Radioactivity

...well some of that morse code actually sounds like that UA6 you just worked on 40 metres, complete with T6 buzz and slow drift.

And the music isn't bad either.


Masterpiece   June 28, 2005
Pieter (Johannesburg)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful

This experimental album with its electronic sighs and bleeps and atmospheric crackles is such a timeless masterpiece not because of the electronics but because of the heavenly melodies and the engaging rhythms. The whooshes, the bleeps and the disembodied voices are just the icing on the cake although they give the music an other-worldly atmosphere. The title track is mesmerising in its ebb and flow, while Radioland and Airwaves get progressively more weird. The more I listen to it, the more I think that Radio Activity is by far Kraftwerk's most varied and innovative album. What set Kraftwerk's electronics apart from most of the other synth pioneers, is the sense of classical structure that underlies the music. True, Klaus Nomi also used classic and operatic structures but he came much later. Songs like Antenna and Ohm Sweet Ohm with their beautiful melodic hooks are as accessible and addictive as their huge hit Autobahn. I recommend this album to all fans of synthesizer artists like OMD, Eurythmics, Yazoo, Suicide, Gary Numan and Sparks, to enjoy the source that most of these artists drew from to some extent.


Is this the only review?   April 6, 2004
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

It's strange how this album is forgotten.

For me, it's Kratwerk's best: free of any over-knowing gimmickry, a simple, mid-paced, sparse procession of clear, almost religious pieces, a true symbiosis of the electronic and the organic.

I love the little bits of noise and murmured voices that cut up the album. And the pretty scales. It's very, very clever.

And it all ends with the hilarious elektronic bier-keller romp 'Ohm Sweet Ohm', which serves as a light counter point to the plainess that precedes it.

By the way, it is closer to other German 70s bands such as Cluster and Harmonia than any other Kraftwerk album. Magic.