During the mid-'70s, Germany's Kraftwerk established the sonic blueprint followed by an extraordinary number of artists in the decades to come. From the British new romantic movement to hip-hop to techno, the group's self-described "robot pop" – hypnotically minimal, obliquely rhythmic music performed solely via electronic means – resonates in virtually every new development to impact the contemporary pop scene of the late- 20th century, and as pioneers of the electronic music form, their enduring influence cannot be overstated…

The jazz quartet named MenschMaschine borrow from the overflowing pool of fragmentary songs by Kraftwerk, grooves from which so many, such as Jay-Z, still cut samples, and melodies that stick to the ear canal like tar. However, MenschMaschine does much more than simply steal a few good songs.

Continuing to work with Conny Plank, who once again provides a compelling job as producer and engineer, Kraftwerk went right ahead and named their new album after their two remaining members – an understandable enough move. Like the first two albums, Ralf and Florian still has not seen official re-release, for all that one can practically taste Kraftwerk's leap into the beyond on it. Given that this was the last album before the most famous lineup was formed and Autobahn was released, it's appropriate to listen to Ralf and Florian as a harbinger for the future, though perhaps all too easy. Take it on its own terms – a further investigation of electronic possibilities in a more open-ended, less constantly structured fashion than would be the case later – and Ralf and Florian becomes most enjoyable.

The last great Kraftwerk album, Computer World (Computerwelt) captured the band right at the moment when its pioneering approach fully broke through in popular music, thanks to the rise of synth pop, hip-hop, and electro. As Arthur Baker sampled "Trans-Europe Express" for "Planet Rock" and disciples like Depeche Mode, OMD, and Gary Numan scored major hits, Computer World demonstrated that the old masters still had some last tricks up their collective sleeves. Compared to earlier albums, it fell readily in line with The Man-Machine, eschewing side-long efforts but with even more of an emphasis on shorter tracks mixed with longer but not epic compositions.

After finally releasing a new track, commissioned by Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany, Kraftwerk proceeded to open it up to a whole new set of remixers. Featuring four remixes by Detroit's influential Underground Resistance, one from British electronic musicians Orbital, one from seminal DJ/producer François Kevorkian, and several from Kraftwerk themselves, this ten-track CD shows what Kraftwerk can sound like in the modern world. Considering that Kraftwerk is often quoted as a major influence on Detroit techno, its unsurprising that the remixes by the Underground Resistance far surpass either of the other two mixes. Revamping the songs in a "Kraftwerk living in Detroit" sort of way, UR pay homage to one of the forefathers of their art. Fortunately, none of the mixes mimics another, a relatively difficult feat when working with material as sparse as a Kraftwerk song. All of the remixes are worthwhile additions to the vast canon of Kraftwerk material.

The line-up on this newly released bootleg is said to consist of Florian Schneider, Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger, which tells us that this was probably recorded in that short period of time in 1971, estimated to 6 months, when Ralf Hütter had left the band. Supposedly, the recording was made at the Gondel Kino in Bremen, Germany on June 25, 1971. And it's an interesting recording.

Parlophone are releasing Kraftwerk: 3-D The Catalogue, an audio/video document – available in a number of physical editions – that features all eight albums as performed live in the leading museums of the world in the last few years…

Released to coincide with Kraftwerk's forthcoming June 2017 tour - their first UK dates since the breathtaking shows witnessed at the Tate Modern in 2013 - Atlantic Records is proud to announce the release of Kraftwerk 3-D: The Catalogue on May 26th. This is the ground-breaking 3-D Kraftwerk concert brought thrillingly to life developed using high definition 3-D with Dolby Atmos surround sound and presented to the technological and audio standards one would associate and indeed come to expect from the pioneering Germans led by founder Ralf Hütter…

Although Autobahn was a left-field masterpiece, Trans-Europe Express is often cited as perhaps the archetypal (and most accessible) Kraftwerk album. Melodic themes are repeated often and occasionally interwoven over deliberate, chugging beats, sometimes with manipulated vocals; the effect is mechanical yet hypnotic.

Although Kraftwerk's first three albums were groundbreaking in their own right, Autobahn is where the group's hypnotic electronic pulse genuinely came into its own. The main difference between Autobahn and its predecessors is how it develops an insistent, propulsive pulse that makes the repeated rhythms and riffs of the shimmering electronic keyboards and trance-like guitars all the more hypnotizing. The 22-minute title track, in a severely edited form, became an international hit single and remains the peak of the band's achievements – it encapsulates the band and why they are important within one track – but the rest of the album provides soundscapes equally as intriguing. Within Autobahn, the roots of electro-funk, ambient, and synth pop are all evident – it's a pioneering album, even if its electronic trances might not capture the attention of all listeners.

A concept album exploring themes of broadcast communications, Radio-Activity marked Kraftwerk's return to more obtuse territory, extensively utilizing static, oscillators, and even Cage-like moments of silence to approximate the sense of radio transmission; a pivotal record in the group's continuing development, the title track – the first they ever recorded in English – is their most fully realized electro-pop effort to date, while "The Voice of Energy" precipitates the robot voice so crucial to their subsequent work.