Can anybody recommend a way to get into Canterbury and Krautrock?

Just for an idea of where I'm coming from, here are some of my favorite bands: Opeth, Pink Floyd, Yes, Cynic, Pain of Salvation, Comus, Spock's Beard, Gentle Giant, In The Woods..., Bachdenkel, Leprous, and Porcupine Tree.

Thanks!

Now as far as Canterbury goes: try National Health or Egg. As a fan of all the bands you listed I think you might like those two the best...

Krautrock and Canterbury are definitely not emotionless. just listen to these:

a Canterbury example:

a Krautrock example:

I wonder what you have listened to already. Surely typical Krautrock is more spontaneous and less organised than the bands you have listed as your favourites (except early Pink Floyd, who had a huge influence on Kraut) and it's surely not for everyone. One special thing is Can's hypnotic style; you may or may not get it but once you've caught the bug, Jaki Liebezeit can drum as monotonously as he wants but he will never get you bored again. The first album of Tago Mago is a prime example, but all their albums through to Soon Over Babaluma have that hypnotic quality (actually you may prefer Future Days and Soon Over Babaluma sound-wise, but that's just a guess). Later they change quite a bit but Jaki is still Jaki so his magic is still there, if hidden a bit better. A different spin on hypnotic is given by  Neu! Actually I have been bored by that for quite some time but can finally appreciate at least their first album. It's easy to criticise minimalism, but there's no way around the fact that it's very original and special. 

By the way, Holger Czukay's later solo albums are quite different, intricate experimental sound alchemy if that's your thing (it may not be, doesn't really resonate with your list of favourites, but then RIO or Progressive Electronic may not be that alien to you). Not sure whether he is well classified as "Kraut" but there we are.

Of Amon Düül II, Wolf City is probably an easier accessible compromise between their free jamming and transparent sound structures than the more famous earlier Yeti and Tanz der Lemminge. 

Welcome to the forum ... I'm worried about saying anything here ... I'm not sure that the answers you are looking for, will be here ... and we do not know how well you listened to things ... to be able to help you better. In both cases, partial listens (not complete, or just skipping around), will likely leave you more confused than otherwise.

To better understand these, and the early periods in "progressive" music, one has to open up the noggin to appreciating IMPROVISATION and where it takes a person ... this is not what you and I would consider a top ten song, or a "composition" per se ... and to listen to AD2's YETI, and realize that is an "improvisation" is down right crazy, and not exactly something that most guitarists and bands can even consider doing ... thus, a lot of fans, are not likely to be able to appreciate these things and where they came from.

This is just a series of thoughts ... not necessarily a reality, but the question is scary ... for me. Not to mention that "understanding" is not exactly a science, or idea ... it's a very individual thing ... but in the arts, "improvisation" has always been important ... except in "progressive music" as defined by many websites, where the definition is about 5 bands, and not the music itself from around the world ... and this is probably the root of the problem.

Remember that "krautrock" was not just about some music ... it's "style" and "ability" was used in film, literature, and theater ... for just as long as in the rock music area ... and I'm not sure that one can really understand one section without seeing the other ... it's like ... Klaus Kinski in those days, is just as much "krautrock" as anything else ... his free form improvisations FORCED the camera to follow him, not anything else ... and there is a lot of this in the music itself.

Canterbury, for my tastes, is not as improvisational and valuable as an art form in so many disciplines, as the German style was in my view of things. But it is fun, and sometimes nutz and musically insane, but folks that were ... quite obviously ... very well educated musically and were making changes intentionally to see where it took things ... !!!

Grumpyprogfan wrote:   no need for multiple listens for it to sink in, it won't work.

Apparently it doesn't work for you. That doesn't mean it doesn't work for anyone.

If I disagree with something, I won't stop writing that.

