Karl Bartos Karl Bartos - Off The Record

"Kraftwerk’s long-time percussionist is readying a new record of his own. Bartos was a member of Kraftwerk from 1975-1990, the period which saw the group release the bulk of their classic albums. He consistently played live with the group, and also racked up songwriting credits on the likes of Computer World and Man-Machine. In the years since handing in his Kling Klang key, he worked with Johnny Marr/Bernard Sumner’s Electronic project and set up his own Elektric Music ensemble. His last major release was 2003′s solo album Communication, a release that sounded a fair bit like, well, Kraftwerk."

"As Exclaim report, a new record is now on the way. According to German label Bureau B, Bartos is currently “in the studio working in high speed on the very last tracks for the album.” Bartos claims to be “looking forward to the release with anticipation”. The album, currently sans title, will arrive in spring of next year. You can listen to 2003′s ‘I’m The Message’ below."

[youtubehd]JqxpW4CC9Gs&feature=player_embedded[/youtubehd]

There was some really good tracks included on the Moebiux Redux documentary that will forever be unreleased.

"We are very happy and proud to announce that Karl Bartos, member of the classic Kraftwerk line-up (1975–1990), will release his next album on Bureau B. Right now Karl Bartos is in the studio working in high speed on the very last tracks for the album. The release is planned for spring 2013 and will be accompanied by a worlwide tour. Karl Bartos: "Yes, Bureau B is in play. I'm looking forward to the release with anticipation." More detailed data will be published on our website and via Facebook. Stay tuned to be the first to know!"

http://www.bureau-b.com/index.php

Even if it ends up sounding very derivative of Kraftwerk, I will be very excited for this album.

Communication was pretty good overall, looking forward to this next one.

listen http://thequietus.com/articles/10811-karl-bartos-kraftwerk-announces-new-album-off-the-record

That sounds fantastic. Looking forward to picking that up.

I thought it sounded awful. :(

Its difficult for me because i love kraftwerk and i want love everything they do but i think they do not understand/adapted well to modern electronic music, their new music feels like an old rocker trying to make hip music.

  On 1/27/2013 at 11:02 PM, YO303 said:

Its difficult for me because i love kraftwerk and i want love everything they do but i think they do not understand/adapted well to modern electronic music, their new music feels like an old rocker trying to make hip music.

what.... first of all karl bartos is not kraftwerk. also, did you actually listen to tour de france? that album is really quite incredible. Masterfully produced and composed.

Karl Bartos was nothing more than a percussionist for Kraftwerk anyway. The real brains are Florian and Ralf.

no way man, bartos was increasingly involved in writing the last three albums (before "the mix").

for instance, computerworld's writing credits:

1/2/5 - hüter / bartos

3/4/6/7 - hüter / schneider / bartos

wolfgang flür's book, for what it's worth, makes this clear and also paints a pretty damning picture about how much ralph and florian downplaid his involvement in particular. hard to say how much of that book is legit though.

Well I was really impressed with his last album from a few years back. I don't really care about the politics, it sounded very nice to me. I'll take the solo stuff because I'm tired of waiting for the band to produce something.

Short samples.

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/poprock/detail/-/art/Karl-Bartos-Off-The-Record-signiert/hnum/1895562#product-audio-preview

Album is out now if anyone's interested.

IZZIT GUDT?

Oh my...
If you buy this record (like I did), please for your own sake avoid reading the cringe-inducing liner notes.

In the light of Bartos' own "philisophical" musings, the music comes across as almost as brutally dumbed down as Wolfgang Flür's Yamo project.

And the music....

  On 3/27/2013 at 8:29 AM, ventolin68 said:

Oh my...

If you buy this record (like I did), please for your own sake avoid reading the cringe-inducing liner notes.

In the light of Bartos' own "philisophical" musings, the music comes across as almost as brutally dumbed down as Wolfgang Flür's Yamo project.

 

I have bought this LP sadly more blindly (after listening to some snippets) and was more than horrified to check that half of the LP is more german singer/songwriter stuff packed on top of some mediocre electro tracks. Have sold this already again.

This was a real disappointment for me. Bartos apparently went back through old demos and other unreleased stuff.

Sadly, that really shows. Most of this stuff should have never seen the light of day.

  On 4/1/2013 at 1:29 PM, fumi said:

This was a real disappointment for me. Bartos apparently went back through old demos and other unreleased stuff.

 

Sadly, that really shows. Most of this stuff should have never seen the light of day.

As a strange sidenote, some of my international friends totally freaked out about this album. Maybe because the language/different understanding makes it a bit more listenable, I'm not sure.

I really tried hard but could not make it into the album. Glad I did not pick up the deluxe edition at boomkat. That was my first prelisten and I'm sure they picked the best bits from it.