Komputer - market led (mute)

With the rise of the nu-electro scene, there are some very tasty new electro sounds coming out. However, any news or revived scene needs to be innovative to survive, and despite the fact that quite a few artists are doing things that sound really fresh, far too many are simply rehashing the sounds of 80s electro, synthpop and krautrock and swamping the scene. Despite the fact that Komputer have been around longer than the scene itself, their sound fits into among the latter crowd. Komputer are little more than a band that makes music that sounds exactly like the krautrock sounds of the late seventies, with particular emphasis on Kraftwerk.

Apart from a few classic tracks that remain relevant, a lot of Kraftwerk's output is of its time, worth checking out to see where electronic music came from, but not really the kind of thing to get excited about. Komputer's recreation of Kraftwerk's sound is ridiculously retro and doesn't have much to offer the modern music scene. If you're interested in Kraftwerk, buy Kraftwerk records, Komputer's appeal is really only lies in those who feel their krautrock collection is not yet complete and have a need to hear more bleepy synth sounds. I'm not one of those.

Donnacha DeLong