Futuredays

Illustrations created in France to celebrate the turn of the century, show scenes depicting the future of air travel, helicopters, undersea colonies, agriculture and the radio

A sweeping history of the men and women who transformed postwar Germany—and created a musical genre that revolutionized rock and roll and gave birth to hip-hop. West Germany after World War II was a country in shock: estranged from its recent history, and adrift from the rest of Europe. But this orphaned landscape proved fertile ground for a generation of musicians who, from the 1960s onwards, would develop the strange and beautiful sounds that became known as Krautrock. Eschewing the easy pleasures of rock and roll and the more substantive seductions of blues and jazz, they took their inspiration from elsewhere: the mysticism of the East; the fractured classicism of Stockhausen; the grinding repetition of industry; the dense forests of the Rhineland; the endless winding of Autobahns. Faust, Neu!, Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Düül II, Can, Kraftwerk—the influence of these groups’ music on Western popular music is incalculable. They were key to the development of movements ranging from post-punk to electronica and hip-hop and have directly inspired artists as diverse as David Bowie, Talking Heads, and LCD Soundsystem. Future Days is the brilliantly reported, deeply researched story of the groups that created Krautrock, and a social and cultural history of the Germany that challenged, inspired, and repelled them.

To Future Days By: James Van Dycke To Future Days is a science fiction adventure in which people are not only attached to computers and technology, but they have become them.

It cannot be ignored. In the future, all people will have to rethink. You can improvise. If something breaks, it will be repaired. Things that hardly get any attention today. It only requires a little manual skill and that is learnable. Still, it starts with ourselves. It starts with ourselves in the head and ends there. My motto is simple, live and let live.

West Germany following the Second World War was a country in shock: estranged from its recent history, and adrift from the rest of Europe. But this disorientating landscape proved fertile ground for a generation of musicians who, from the 1960s onwards, would develop the experimental and various sounds that became known as Krautrock. Eschewing the Anglo-American jazz/blues tradition, they took their inspiration from elsewhere: the mysticism of the East; the fractured classicism of Stockhausen; the pneumatic repetition of industry and the dense forests of the Rhineland; the endless winding of Autobahns. Faust, Neu!, Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Düül II, Can and Kraftwerk. These may not all be household names, but the influence of their ruminative, expansive compositions upon Western popular music is incalculable. These groups were key to the development of postpunk, electronica and ambient music. Without them Bowie would not have made his Berlin trilogy, Talking Heads would have been a straight-ahead rock band, and the Pet Shop Boys would have a completely different stage act. Future Days is an in-depth study of this meditative, sometimes abstract, often very beautiful music and the groups that made it, throwing light on the social and political context that informed them. It's an indispensable book for those wanting to understand how much of today's music came about, and to discover a wealth of highly influential and pioneering musicians.