Twenty years ago, Karl Bartos released one of the last contemporary albums that I could pick as “favorite of the year” way back when when ye olde Monk was still keeping up with current stuff. When the desire to keep abreast of the here and now hadn’t been slapped out of me by the precipitous downgrade of changing fashions that on the one hand, saw 70s sludge metal [some called it “grunge”] ridiculously popular to a generation who had no idea what we struggled in that blighted decade to leave behind!
And on the other hand, electronic music had entered a period, five years on by this time, of merely being a soundtrack to drug experiences [techno] that offered me less than nothing. Ironically, techno had taken the template of Kraftwerk’s reductive maschineenmusik and had eliminated all of the warmth, humor, and Romanticism that was once there to become a sonic blight to my ears. When I heard cuts like “O Fortuna” it merely seemed pestilential to me. And hearing tracks like that actually caused me physical discomfort. Kraftwerk themselves were not doing much better. Ralf himself was convinced that doing the same was the way to go. After a weak 1986 album, the mothership had ejected Wolfgang Flur and Karl Bartos and was content to re-hash old material in newer, watered down form [with the exception of “Radioactivity,” that is!].
Bureau B | GER | CD | 2013 | BB079
#1 • Karl Bartos: Off The Record GER CD [2013]
- Atomium
- Nachtfahrt
- International Velvet
- Without A Trace Of Emotion
- The Binary Code
- Musica Ex Machina
- The Tuning Of The World
- Instant Bayreuth
- Vox Humana
- Rhythmus
- Silence
- Hausmusik
When Bartos re-emerged in his Elektric Music guise, it had been like a breath of fresh air. “Side one” of “Esperanto” offered lush and melodic technopop while the second half showed what could be done in the techno trenches with some actual musical talent. I played “Esperanto” a lot that year but lost track of Bartos’ trajectory following the long wait for a follow-up. I was not even aware at the time of his divisive second album as Electric Music in 1998. And I was not until I heard a Billie Ray Martin DJ set a few years ago that I knew of his 2003 “Communication” album, which I still need to get. But I was certainly on top of his latest release. Upon sampling the incredible “Atomium,” this title was atop my shortlist of things to buy with all due haste.
“Atomium” is still like the finest piece of music that Kraftwerk could ever hope to create, with the all significant noise solo that bifurcates the track at its midpoint being utterly beyond the vision of Ralf Hutter by this time, sadly. This is music that hurtles forward on machine power but still has thrilling animal chaos beneath its chromium surface.
“Nachtfahrt” [“night driven”] features Bartos’ own human voice singing to the lyrical and emotive arrangement that recalls the motorik pop of “Autobahn” given a new look. Bartos’ brief for this collection was to revisit and finish off musical sketches he’d made during his time in Kraftwerk, so it’s not impossible to think that this could have been written during 1975 during the period where the band were following up their surprise hit.
“International Velvet” sounds as if it had been written along with OMD’s Andy McCluskey with whom Bartos co-write for a period in the mid 90s. The lush melody has all of the hallmarks of OMD but I especially like the sampled flute leads that ironically refer to Florian Schneider. “Without A Trace Of Emotion” sounds like a cut from the first part of “Esperanto.” I can’t really peg it to a period in Kraftwerk’s development, but the lyrics sure seem to refer to Ralf Hutter.
“Without a trace of emotion,
I see you right in front of me,
dress code – red shirt/black tie,
you’re history – you’re history”
“Musica Ex Machina” is a neat little treatise on Bartos’ modus operandi that is the closest thing to club music here, courtesy of the Electronic writing team of Sumner and Marr, with whom Bartos had collaborated with on the 1996 “Raise The Pressure” album [which I’ve yet to hear]. The tune’s completely instrumental second movement sounds ripped screaming from side one of “Musique Non-Stop.”
“The Tuning Of the World” at first comes across as a bit of synthpop that crosses the twee line. It’s not until the lyrics begin to unfold that Bartos’ concerns come to the fore and given that he is actually addressing his feelings on a basic human issue [religion] that would never in a million years trouble Ralf Hutter’s mind, I’ll cut him some slack.
Kraftwerk fans pining for more of the densepack electro stylings of “Computerworld” will positively lap “Rhythmus” right up. The track echoes the fevered peak of arrangement that that album represented, before the group began to echo the more relaxed pace of cycling for the ret of their days. Finally, “Hausmusik” is not the four to the floor banger one might reasonably expect from such a title. No, this winsome tune is music appropriate for listening to in your “haus.” Relaxing, almost lilting music to bring the album to a peaceful close.
Let’s be thankful that Bureau B primary Gunther Buskies was successful in getting Bartos to revisit his audio sketchbooks since these tunes make for a varied and eclectic collection that offers tantalizing hints as to the points of origin for each track here. Spotting the phase of Karl’s career that informed each tune is fun in an of itself, but the material brings its own values to the table, above and beyond any frissons of revelations that the listener’s detective work reveals. Here’s hoping that Bartos doesn’t wait another decade before issuing another of his albums. That’s dangerously close to Kraftwerk’s pace of operations!
CONCLUSION: enjoy
This concludes the “30 Days: 30 Albums” thread and I have to say that when I started, I hadn’t given any thought to how I’d be out of town for three of the days that fell inside that span. I managed to squeak in two posts of reasonable quality from my portable devices, but I still owe a proper posting for Kirsty MacColl, which will hopefully be in place no later than Monday. Saturday was just too demanding of my time to commit to a half an hour for writing. Now that I know that it can [almost] be done, it’s back to the more relaxed pace of lunch hour blogging. Where it will certainly stay unless some well-heeled moneybags can make it worth my while to do otherwise.
