Krautrock: "A forward-looking desire to transcend Germany's gruesome past."

Okay, okay. It's been a bit of an obsession lately.

"Yes, Krautrock. Can. Jaki Liebezeit. Rock without the radio god telling it to bow down and behave."

What fascinates me is the shared and overt aim of otherwise unconnected musicians to consciously turn away from foreign influences, producing distinct music designed to simultaneously refute the past and re-establish an ethos anchored in the German experience.

I'll make no claims to understanding any of this when I was 14 years old, and Kraftwerk's Autobahn broke in America. The song was played on WLRS, and I scraped together money earned baling hay to buy the vinyl.

I told you before; the stork made a serious error.

Documentary which looks at how a radical generation of musicians created a new German musical identity out of the cultural ruins of war.

Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard. They shared one common goal - a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany's gruesome past - but that didn't stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain from calling them Krautrock.