Customer Reviews

Communication

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Karl has, over the last 10 years, been able to express his individual musical talent through solo and coproduced albums, rather than have his skillful, clever and slightly cynical musica creations placed over the tall-standing umbrella of Kraftwerk.

Following up from his albums released under the band name of Elektric Music/Electric Music, Karl has graced us with an album full of groaning, throaty bassy synthesizer tracks, combined with funky pop songs and effects laden musical journeys. His (somewhat overused) vocoder thrusts out lyrics related to the premises of communication, with tracks such as Im The Message, Im The Camera and Ultraviolet sending a slightly disguised and quite funny message about modern society and its use of communication such as means as advertisments, photographs, ect.

I wont compare Karl's music to Kraftwerk as much as many people do, but you can certainly feel the underlying precision and simple but catchy tunes that tends to be very valuable to the structure of Kraftwerk's music.

If you enjoy electronica, or simply would like to hear what a great master of electronic music can produce, dont give Communication a miss!

And if you enjoy this album, make sure you take a look at Karl's earlier effort, Esperanto (under the title of Elektric Music) as these two albums are quite similar in style, although i feel that Communication has a better level of refinment and focus.

Dont deprive yourself and order a copy of Communication now!

I have always been a Kraftwerk fan and this album is probably one my favorites ever! I like it because every track is dancable and catchy and sticks in your head. The vocals are mostly robotic, but on the ones where Karl sings, it reminds me of his other side project from several years back called Elektric Music. If you missed that one, I highly recommend it too! Kraftwerk fans will not be disappointed. I think this is the worth every penny of the import price! Who knows if it will ever be domestic, but I wouldn't wait if I were you.

Karl Bartos, best known for his role in german mensch machine Kraftwerk, issued this album, 'Communication' which can be called enough nice to draw attention of electro lovers. This opus demonstrates clearly that Karl was not that far from Kraftwerk studio processes as Ralf Hutter tried to show. But he's definitely ex-Kraftwerk, he understands the spirit of late 70s electronic music and delivered it to the 00s. Thus, as you can probably imagine, the album sounds a bit outdated but only a bit, on the other side it is a balsam for all Krfatwerk admirers. You should also buy Kraftwerk's 'Tour De France Soundtracks' just to make a comparison between real Kraftwerk and what sometimes was a part of it.

Wow, this is what the last Kraftwerk cd should have been. You can really see who had the talent in Kraftwerk. Nice upbeat songs, cool use of vocoders, great bass and synth lines. Think "Man Machine" meets "Computer World" and you are almost there. Yeah, it is that good. Totally impressed with this release. Karl had a good release with "Esperanto" a few years back, but this blows that away with ease. Buy it!!

I wish Bartos could have stuck out longer with the Kling Klang Guys... but then again, Bartos alone has his distinct flavor and approach to the compositions and sound treatments. This album is so delicious! Bartos really kept the phat tones alive from his past days with Kraftwerk and incorporates some new textures too on this great collection of songs. After seeing the transformation of KW after Bartos' exit, I'm realizing that Bartos may have been the "HEART BEAT" of KW. The vocoder really works well and his old school drum machine still pounds out the measures. The innocense of the lyrics/subjects are still there and he infuses catchy melodies with out-of-this-world synth voices, although resorting to bland transition chords like in "Electronic Apeman", just slightly killing the flow of wonderful group of measures.
I wished he had access to Marnie and Aroyo of Ladytron or a female voice to some of the tracks... So what's the deal with these technopop gurus? Why not pump out records like mad ?!?!

Just as Kraftwerk were readying their first album in twenty years ("Tour De France Soundtracks), Karl Bartos released his first "official" solo album, Communication. Ask most Kraftwerk fans which album sounds more like classic Kraftwerk, the answer is, maybe not surprisingly, the Karl Bartos release.

Bartos is a classically trained percussionist who played electronic drums in Kraftwerk, but he also received songwriting credit on some of Kraftwerk's most enduring compositions. Listening to "Communication" and "Tour De France Soundtracks" side by side, it doesn't take a genius to see Bartos was the man behind the beautiful melodies of "Neon Lights", "Computer World", "Computer Love", "Tour De France", and "The Model," and I speculate he also wrote the lead synth melody of "Europe Endless" (although he doesn't receive a writing credit).

And melody is why this album succeeds: "Communication" is loaded with beautiful melodies and some great singing from Bartos. It's unfortunate that he let the "computer voice" (it's not a vocoder!) sing so much on this album, as he's got a very enjoyable voice. Hopefully he'll sing more on his next release...

At first, I heard a little of this CD on MySpace, and was very excited. I had no idea this album was out there. The last time I googled Karl Bartos was pre "Communication" and I knew he was working on something, but was taken aback when I actually purchased it. The first couple of times I listened to the CD I thought it was too heavy with vocoders, but soon after realized how amazing all the tracks were. Now I just can't stop listening to it! And because of this CD, I feel his former band suffered a great loss when they went their separate ways so many years ago. Although forever inspirational, they did nothing but regurgitate the same music for 20 years. But now, as I look (and listen) on the positive side, I ask myself... "would the world have this astounding CD if they hadn't parted ways?" Karl Bartos is still waaaay ahead of the times, and this CD calibrates the future of music.

One of the great mysteries of Kraftwerk was "who did what?" Who writes what parts in their songs? Who plays which instruments? Who programs the sounds? Who programs the beats? Who writes the words? Ok, you get it.

I think this solo project from former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos goes a long way toward answering some of those questions.

I find that these songs incorporate a sense of lyricism and grace, not confined just to the words, that is noticably present in some Kraftwerk songs (such as The Telephone Call or The Model). And, of course, the use of the computer-vocoder voice on a lot of these songs makes one wonder who influenced who? Are these songs an expose into Bartos' contribution to Kraftwerk or are they a product of their collective influence on him? It is hard to say from just a passing listen - one has to live with this CD to ponder it.

Nonetheless, this is a strong collection of thoughtful, tuneful, well-written and well-produced songs. Track number six, LIFE, is my new theme song (at least for the next month or year!).

I highly recommend this excellent CD and I think anyone who is a fan of Kraftwerk, or electronic music, will enjoy it.

The songs are good. Nothing super great or classic memorable, but pleasant to listen to. There are comments made by two other people with whom I concur: That he overdoes it with the vocoder, and that this is the album Kraftwerk should have put out instead of Tour De France Soundtracks.
By the time this CD came out (2003), the sound sounds contemporary, even a little dated. This is a shame, but a fact. I truly wish he had released this 10 years ago. Ralf and Florian would not have taken so long between albums, beating Tom Schultz at the game of "perfection". Recommended.

This is an excellent album by Karl Bartos from Kraftwerk. Very well performed electronic music. OK maybe a little too much use of the Vocoder but otherwise excellent.