– 30 –
![Nits Enthrall For Their Golden Jubilee Concert At Royal Theatre Carré [part 3]](https://postpunkmonk.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/nits-poster.jpg?w=200&h=200&crop=1)
![Rock GPA: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark [part 77]](https://postpunkmonk.files.wordpress.com/2023/12/omd-2023-black-red-andy-paul.jpg?w=200&h=200&crop=1)
![Forty Years Ago Today, Simple Minds Changed Everything with "New Gold Dream [81,82,83,84]"](https://postpunkmonk.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/new-gold-dream-in-spotlights.jpg?w=200&h=200&crop=1)
Post-Punk Monk 
It was certainly an eye-opening series that I enjoyed greatly. Let’s hope you come across another sale that gives you, say, a week’s worth of reviews. :)
LikeLike
chasinvictoria – Hey! I’m still listening to music I bought at that sale today! I just arbitrarily capped it at 30 days! 45 Albums: 45 Days didn’t have quite the same ring to it!
LikeLike
Off The Record is, for me, a companion to English Electric. Not necessarily in technique or sound, but in an exploration of pop music; in the experimentation of that genre. There is a underlying theme of the future, or what the future was supposed to be. The opening track Atomium feels cut from the same cloth as Metroland, for example. Of course both Bartos and McCluskey have been informing each other for the past decade and it is a very symbiotic relationship found in both albums.
Bartos is a foundation layer for synthpop and I love that 40 yrs on he is still very much in top form. One of the year’s best albums.
LikeLike
Echorich – That was a very cogent observation. It also reminds me of something I posted on the OMD forum following Mal’s heart attack. I was of the opinion that OMD should leave on a high note. They did two albums way better than the ones they ended the classic lineup with. They toured for eight years. Mal can’t have that level of stress going forward. Just say ‘adios’ and leave fond memories. Paul can finally devote his full time to OneTwo. Martin can paint. Mal can do whatever he wants! What can Andy do, I mused. Then I hit upon it! He should form a synth duo with Karl Bartos!!!
LikeLike
I like all those ideas and I agree that KB and AMc have a least an album or two in them. There are boundaries to push and they could do a very good job pushing them. As for OneTwo, I sincerely hope there is more on the offing…With Paul and Claudia no longer a couple (yes, sorry for that gossipy bit) I wonder if her focus is no that any longer. Did OMD’s return possibly put that permanently aside…I hope not.
LikeLike
Echorich – Paul and Claudia split too?! I knew Andy and his wife Toni got divorced recently. Having Paul split up as well is bad timing for the mooted end of OMD. Since everyone knows that when you split up with your partner, the thing to do is get the old band back together (see Bryan Ferry ca. 1978/2000).
LikeLike
Yeah I read that Paul and Claudia are no longer together as of the Spring of this year. It would be rather wonderful though if they found that their musical interests still intersected.
LikeLike
Great blog, if you like the track ‘Musica ex Machina’ from this album, definitely check out Electronic’s B-side track ‘Imitation of Life’, it’s essentially the same track with some necessary extra bits and vocals too, a hidden gem in my opinion. Sad to read about Paul & Claudia splitting, hope this doesn’t mean the end of OneTwo :-(
LikeLike
Andrew – Thanks for the tip! I only ever bought the first four Electronic singles so while I knew that Karl had contributed to the second album, I didn’t know the details. As for Claudia and Paul splitting, I still have only seen it mentioned in Echorich’s comments on this blog. I liked the idea of them together as they complimented each other very well. I still want to hear the second OneTwo album as well!
LikeLike
quoted from Wikipedia, which looks identical to the quote I saw on another site…
“From the mid nineties, Humphreys lived with German musician Claudia Brücken, with whom he performed in Onetwo until they separated in March 2013.” The March date is significant as Claudia was supposed to perform in Germany in March of this year with Paul and the dates were cancelled as he had to pull out. Now by March PH and AMc were definitely in English Electric promotional mode, but it was mentioned on another site that this is when Paul moved out.
LikeLike
Echorich – When the German tour went down I attributed that to the “English Electric” release that month. Hmmmm. We’ll see how that plays out since the PH Wikipedia page has dings for no attribution. The question is, Paul played on the UK tour and I presume that occurred before the Mooted German tour?
LikeLike
Sorry to resurrect and old thread,but I just found this.
I adore this album and was fortunate enough to attend a listening party/signing launch event at Rough Trade East in London at the time of release.That was one hell of a thrill for a life-long Kwerk fan I can tell you!
John Foxx was a few people away from me in the queue to be received by Karl,which was in itself quite amusing.Herr B kindly signed a giant poster of the album sleeve for me (now framed in my music studio)and posed for a photo taken by my partner.
In addition,there were several sets of headphones around which played early versions/demos and other unreleased snippets,which sounded amazing as you can imagine.
I came away with an armful of free 12″ by 12″ booklets with stunning artwork and several other bits of free memorabilia.
I have always loved the “Communication” album too and have a 4-track promo of it in my collection,but “Off the Record” is a masterpiece.
LikeLike
Gavin – That Foxx anecdote was priceless. But as usual, you were in the epicenter of musical events. Has anything happened with Herr B since “Off The Record?” I still need a copy of “Communication,” sad to say.
LikeLike