“Kraut-Rock” or kosmiche musik was the name used to refer to the underground scene in Germany in the late 60s and early 70s. As a genre nevertheless, it has been kept alive by some bands that are heavily influenced by this sound. Here’s our totally objective, but undeniably indisputable list of the best krautrock albums of 2022:
Puppies in the Sun - “Light Became Light”
Light Became Light is an album filled with elastic space-rock grooves, hypnotic flashes and the kind of soundscapes that split the cranium, is a marriage of piercing space-rock and chemically enhanced psychedelia that skirts along the fringes of Krautrock. Puppies in the Sun music is otherworldly in a pleasingly familiar way, it sounds like you’ve taken off from earth, but that might be because the earth blew up. Edited by Buh Records, the album is dense and caustic and every synth has a cheese grater edge to it. It feels like the edges of the drums and synths are charred and solar burnt.
Minami Deutsch - “Fortune Goodies”
Everyone has their own imagination about outer space, and each one us gets to daydream about what exactly floats or exists there. ‘Fortune Goodies’ is Minami Deutsch’s long-awaited 3rd studio album. While not all the songs on the record function as straightforward Krautrock this time around, they still manage to capture the spirit and heart of the genre. After relocating from Tokyo to Berlin, Miula’s musical vocabulary has greatly expanded, thus resulting in this ultimate Japanese take on cosmic music in 2022.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - “Laminated Denim”
The Land Before Timeland mimics a day or period of time that starts upbeat but ultimately finds its way unexpectedly to a state of stress and uncertainty. “Hypertension” mimics a time of apathetic gloom, where tension and stress build all around in an inescapable pit. Just when all hope seems lost, the mind finds a way to climb out, and turn apathy and stress into optimism and reflection on the gloom that has now passed. This is the emotional rollercoaster that King Gizzard has created with these two tracks, intended or not. It might be a bit hard to swallow for a first-time listener, but most Gizzheads should truly appreciate the moods and feelings this album creates as we watch King Gizzard morph and transcend into a band that somehow still sounds like themselves, but on a different plane of emotion, reflection and growth.
Ghost Power - “Ghost Power”
This self-titled debut album is a perfect continuation of the legacies of everyone involved. Fans of Gane's post-Stereolab projects will note that Ghost Power is more light-hearted than his work with Cavern of Anti-Matter; kicking off with "Asteroid Witch," a bold and bubbling concoction of beats, synths, and sci-fi zaps and rattles that first appeared on a 2020 limited-edition 7", the album finds him and Novak mixing and matching sounds with gleeful abandon. "Lithic Fragment," with its comically booming tympani, brassy fanfares, and whooshing electronics, could be a collaboration between the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Spike Jones, while "Inchwork" improbably combines the sardonically chugging guitars of Chairs Missing-era Wire with bristling beats and glockenspiel. On "Zome Primer," the duo mash up harpsichord-laden chamber pop and a slinky rhythm with results that approximate a lo-fi DJ Shadow track, while "Vertical Section"'s tightly interlocking keyboards evoke the Ghost Box roster as much as Gane's own work.
Oiseaux-Tempête - “What On Earth (Que Diable)”
There’s plenty of music out there that requires concentration to grasp it, but the case with Oiseaux-Tempête is that not only do they demand (and deserve) your attention, they effortlessly become the center of it, and you’re prone to drop everything to fully focus on them. What On Earth (Que Diable) is a prime example of what the act is capable of, and I partly envy all of those whose entry point it’ll be to the band’s universe. Simultaneously, though, being familiar with them already adds a multitude of layers to the intricate and otherworldy experience that the album offers.
Staraya Derevnya - “Boulder Blues”
The versatility of the sound is what makes the album such a rewarding listen. Album opener, Scythian Nest, is layered with waves of feedback over a Neubauten-esque rhythm and then elsewhere is the dub-sounding Gallant Spider which brings you to another world entirely. The vocals, which are based on the poems of Arthur Molev, are used as another layer to this dense sound. Using a Damo Suzuki-style of sprechgesang the listener is drawn into a kind of psychedelic hypnosis which fully immerses you in this sound.
The Utopia Strong - "International Treasure"
The pace of the album, with the exception of the trancey, beat driven Castalia, is gentle, pastoral even, and, although I hate it as a definition or descriptor, ambient. Don’t think, though, that this music wanders without aim or direction. This listener gets the sense that, even if they weren’t sure when they set out, The Utopia Strong honed this creation to the point that each piece works on its own and as part of a much bigger whole, never outstaying its welcome, shining like a cosmic pinpoint in a sonic Milky Way.
Les Big Byrd - “Eternal Light Brigade”
Under all nicely woven carpets of grinding rhythms, science fiction synths, robotic voices and Robert Fripp guitars on “Eternal light brigade”, Les Big Byrd’s Jocke Åhlund reasons in song after song about being in a situation where the road behind one, no matter how fun it has been , after all, is longer than the one in front of you. With the aging ironist’s unfailing sense for punchy song titles like “I used to be lost but now I’m just gone” and “Feels like wasting my life is taking forever”, he only underlines the album’s underlying theme. At the same time, he seems to be having quite a bit of fun. Even though Åhlund sings “no more fun and games now, no more messing around”, “Eternal light brigade”, like its predecessors, sounds like a creative playhouse
AUA - “The Damaged Organ”
AUA’s second album, “The Damaged Organ”, explores in depth the concept of alienation. While the duo’s songs approach this topic with introspection (‘I am a stranger to body’) as well as a sociological perspective (‘I am alien to this world’), to a certain extent the album is also a story of a search for identity: ‘Who am I and how do I fit into this world?’ Musically, this is reflected in a space that seems more boundless than AUA’s 2020 debut, “I Don’t Want It Darker”. New possibilities open up. There is more at stake.
Beak> - “Kosmik Musik”
Two years in the making Kosmik Musik is a collaboration between artist Joe Currie, writer Ben Wheatley and musical group Beak>, who worked closely with the artists to provide a musical accompaniment for the graphic novel. Kosmik Musik is melting pot of 2000ad, Metal Hurlant, Kirby tech, psychedelic 60s art, Doctor Who, Douglas Adams, Kraut Rock, Star Trek and Star Wars. A UK 70s English childhood basically.