Several years ago I felt the smug, vicious and unsleeping ferret of Catholic guilt gnawing away at my conscience. ‘You’re a bad son’, it said, in between mouthfuls of pallid flesh. “You drink too much and you’re always causing your poor mother stress.” I decided there and then that no matter what was happening I would make the train journey up from London to the cradle of civilization (Liverpool) to see my parents on Mother’s Day. No matter what.

It turned out that because of God’s calamitous calendar this meant that in order to see my birth giver I would have to miss seeing Kraftwerk for the first time ever. But the trip north was to go ahead. Not only was it the most selfless thing I’d ever done, it was the only selfless thing I’d ever done.

When I settled down in Rainhill for an evening of listening to a radio show about skiffle and then a feature length episode of Heartbeat I had ample time to reflect on my folly as the texts I was receiving from the Brixton Academy became more and more rapturous. Still, my mum was happy. Until she went to bed at 9pm leaving me to ruminate on future parental visitations and how they would relate to my enjoyment of seminal German synthesizer groups.

We thought we would celebrate our recent chat with Karl Bartos by doing a bit of a Kraftwerk inspired list. Obviously this is a wide subject; so if you feel that we’ve left anything obvious off, feel free to suggest it.

Click here to listen to the Quietus' Kraftwerk inspirations playlist

Featured on this week's playlist: Afrika Bambaataa, The Human League, Gary Numan, J Dilla, Whodini, Depeche Mode, Digitalism, The Black Dog, Underworld, Orbital, Tangerine Dream, Aphex Twin, Aphex Twin, Suicide, Soft Cell, Inner City, Giorgio Moroder, System 7.