1. Michael RotherRalf Und Florian
Of course, it’s the decision of an artist to say what parts of his work he favours or doesn’t, but it’s a bit strange how Kraftwerk always denied the existence of their first three albums. It was always a bit puzzling because there’s really beautiful music, especially on Ralf Und Florian, some really nice tracks and music that should be available to the audience. It’s clear that with Autobahn there was a new direction, they started this conceptual approach for a complete album. I’m sure Ralf Hütter doesn’t need my advice, but if he asked me I would tell him ‘why don’t you release it properly? People will still understand that with Autobahn a new phase started, but it won’t destroy the legacy of Kraftwerk if you allow a company to distribute the first three albums!’
When Klaus Dinger and I split from Kraftwerk you can see the different directions we took. Klaus and I recorded the first Neu! album, and Florian Schneider reconnected with Ralf Hütter and they did ‘Kling Klang’. It’s like a living room jam, very soft footed and quite interesting. I played them the first Harmonia album and I remember they understood what we were going for. It appealed to Ralf quite a lot.