As stated before, the site defined parameters of the two sub-genres on their respective pages will give you the most complete definitions. Ultimately, these are primarily geography based subs with a few outliers. The simplest why to look at them sound wise is to think of where the majority of bands within would fit if these subs didn't exist. Krautrock has a lot of avant-garde/experimental feel, infused with psychedelia. Canterbury bands tend to have an old-school fusion motif. There are others here that will be able to guide you toward the more accessible examples of Krautrock. The only band that really spoke to me there was Faust, and that was for a couple later albums (checkout "Something Dirty"). I have several of the "classics" from Can and Amon Duul II in my collection. I revisit periodically, but still not making the connection. 

Canterbury also took awhile for me to really sink my teeth into. The band that really pushed my over the top was Supersister. Try anything from their first 4 albums. "Present from Nancy" and "Iskander" are my favorites, though many here do not like the latter. 

Anyway, listening is a journey, not a destination. Don't force it. Something you listen to now that doesn't stick may sound completely different to you somewhere down an alternate contextual path.

 

Thanks BaldJean, I enjoyed listening to that one you posted above.

Also Faust IV is my big favourites.

And maybe you should try also some Kevin Ayers, for example first "Joy Of a Toy" or "the Confessions Of Dr. Dream".

Don't let genre names distract you--   Krautrock is just prog from Germany, and as far as Canterbury goes, you have to find the prog elements that interest you.   National Health would be a good place to start.

I thought so, too, but looking more into the classifications, actually that's not true. I checked this when looking for things to recommend. There are many prog bands from Germany that are classified elsewhere, Eloy, Grobschnitt, Novalis, Hoelderlin, Anyone's Daughter, Tangerine Dream, just to name a few. And although I didn't contribute to any of these classifications, I think there are good reasons for this. "Kraut", I'd say, stands for freedom, experimentation, and improvisation in the tradition of the late 60s/early 70s music communes of which Amon Düül is the prime example. There is a lot of free form in the earlier works. Later it's bands that picked up Kraut elements like the rhythm orientation of Can. There is also some minimalism to be found as in Neu, Cluster and La Duesseldorf, anyway much of this music is less "composed" and more organically developed than other prog genres (although some such as Amon Düül II got into more conventional/"composed" song formats later). The genre was meant to have a proper musical meaning beyond "being German" and I think it does. (And given the list of favourites in the first posting, I can well understand why these bands are more difficult for the poster to get into than, say, Eloy or Anyone's Daughter.)  

Sorry, David, I don't agree at all. "True" Krautrock is characterized by a very high level of experimentation, which in some cases goes beyond even what you would find labeled as RIO/Avant. Though I cannot call myself an expert, I have been involved in the latest installment of the Romantic Warriors documentary series - the first part of a trilogy dedicated to Krautrock - and that has given me a much deeper insight into this "subgenre". In fact, some Krautrock bands have more in common with post-punk/new wave that traditional prog. I would say that Krautrock is the embodiment of the "progressive vs prog" debate.

As to "understanding" any subgenre, it is something that may happen, or it may not. There are some subgenres I don't really care for, and forcing myself to listen to some highly praised albums has not produced any result. Everyone is entitled to their own tastes, and it is perfectly OK not to "get" something that others do.

Actually I agree that everybody has the right to their own taste and opinion, and nobody needs to get into any subgenre, hell, it is even fine to hate all of prog and not listen to any of it anymore ever if anybody decides so. However if somebody is curious enough to ask, it doesn't make sense to tell them that they shouldn't even ask because trying to get into something won't work anyway (for which there are many, many counterexamples).

And no, it's not personal. I actually like controversial exchange, however you don't seem to share that. Which is fair enough but really, no need to feel chased by me.

I have been, for many years trying to explain this from a theater/film perspective, and have had a really hard time getting through for some folks to have a better idea of what an "experimentation" really is ... and one of the accidental postings brought out, yet another example for me ... that I do not think it was meant to.

Titles ... usually a "title" tells you what the piece is about, and often the piece/song has lyrics around that theme. This is a problem for "experimentation" and "improvisation", since you do not want to create a situation where someone (an audience let's say) thinks about this word or that word, and the whole thing was nowhere near that word when created.

