TooMuchGreen

Since arriving in Berlin I’ve had the urge to rediscover some of the more ‘German’ archives from my iTunes (and download some new ones).

Music is of course both a true outlet for & provider of energy, a prime example being the latest album release from my brother Keith. He’d been to visit Auschwitz in Poland, an extremely oppressing and thought provoking place as you can imagine, not somewhere you really go for a ‘holiday’ and his latest music was produced on the back of the visit, it’s a six track masterpiece which I think is his finest work yet. Undoubtedly dark it’s a finely crafted audio representation of energy he picked up during the trip. Musically (for me) it has noticeable synchronicity with early Kraftwerk and by extension my own audio preference at the moment. With my German language skills being virtually non existent I’m finding related music an excellent method of getting in tune here to supplement the visual element, so, who better to bring back centre stage than my old favourites the iconic ‘Man-Machine’ themselves (the full discography in fact..!).

If you’ve been living in a cave for the past 20 years Kraftwerk are the pioneers of all todays electronic music, they were systematically tweaking and tuning in 1970 whilst the rest of the world was still trying to clear it’s psychedelic stoned head from the swinging 60′s. Notoriously reclusive they operate out of Dusseldorf from their original, enigmatic and inherently private Kling Klang music studios. Although still performing (albeit infrequently) the four 2008 dates were noticeably missing Florian Schneider (one of the founder members). In typical Kraftwerk style no explanation so far his been given for his absence with his place being filled by one of the established Kling Klang video technicians (not relevant information for this story but for a Kraftwerk fan this is huge news so I couldn’t not mention it).

Keith and myself were lucky enough to see Kraftwerk perform in the UK a few years ago after I unexpectedly discovered two tickets for an imminent Manchester concert on ebay, it was a superb evening and we both felt honoured to have finally seen them, there’s just nobody else with such unique presence (plus we really enjoy their music). Listening intently to their back catalogue here in Berlin however I understand it even more, it all fits perfectly with the orderly German culture and environment which is for me immensely satisfying, I’ve only been here for two weeks but already feel calm and at home, something I never came close to in America for three months. I know have sections of my brain which seem to thrive with a certain element of order, obviously why I thoroughly enjoy conceived photography of the urban aesthetic, as such I actually think I could live here quite happily. The freedom is nice too, for a city which up until recently was inconceivably split down the middle with a concrete wall it’s certainly making up for lost time and feels immensely liberated, it’s so nice being able to take photographs where and when I want, inside, outside, shops, railways stations or wherever, I’ve mentioned it before and I know I keep going on about it but in the jittery UK you’d get instantly pulled by *Security*, over here however it’s just another thing people do, which is all it is, it’s no big deal, it’s Art, as is music, even if it may be a concept album from a concentration camp.