Krautrock

Although it was given second wind when Bowie and Eno yammered on about it circa the former’s Low and “Heroes” albums in ’77, Krautrock had first left the fatherland and put boots on British soil at the start of that decade. Not that any of the bands involved happily answered to the term. Some say it was coined by John Peel, others claim it was pulled from an Amon Düül track. Faust called the opening track on their fourth album Krautrock, but that was a dig at how stupid they thought the Brits were. “When English people started talking about Krautrock,” they said, “we thought they were just taking the piss.”

While the Dad’s Army simplification of the phrase gives an insight into the UK’s 70s insularity, it has nonetheless become a useful catch-all category for innovative German