Bleep

German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk helped shape modern music with their 1970s output, and few records have had as much influence as Trans-Europe Express. Just ask Afrika Bambaata, whose ‘Planet Rock’, and therefore hip-hop in general, is heavily indebted to this album’s title track. Mechanised, robotic sounds represent the literal and imagined conundrums of life in a technological age, the slow but steady shift beginning from human personae to the rigid Robots we know so well. Melodies meander through the regimented electronic rhythms, charmingly imperfect vocals adding a very real heart to crisply accurate synthesised material. To call this essential would be a gross understatement.