Kraftwerk
12345678 - 3D

The new album idea by Kraftwerk is the translation into CD (but also in Blu-Ray 3-D, hence the title) of the concerts that in the last five years have practically reprised the entire historic catalog, from Autobahn to Tour De France Soundtracks. It is the second consecutive live release of the German group, if live concerts can indeed be talked about instead of multimedia happenings/installations, but compared to the concert list of "Minimum Maximum," the surprise for the listener, especially if a Kraftwerk fan, is pleasant and pronounced.

Ralf Hutter, the only founding member still in the lineup, has decided to bring on stage arranged and modified versions of Kraftwerk's songs, much closer to the live spirit of any “normal” band, something that practically hadn't happened since 1976: "prisoners" of rigid synchronized stage sets, minimized by their own premises, Kraftwerk had always avoided "adding" musical elements, not to mention solos or embellishments of various kinds, save for modernizing the classics through the operation "The Mix," which owed much to the happy hands of Francois Kevorkian.

In short, until 2012, anyone venturing to see Kraftwerk was sure to witness a remarkable show of lights, projections, constructivist graphics, retro design, and historicized futurism, immersed in a high-definition sound environment, yet without enjoying musical variations worthy of note: hence arose the impression that none of the four engineers were playing anything with their own notebook.

Instead, on May 26th, this elegant box of eight discs (or 9 LPs) is released, documenting the shows held more or less around the world in recent years, and, as said, it's a pleasant surprise to discover that the tracks are different (even significantly) in arrangement, tempo, overall sound, and confluences between tracks. The sound is simply magnificent, all the vocal parts are new; in short: who knows what was truly played live, but this "3-D" has the flavor of those live albums that offered new versions of an artist's classics, and not the mere pedantic reproduction of studio albums, something many of us have never liked.

Certainly, the work is not "Made In Japan," and Kraftwerk does not seem to possess sufficient inspiration for a new studio work, but for enthusiasts, this box will be a positive discovery and not a useless addition to their record collection.