2013’s Kraftwerk residency at the Turbine Hall was undoubtedly one of the most hotly anticipated events of last year.
With the Tate’s ticket office blowing a fuse at the unprecedented demand and diehard fans freezing outside the museum for hours in the vain hope of returns, love for the radioactive Maschinen-Menschen has probably never been greater.
In the event, audiences were treated to a pristine rendition of the group’s greatest hits delivered by four anonymous Tronprograms, standing nearly motionless behind oblique workstations, while the work of engaging the crowd was outsourced to an awe-inspiring 3D backdrop.
For those who were there, the experience, undoubtedly, was unforgettable, and few would question the quality of the music performed. But for the people behind the Science Museum’s imminent Kraftwerk Uncovered event, there is another side to the group that may have got lost amidst all the digital pomp and neon lights.
For James Poke, flautist and creative director to the group Icebreaker who will be performing the new versions of their music, Kraftwerk were at their most interesting in the late seventies “when they were playing at being robots but hadn’t actually totally programmed everything. So there was an interface between the robotic and the human. Later on,” he continues, “it becomes so robotic that that tension was lost.”
It’s a position shared by J. Peter Schwalm, the composer responsible for the Kraftwerk arrangements being performed by Icebreaker. Schwalm told me about a conversation he once had with Brian Eno after which both agreed that “Kraftwerk’s music was best when the technology and the machines were not perfect yet. When you listen to some of the older recordings and put them into a computer, you realise that even the sequenced music of Kraftwerk is running out of sync quite strongly. So you may have all the machines – but there’s a fragility that sounds very human.”