Kraftwerk

Here finally is my new set of albums-as-books prints - all seven of Kraftwerk’s main studio albums from ‘Autobahn’ to ‘Tour de France Soundtracks’. They’re now available in my shop (with a special humdinger of an offer where you can get all seven for the price of five).

Here’s the first one - Autobahn:

Next is Radio-Activity:

This is Trans-Europe Express:

Here’s The Man-Machine:

Computer World:

Electric Café:

And finally, Tour de France Soundtracks:

I’ve loved Kraftwerk since the mid-70s, when bits of ‘Autobahn’ were used continually as background music for TV documentaries and even schools programmes. With this set of prints I wanted to replicate some of that feel - simple but complicated, analogue but precise. They demanded something different from the Penguin books I’ve used in my recent Smiths, Joy Division and New Order prints. On a recent book-buying trip I found some shelves full of university mathematics text books and - bingo - an idea was formed.

Just super stuff. Simple, austere, but with something quite cryptically human about them. So I’ve gone for a textbook look on these prints. I made them to work as blocks of colour with subtle tonal variations, like late-50s/early-60s New York abstract painting - and to work together, in pairs or trios or as an entire set.