In a republished conversation, the former Kraftwerk member describes leaving a band frozen by its own tools, and a later career spent using machines on different terms.
Karl Bartos spent fifteen years inside Kraftwerk, contributing to the run of albums the band is known for, and left in 1990 frustrated by what he has called prolonged creative stasis. That friction between machines and momentum runs through a conversation MusicRadar has republished for its Recording Week 2026 programme.
The interview’s premise is the one Bartos has carried since his departure: the tools that made Kraftwerk’s sound possible also narrowed it. He knows the other side of that relationship. His autobiography, The Sound of the Machine: My Life in Kraftwerk and Beyond, covers both periods, and his work after the band moved in several directions, from Elektric Music to collaborations with Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr in Electronic, and with OMD’s Andy McCluskey.
His 2024 album The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, a score for the 1920 silent film, took two years to assemble between Hamburg and the Düsseldorf studio of engineer Mathias Black, using FaceTime, screen sharing and a cloud server. Black has noted
Join the Club
Like this story? You’ll love our monthly newsletter.
Thank you for subscribing to the newsletter.
Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later.
ROMBO Editorial Staff
The collective voice behind ROMBO Magazine’s news, reviews, features, and cultural coverage.
