_CITY_CONFERENCE in Düsseldorf, Eberhard Kranemann kindly chatted about the genesis of KRAUTWERK and his observations on the vibrant post-war German music scene that ultimately impacted the world’s musical landscape.
So what is the concept of KRAUTWERK?
There is no concept, we are just two guys who are making music for fun. We did know not each other until one year ago. I heard Harald for the first time at a festival in Sulingen where he was doing a solo performance and I had a performance in another room.
I liked his kind of drumming, he doesn’t play natural drums and doesn’t use those crazy boom-boom-boom drums from a computer, he plays a special electronic kit with sticks on plates. He doesn’t use the pure electronic sounds, he changes them via Ableton with his special effects… they had so much power, I had never heard this before. I thought “I must work with him”
Then, he came into my room… I’m a more experimental musician using wired sounds and he didn’t like it! For him, it was too dissonant! So when I telephoned him to suggest working together, he did not want to… but 4 weeks later, he said “OK, we try something”
What was the process?
He came into my studio, but I did not tell him before that I’d prepared it to record our whole session professionally. I recorded 40 minutes of what we had played. We had never played together before but this 40 minutes was so great, it was wonderful music. We made another date 4 weeks later and did 20 more minutes.
So we had 60 minutes in total and this is our first LP, CD and digital download. It was two old guys making music for fun, but then a label heard it and other people liked it very much. We did a British tour which was a big success, we will be going to Stockholm and next year, we play in China. People in America want us to go there too.
Both you and Harald Grosskopf have a lot of history in German electronic music, Harald was in ASHRA and released a great solo debut in ‘Synthesist’, had you been aware of his previous work?
No, I wasn’t interested in the Berlin School of Music, for me it was boring, it was just synthesizers going on and on and it was not enough. For myself, I need more power or action.
You were in KRAFTWERK?
Me and Florian Schneider were the originators of KRAFTWERK, one year later Herr Hütter came into the band and now he is the only man who makes it exist, he gets a lot of money out of it because he is a businessman.
A band who spends 30 years not making any new music and only the old sh*t comes out every year in new clothing, this is not for me. I must make new music going into the future and when I began this project with Harald, I had the idea of starting at a point 30 years ago when KRAFTWERK stopped making music because when they now play concerts, they don’t make music… they stand there like roboters and the music comes programmed from the computer, I do not like this.
When I played in KRAFTWERK in 1971 and the years before, we used techniques between man and machine but there was a lot of freestyle, everyone could play. But they stopped it and did this very cool, reduced music… you can do this if you want, they are very famous for it and they do it very well, but I think my friend Florian left the band he didn’t like it anymore. He is a real musician and he wanted to make music, he doesn’t want to stand on a stage with the sounds coming from the computer
So how do you make technology work for you in KRAUTWERK?
There is a difference between Harald and me; Harald works very much with technology and computers. But I don’t do it as much as he does, because I’m more of a traditional musician. When we play live, I play cello, Hawaiian guitar and sing. But I don’t tell stories, I use the voice like another instrument and make rhythm with it like “boom-tschak-boom-bah-tschak”… so I sing like a drummer and then Harald comes in with drums.
As Fritz Müller, you worked with the legendary Conny Plank, what was he like?
He was a very important man, for me in the last century, Conny Plank was the most important producer, engineer and mixer in the whole world, THE BEST! He was so great that he even turned down David Bowie and U2. He was very honest, he didn’t want to work with them.
He was very clear and only wanted to make music with people he liked… not only liked but loved! There was a lot of love between him and the musicians, it was so wonderful to work with him, he had a good gut feeling about people. I was the person in the background that put him in contact with KRAFTWERK and NEU!
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Eberhard Kranemann
‘Krautwerk’ is released by Bureau B in CD, vinyl and digital formats
Eberhard Kranemann and Harald Grosskopf play Kraken Sthlm in Stockholm with FAUST on Friday 17th November 2017
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as ASHRA. Looking to expand his vehicle to a more-band oriented format, the guitarist asked to Grosskopf to join him for the recording of what became 1979’s 
.
which was released on the iconic Sky Records in 1980. A work comprising of eight instrumentals that blended a sonic tapestry of synthesizer soundscapes with drumming that provided colour as opposed to dominance, it musically followed in the exquisite tradition of his Berlin electronic friends.
is released by Bureau B in CD, vinyl and digital formats
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