The blog title this week was inspired by the track “Xerox” from Melbourne’s mnttaB. As label boss Dik Detonic says, “Whatever the opposite of minimal is they’re doing it again… but louder.”
R.I.P. Florian Schneider (1947-2020) a founding member of Kraftwerk. The breakthrough was perhaps their fourth album “Autobahn” released in 1974 but a bit of delving reacquainted us with their first two albums (efficiently titled “Kraftwerk 1” and “Kraftwerk 2”) and a reminder of the gentle beauty that is the epic Klingklang. A nice way to start a contemplative show.
And later… down the YouTube rabbit hole we went discovering live footage from 1970 of Kraftwerk at Rockpalast. We thought we were big deal going to house discos and raves in 1989 and had no idea how far ahead of us those crazy German kids were. Keytars, synths, multimedia, a motorik beat we can bug out to, and a stylish crowd. Minds blown…
And those interludes today? That was Phoebe Waller-Bridge recounting to Deborah Frances-White in episode 199 of The Guilty Feminist her Covid-19 lockdown experiences with the three neighbourhood cats: Good Cat, Bad Cat and Mystery Cat.