I recently revisited Karl
Bartos’ 2013 album Off The Record.
The cover has a picture of Karl’s Kraftwerk
robot (a move which apparently enraged Ralf Hutter, who tried and failed to get
the record withdrawn...). And the KW influences don't stop there.
The music itself shows Karl returning very much to the
classic KW sound after experimenting with simpler guitar based pop on his previous album.
Whilst Bartos’ solo stuff is often not as interesting as the stuff he produced with his old band, it’s
still strong and Off The Record represented a sort of rounding up exercise as some of these songs had been knocking around for years and years waiting for Karl to finish them off.
Bartos claimed that after 20+ years out of KW he’d obviously
moved on, but Off The Record doesn't bear this out. Maybe the excellent opening
track “Atomium” shows a much more muscular rhythm track than anything KW would
have done, but Karl still relies on the Robovox for the vocals which obviously
invites direct comparisons with the Dusseldorf boys. And this direct link crops up throughout the album - for example, many of the drum sounds are identical to those that Karl played when he was
KW’s drummer – and, sadly, whenever this happens it’s Karl’s songs that seem to come
off as second best. Which is a shame as this is actually a very good collection of synth pop. "Rhythmus" takes this even further, using much of the melody from "Computer World" but seeing as Bartos composed this Kraftwerk melody in the first place, it's probably not too surprising.
Karl dips even further into the past with the final track, “Hausmusik”,
which has tinny rhythm box percussion and wibbly analogue synth sounds and
sounds like Harmonia or Cluster from 40+ years ago! It’s a charmingly simple
piece and it’s probably my favourite.
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