A true improvisation, will have many of the musicians going in many directions, and things may or may not come together ... and this is the hard part in naming anything ... and my take, specially in the situation with Robert Wyatt and Soft Machine, was that the title of his book, was about the fact that the music in SM at the time, had stopped being "different every time" and had become more "controlled" and "composed" ... which makes it less of an improvisation altogether.

In this last sense, the numbering of albums by number makes sense ... no need to number an album with a word, 1) when they did not have one in the first place, and 2) the putting together of the whole thing was about being together at one place in time, and this worked ... and then comes the big elephant ... are we going to be able to play that on stage?

Raff wrote: ... Though I cannot call myself an expert, I have been involved in the latest installment of the Romantic Warriors documentary series - the first part of a trilogy dedicated to Krautrock - and that has given me a much deeper insight into this "subgenre". In fact, some Krautrock bands have more in common with post-punk/new wave that traditional prog. I would say that Krautrock is the embodiment of the "progressive vs prog" debate. ...

The book FUTURE DAYS goes over this really well, and it kind of shows you how different each area was, from each other in regards to not only the music, but in its own development.

My take is that one forgets, how important this kind of experimental process was in other disciplines of art, something that too many folks in this board are scared to discuss, or perhaps they are not as aware of theater, film, literature and other arts as I have been lucky to be.

I always ask ... do you really think there is as much of a difference between Klaus Kinski and what Damo Suzuki did for CAN ... and the answer is no ... we immediately went after it, and Werner Herzog could not keep the camera away from the loon ... that would not stop acting when the scene was "over", which was very visible sometimes, when (I think) it is very clear that the whole thing was extended because it was simply too good, and some of it could be cut later if it needed to. 

Lastly, originally, on the CAN website, Holger had stated that TAGO MAGO was put together off 20 some hours of stuff and that most of it was put together by chance and whatever other idea ... to put something together that was not a WESTERNIZED FORM of music ... and this wording shows up more than once within the "krautrock" ideas and concept ... and the same thing happened in literature when you had someone like Peter Handke (and others) writing "word plays" ... where it was a literal 52 pickup with no order whatsoever, no theme that anyone can pick up and a total dismantling of the idea/concept of composition ... something that drives folks here totally crazy ... why/now could anyone be so stupid and crazy to even consider that? A piece of something with no concepts, no ideas, no story, no characters, no lyrics that you and I could define ... the absolute worst thoughts and ideas ... and guess what Damo was doing? A version of the same thing ... guess what Klaus was doing? A version of the same thing thinly disguised as a characterization that never ended, something that we only hear a handful of actors EVER try and work with!

My take is that there is a lot more to it all, than we're comfortable describing ... to the point where at least one troll will say that all this is trivial and drivel ... and no one has the guts to call them on their lack of apprehension and appreciation for an art form!

great post... and agree but let me take that a bit further and another reason why Krautrock, though adopted by prog fan (that big umbrella holding several very different beasts that Jacob spoke of yeqrs ago), is really different from prog. 

it isn't just the embodiment of progressive v prog.. it is the embodiment of intellectual v. emotional.  At its root Krautrock could be called.... anti intellectual.. more primal... thus its strong roots in the beats.. the rhythms.

Internet discussion can indeed be a full-contact sport.   

I just reviewed National Health's first album today.

 

My all-time favourite Canterbury Scene album is "Space Shanty" by Khan, featuring Steve Hillage on guitar.

I'm gonna start off listening to Tago Mago, IV, Phallus Dei, In the land of Gray and Pink, Fitter Stoke Has a Bath, and To the Highest Bidder

I believe my problem with the genres is honestly just my attention span For awhile I find it quite enjoyable until I get lost and zone out. I'm only sixteen and a frequent drug user so I tend to get dazed and confused

Edit: I will also be listening to Of Queues and Cures