Blake Morgan’s Third Blog Post

The sounds of Post-Syd Floyd and the Krautrockers:

            To begin this blog, I will start out by providing a sense of context with a quote by Emanuel Kant, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily they are reflected upon-the starry heavens above and the moral law within me.”

This speaks with great relevance in association with the cosmic sounds of Pink Floyd and the conceptual intentions behind the evolving Krautrock of Germany in the 1970’s. Pink Floyd’s album Dark Side of the Moon is more directly associated with the concept of traveling through space-time and a call for introspection, a close investigation of one’s mind and inner self.

            Consider a voyage through deep space, traveling at millions of miles per hour through the unknown depths of the cosmos. You’re completely isolated from life and the comfort of home; in other words, you are out of your element – alone in the vastness of space. This could and would probably lead to an overwhelming sense of anxiety and paranoia. This is the sense one may gather while experiencing Dark Side of the Moon.

            With the assistance of technology in the recording studio and genius musical abilities of the band members, The Floyd managed to produce what is widely regarded as the worlds best concept album. The opening track, “Breath,” consists of spacey, reverberated vocals and arpeggiated chord progressions, giving the sense that the listener is echoing through the cosmos. “On the Run” uses a synthesizer that imitates the stereotypical sounds of a modulating computer inside of a futuristic spacecraft. It also produces a sort of Doppler effect in that gives the listeners the sense that they are either passing by or being passed by heavy moving bodies in space. The dissonant screeches of a slide effect on the guitar combined with the modulating synthesizer presents a sense of paranoia of being lost in space, a “where are we going” kind of emotion.

            By the time “Great Gig in the Sky” come flowing out of the speakers, I get the sort of cosmic image of floating into the light from behind a large body and seeing the beauty of a nebula or colorful atmospheric reflection of a sight never seen before.

Pink Floyd is credited as being the first band to make this sort of music of the future. But how is this related to Krautrock? Good question. When it comes to the progressive rock movement in Germany, one band seems to resurface over and over, Kraftwerk. This band had only one hit in the United States, “Autoban,” but still, the band credited to have begun a revolutionary change in musical style of the place and time. Kraftwerk could initially be seen as hippyish with lengthy improvised flute solos as influenced by US musical trends like jazz, blues and early rock n’ roll; however, like many bands following Kraftwerk, they restricted themselves to electronic instruments and posited a relationship with technology in the studio, like Pink Floyd. But unlike The Floyd, the Krautrockers did not escape to the cosmos. Instead they enabled their pretty melodies and girder-like rhythms to suit practical resolutions here on Earth. But it still this concept of futurism that allows the Krautrockers of the 1970’s to stand under the same umbrella as the might Pink Floyd.