Karl Bartos Explained

Karl Bartos
Background:non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth Name:Karlheinz Bartos[1]
Birth Date:1952 5, df=yes
Birth Place:Marktschellenberg, West Germany
Instrument:Percussion, synthesizer, vocals
Occupation:Musician, Professor[2]
Years Active:1965–present
Label:AudioVision
Bureau-B
SPV
Columbia/SME Records
Atlantic Records
Associated Acts:The Jokers (1965?–1972?)
The Anthony String Group (1970s)
(1970s)
Deutsche Oper am Rhein (1970s)[3]
Kraftwerk (1975–1991)
Elektric Music
Andy McCluskey
Electronic
Information Society

Karl Bartos (born 31 May 1952)[4] is a German musician and composer known for his contributions to the electronic band Kraftwerk.

Career

Karlheinz Bartos was born on 31 May 1952 in Marktschellenberg, Germany, named after his grandfathers Karl and Heinz. He was the drummer in a college band called The Jokers (later The Jolly Jokers in 1975) as Carlos Bartos, around 1965 to 1975.[5] Between 1975 and 1990, he was, along with Wolfgang Flür, a member of the electronic music band Kraftwerk.[6] This lineup of the group remains the most stable and productive yet assembled. He was originally recruited to play on Kraftwerk's US "Autobahn" tour where he changed his name to "Karl", as the band member's names were displayed on stage in neon lighting; "Karlheinz" was deemed too long and thus too expensive by Kraftwerk's front man Ralf Hütter. As a percussionist, Bartos was influenced by Ringo Starr of the Beatles, as well as the composers Carlos Chávez, Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, and Johann Sebastian Bach.[7] In addition to his percussion and keyboard playing, he was credited with songwriting on the Man-Machine, Computer World, and Electric Café albums and sang one lead vocal on the latter, contributing with some of the band's most popular riffs, such as Das Modell, Computerliebe, Computerwelt and other ones. Karl Bartos invented the influential Numbers beat, which was used in Afrika Bambaataa's seminal hit Planet Rock (1982) for hip-hop and rap music, among others.[8] [9] [10]

Bartos left Kraftwerk in August 1990, reportedly frustrated at the band's slow progress in their activities due to the increasingly perfectionist attitude of founding members Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Bartos hinted at this fact in the interview entitled "I was a Robot", which is a part of the documentary film "Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution".[11]

In 1992 Bartos founded Elektric Music. This new project released the Kraftwerk-style Esperanto in 1993, and then the more guitar-based Electric Music in 1998. In between the two albums, Bartos collaborated with Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr on Electronic's 1996 album Raise the Pressure, and co-wrote material with Andy McCluskey of OMD, which appeared on both Esperanto and OMD's Universal album. In 1998, he also produced an album by Swedish synth-pop band the Mobile Homes, much in the style of his work with Electronic: guitar-pop with very slight synthetic references. It was received as a great disappointment to synth-pop fans, but it sold more than any of their previous albums and was used in an advert for an airline.

In 1992 Elektric Music were asked to remix Afrika Bambaataa's song "Planet Rock" for release on a remix album.[12] Planet Rock was the subject of an out-of-court settlement between Kraftwerk and Tommy Boy Records head Tom Silverman, as it uses significant parts from both Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" and "Numbers".

In 2003, using his own name, he released the synth-pop album Communication, featuring such songs as "I'm the Message," "Camera," and "Ultraviolet."

In 2007 his music provided the soundtrack to the documentary Moebius Redux – A Life in Pictures, about the graphic artist Jean Giraud.

Karl Bartos announced[13] in early 2008 that he had opened the first edition of the audio-visual exhibition Crosstalk for public viewing at the white cube section on the official Karl Bartos website. The program holds 21 films, remixes, cover versions, and mash-ups from Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, the USA, and Japan.

In March 2011, Karl Bartos released Mini-Composer, an iPhone app. It's a simple 16 steps sequencer with 4 basic waves synthesizer. It has been designed with Japanese artist Masayuki Akamatsu and the executive producer is Jean-Marc Lederman.

On 15 March 2013 he released his next studio album, Off the Record, preceded by "Atomium" the first single taken from it. The 7" version, released worldwide on 1 February 2013, was limited to 1,000 copies.

In September 2020, the official Karl Bartos email newsletter announced that Karl is currently working on a new project and intends to present this work live once the COVID-19 pandemic slows down.

