Aural Sculptors - The Stranglers Live 1976 to the Present


Welcome to Aural Sculptors, a blog aimed at bringing the music of The Stranglers to as wide an audience as possible. Whilst all of the various members of the band that have passed through the ranks since 1974 are accomplished studio musicians, it is on stage where the band have for me had their biggest impact.

As a collector of their live recordings for many years I want to share some of the better quality material with other fans. By selecting the higher quality recordings I hope to present The Stranglers in the best possible light for the benefit of those less familiar with their material than the hardcore fan.

Needless to say, this site will steer well clear of any officially released material. As well as live gigs, I will post demos, radio interviews and anything else that I feel may be of interest.

In addition, occasionally I will post material by other bands, related or otherwise, that mean a lot to me.

Your comments and/or contributions are most welcome. Please email me at adrianandrews@myyahoo.com.


Thursday 21 January 2021

Kraftwerk Paradiso Amsterdam 19th January 2015

 


So here we have the second of the albums that to my mind form Kraftwerk's Holy Trinity of albums. The aptly named 'Man Machine' the concept with which these four curious men from Dusseldorf really did blur the lines that distinguish man from machine, human from automaton. For me, and this may not make a lot of sense, 'The Man Machine' is both cold and warm at the same time. Cold in the sense that this is the world of robots casting a blank eye in the direction of A.I. and yet warm in terms of the richness of the melodies and the sounds that they coaxed from their machines within fortress of the Kling Klang studios. Take 'Neon Lights' for example, stark and cold by nature, but as Ralf describes his impressions of them as they shine down on him from tall Dusseldorf buildings in his gentle tones they too carry a warmth that is completely at odds with reality.

'Spacelab' is truly other worldly, this was 1978 and whilst the Western world was grappling with 'Star Wars' (1977 I know!), Kraftwerk presented the other sober side of space explorations...... no light sabres for the Kraftwerk boys, oh no, rather the serious task of gathering extra-terrestrial rock samples for some meaningful elemental analysis! May the Force be with you Herr Schneider! 

Oh and 'The Model' is just sublime! 'Sie trinkt in Nachtklubs immer Sekt.... korrekt!'

For those with an interest in the band but don't have the albums or maybe have the albums in their English release versions, I would urge you to get the German language versions.... they are on Spotify. Admirable though it is that Kraftwerk recorded in English too, we are big enough and ugly enough to enjoy the material in German, even if we are collectively crap at languages.... and it sounds much better! Trust me.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-cwM1Q5cHPn

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-G5mJRIghm4

01. [intro]
02. he Man-Machine
03. Spacelab
04. The Model
05. Neon Lights
06. Metropolis
07. Autobahn
08. Airwaves
09. Intermission
10. News
11. Geiger Counter
12. Radioactivity
13. Numbers
14. Computer World
15. Home Computer
16. Computer Love
17. Tour De France 1983
18. Prologue
19. Tour De France Étape 1
20. Chrono
21. Tour De France Étape 2
22. Trans-Europe Express
23. Abzug
24. Metal On Metal
25. [encore break]
26. The Robots
27. [encore break]
28. Electric Cafe
29. Boing Boom Tschak
30. Techno Pop
31. Musique Non Stop




1 comment:

  1. Adrian, what a great review. Although i know all the stuff, it makes me curious to give it another listen. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete