On looking at this site I was surprised to note that no-one had reviewed the Electric Cafe album by Kraftwerk.

I think this has been an oversight, whilst it is not quite as good as Trans Europe Express (nothing is), I think it is still a little gem.

When it came out over 20 years ago I rushed out to buy it, having waited 5 years from Computer World, and instantly hated it. Like everyone else I was expecting CW 2, and, was completely baffled by this record. What was the theme? What were the strange beats? Why so sparse sounding? Why so short at 35 min?

About 10 years later, in order to update my vinyl records, I got this on mid price cd. Having aged a little and gotten a good music system I decided to try listening to it again. Talk about giving a fine wine time to age!

The opening track is Boing Boom Tschak, which is basically three words repeated constantly and interrupted with percussion. This leads into Techno Pop then Musique Non Stop. These 3 tracks make up the whole of the first half of the album. Each song drifts effortlessly into the next. On hindsight, with most words sung in English, German, French and Spanish it sounds very much like a precurser to Tour De France Soundtracks and, vocally, the most ‘Kraftwerk’ sounding album they have done to date.

The second half of the album starts with ‘The Telephone Call’ and is unique is being the only song sung by Karl Bartos during his time with the band. Again, like so often, this song predicts the mass world communications that was to come. Onto Sex Object, I think this is the weak track on the album, I just think it is quite muddy sounding in comparison to the crisp sparse sound the rest of the album has. The finishing track is Electric Cafe which has an increadible beat and goes off with a bang.

If you have a decent set of headphones, or deaf neighbours, crank it up a give it a go. You may be surprised.