On 12 May 2021, Kraftwerk was announced as one of the inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Bartos being one of the inductees along with Schneider, Hütter and Flür.[14]

For a tour starting on 17 February 2024 in Frankfurt/Main, he and sound designer Mathias Black created a new electro-acoustic soundtrack for Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari to be performed live, based on the version restored by the F. W. Murnau Foundation.[15]

Discography

With Kraftwerk

With Elektric Music (now Electric Music)

With Electronic

As Karl Bartos

Singles:

Unreleased

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Bartos, Karl. 2022-07-14. The Sound of the Machine. My life in Kraftwerk and beyond. . Omnibus Press . 9781913172640.
  2. Web site: Immer weltberühmt macht auch nicht glücklich - Berlin-Kultur - Berliner Morgenpost . 24 January 2014 . Berliner Morgenpost . 5 December 2016 . de .
  3. Web site: The Quietus _ Features _ A Quietus Interview _ Remake_Remodel Karl Bartos Interviewed . https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130419230527/http://thequietus.com/articles/11542-karl-bartos-interview-kraftwerk . dead . 19 April 2013 . 4 March 2013 . Matthew Lindsay . 30 May 2017 ., Web site: http://testdrive.doklassik.de/index.php?id=39&tx_news_pi1[news=129&tx_news_pi1[controller]=News&tx_news_pi1[action]=detail&cHash=a9d3b0f240e1e6bddb4727430c73dd06 Dortmunder Philharmoniker Karl-Josef Kels, Solo-Pauke ]. 2008 . Dortmunder Philharmoniker . 2 May 2017 .
  4. Book: Pascal Bussy. Mick Fish. Man, machine and music. 1993. SAF. 978-0-946719-09-9.
  5. Web site: Germankraft.de Kraftwerk Chronik Interviews mit anderen Musikern der Düsseldorfer und Krefelder Musik-Szene Franz Josef Krähahn (The Jokers) . December 2003 . Marko Schmidt . 11 May 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20040812162943/http://www.kraftwerk.mdis.de/interview.htm . 12 August 2004 . de . dead . dmy-all ., Web site: FJ Krähahn (The Jokers) . 2001 . Franz Josef Krähahn . 31 May 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20010422120305/http://www.jollyjokers.de/chef.html . 22 April 2001 . de . dead . dmy-all ., Web site: Jolly Jokers Fotos . 2016 . Franz Josef Krähahn . 31 May 2017 . de .
  6. Web site: KARL BARTOS – Curriculum vitae Karl Bartos . Karl Bartos. 2016 . 30 March 2017.
  7. Web site: 6 September 2007 . Exclusive interview with Karl Bartos - New Order Online - A New Order _ Joy Division Web Site . 9 May 2017 . Chris Nash, NewOrderOnline.com.
  8. Web site: Ryan . Gary . 2022-07-08 . Karl Bartos: "My last gigs with Kraftwerk? It was a terrible tour" . 2024-06-11 . NME . en-GB.
  9. 2019-04-24 . The 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time – Rolling Stone . . 2024-06-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190424091223/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/the-50-greatest-hip-hop-songs-of-all-time-150547/afrika-bambaataa-the-soul-sonic-force-planet-rock-96659/ . 24 April 2019 .
  10. Web site: Warwick . Oli . 2017-05-10 . The sample legacy of Computer World, Kraftwerk's most influential album . 2024-06-11 . The Vinyl Factory . en-US.
  11. Web site: Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution - DVD Documentary - Audio-biog - Interview - Music . 2008 . Rob Johnstone, Chrome Dreams Media Ltd . 21 May 2017 ., Web site: myReviewer.com - About the DVD - Kraftwerk And The Electronic Revolution . 2008 . Reviewer Ltd, London . 21 May 2017 ., Web site: Kraftwerk and the electronic revolution [videorecording] (Originally released in 2004) in SearchWorks ]. 2008 . Stanford University Libraries, California . 17 May 2017 .
  12. Web site: Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force* - Don't Stop... Planet Rock / The Remix EP. Discogs.com. 2020-04-10.
  13. Web site: Karl Bartos (ex-Kraftwerk) opens audio-visual exhibition 'Crosstalk'. Side-line.com. 2020-04-10.
  14. News: Kraftwerk to finally be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 2021 . MusicTech . Daniel . Seah . 17 May 2021 . 9 June 2021.
  15. Andrian Kreye, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung vom 18./19.11.2023, S. 18.
  16. Web site: Aktivitaet Online – Activities – 1994 . https://web.archive.org/web/20030118020155/http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/aktivitaet/1994.htm . 18 January 2003 . dead .
  17. Book: Buckley . David . Bartos . Karl . 16 August 2012 . Kraftwerk: Publikation . preface . en . Omnibus Press . London, UK . 978-1847729316 . dead . 1st . https://web.archive.org/web/20140719012945/http://www.omnibuspress.com/Recommended.aspx . 19 July 2014 . 12 June 2017 . Book: Buckley . David . Bartos . Karl . 13 July 2015 . Kraftwerk: Publikation . preface . en . Omnibus Press . London, UK . 978-1468312225 . 20 April 2017 . 2nd .
  18. Web site: "You Can't Talk About Music," An Interview with Kraftwerk's Karl Bartos _ Thump . 10 March 2016 . Robert Barry . 24 December 2016 .,Book: Bartos , Karl . 25 August 2017 . Der Klang der Maschine Autobiografie . de . Eichborn Verlag . Frankfurt am Main, Germany . 978-3847906179 . 12 December 2016 .
  19. Web site: The Sound of the Machine - Published on 21st July 2022 . 2022-07-17 . omnibuspress.com . en.