This is a tricky one. So Kraftwerk was a double album on Vertigo which collated the two Traffic Cone LPs which pre-date most of the Kraftwerk that is known and loved. I have something of a confession to make: I don't really care for Kraftwerk. I like the idea of them but in practice they leave me wanting. But this is not the Kraftwerk of synthesisers, robots and drum machines - this is Avant Kraftwerk, all ambience, drones and hums. In theory there's not much not to like but in practice it's Bad Avant rather than good Avant.
The double-albumness of the whole thing doesn't do much to help meaning that even though there's a mixture of short and long tracks everything drags on and at the end of it, you come away with not much. Klingklang is okay but sounds more like Neu! than anything else. Atem is typical of the other tracks, with not much rhythm and a lot of sound effects - like someone breathing for 3 minutes.
The only reason that this album is worth thinking about, however, is Ruckzuck. 8 minutes of frantic flute staccato accompanied by synthesizer tinkling - it's really good but not outstanding. It does, however, stand out amongst the drier parts of the record. I tried this record everywhere - to and from Palo Alto, around SF on the BART, over to my favourite stop: 19th Street in Oakland. Once, on the train, the timing of the train pulling up and the record slowing down ending of one of the tracks was in perfect synchronicity. Even this did not lift the record up above where I had thought it was. It's just quite boring.
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