Florian Schneider-Esleben of Kraftwerk

Amanda Petrusich at The New Yorker:

I can’t think of another song that better approximates the soft, giddy feeling of something new suddenly opening up. The song’s first few movements—the album version is almost twenty-three minutes, in total—make me feel as if I have just crested a long hill. Kraftwerk wrote often about motion—the band was interested in ideas of repetition, inertia, speed—which might be part of why its records feel so transporting. To anyone who feels a desire to briefly depart Earth, I say cue up “Autobahn,” close your eyes, and prepare to gently dissociate.

Kraftwerk would release six more albums between 1974 and 2003, including “Trans-Europe Express” and “The Man-Machine,” idiosyncratic masterpieces that continue to resonate broadly and deeply.

more here.