Soul Jazz Records’ new ‘Deutsche Electronische Musik 2’ is their second voyage into the world of Krautrock and German electronic music from the 1970s and early 1980s.

Two double LPs (with over 2½ hours of amazing music) features a stunning line-up of seminal German groups, including Can, Faust, Popul Vuh, Neu, Cluster, Amon Duul II, La Dusseldorf, as well as a host of lesser known and more obscure groups and artists such as Agitation Free, Broselmachine, Niagara and many more.

As well as the original pioneers, ‘Deutsche Electronische Musik 2’ also features many of the second wave of German electronic artists and groups from the late 70s and early 80s (DAF, Asmus Tietchens, Rolf Trostel), who successfully connected new wave, minimal synth and a European post punk avant-gardism with the earlier more established Krautrock pioneers who began at the start of the 70s.

Influenced as much by the electronic experimentalism of Stockhausen as the progressive rock of USA and UK underground rock, young German artists seamlessly created a new music with its own unique identity, which they ironically entitled Krautrock. By the end of the 1970s, with the arrival of new wave synthetics and complex drum machines, this music had mutated once again into new electronic visions reflecting a new Germany.

The vinyl edition comes in two volumes of heavyweight, superloud vinyl in gatefold sleeve double albums, featuring all sleevenotes and text.

“A near-definitive guide to some of the world’s most extraordinary music” – The Guardian (*****)