Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Autobhan, the 1974 album that began Kraftwerk's ascent to legendary status, is still capable of making the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The headline attraction remains the absorbing, mesmerising, 22-minute title track, a musical whizz down an imaginary three-lane highway that's as evocative and atmospheric as they come. That said, the album's lesser-celebrated, more experimental flip-side tracks (and in particular the jaunty 'Kometenmelodie 2'), are also inspired. Here it gets the 2020 reissue treatment via a tasty blue vinyl pressing that comes packaged with a 12-page booklet of historic photos and typically utilitarian imagery.

Review: Kraftwerk's 1975 performance at Fairfield Hall in Croydon is the stuff of legend. Finally it is available as a high quality audio pressing that allows you to relive all its glorious futurism. The show was broadcast on radio as part of a short tour of the UK that came after the release of the German computer music pioneer's hugely popular Autobahn. It features tracks from that album as well as 'Die Sonne, Der Mond, Die Sterne' and 'Showroom Dummies.' A real piece of electronic music history that will spice up any collection.

Review: There isn't a more hit-packed Kraftwerk album than The Man Machine. First released in 1978 and here reissued on red vinyl accompanied by a fresh booklet of vintage images, the album boasts some of the German band's best loved songs, including 'The Robots', cheery sing-along 'The Model', the staggeringly good 'Neon Lights', and the bubbly title track. It shows how good the album is that such gems as 'Metropolis' and the picturesque 'Spacelab' - cuts that most other bands would kill to be able to write - tend to be ignored or overlooked. If you love electronic music, you need a copy of The Man Machine in your collection.

Review: Recorded in 1981, Turning Japanese captures Kraftwerk at the absolute height of their creative dominance, but sometime before their true induction into the household name superstar category of artists. Still representing a very forward thinking, boundary pushing and - as a result - specialist sound, this nine-track live recording feels like yesterday's tomorrow.
Opening with a stunning neo-classical synth overture, we're then taken on a journey through the mind of the man machine, an industrial yet somehow strangely human proto-electro world that is defined by order and structure, while still allowing for enough funk and groove to make sure feet, hips and more move seemingly of their own volition. Perhaps not the most insightful take on the pioneering German band - nothing here that hasn't been said before - nevertheless we hope it goes someway to describing how precise, refined and overwhelmingly infectious they can be on stage.

Review: This release, which was recorded for Bremen Radio in 1971, features four extended tracks showcasing German pioneers Kraftwerk in a very different light from their later work. The short-lived lineup of Schneider, Rother and Dinger fused electric guitar with their then-signature electronic sounds and it gives rise to unusual, exciting and innovative music. Half of the tracks here, as hardcore fans will recognise, are drawn from their debut album, Kraftwerk 1, and the recording quality is excellent. This release also includes full recording details along with extensive sleeve notes that help offer a fascinating glimpse into Kraftwerk's early, experimental sound before their more iconic and pioneering electronic phase.

Review: In August 2003, German synth icons Kraftwerk released Tour de France Soundtracks, their first album of new material since 1986's Electric Cafe. Even before the album's release, the band embarked on the extensive Minimum-Maximum world tour in January 2003 to great acclaim and much fan delight. By February 2004, the pioneering group had taken the tour to Scandinavia to perform in Helsinki, Finland, on the 6th and at Stockholm's Cirkus venue on the 8th and 10th. The Stockholm shows are still considered among the best of the tour and they are, luckily, all recorded for live FM radio broadcast. That exceptional concert is now available in its entirety on this new two-part set on translucent red vinyl.