S U R V I V E: Staring Down an Invasion in Tuscon

My friend The Best Man and I have been promising each other that we would eventually crack the underground Austin synth scene. He recently discovered a band called S U R V I V E but alas, their album was only available in sold- out limited edition vinyl and downloadable MP3. As much as I value the suggestions of friends, this limitation would have probably kept them out of rotation permanently.

Last weekend, however, in a direct attempt to stare down my remaining apprehensions about heavy lifting, I attended a CrossFit Olympic Lifting Instructors Course in Tuscon, Arizona. This was to be a quick solo trip, so any music I planned to bring for the plane ride and layovers would have to be in soft format. It seemed like an opportunity to give S U R V I V E a shot.



This ended up being a smart move. While I still admit that I would like to see the album cover professionally printed and mounted in a jewel case, the content of the album is shady and immersive in a way that can best be delivered through earphones. I played S U R V I V E through my phone when I was walking around Tuscon, which ended up being quite a bit more than I had initially planned. Once I got a feel for the area between my hotel and CrossFit Works, I found that I preferred a 30 minute walk surrounded by distant mountains and an epic alien invasion soundtrack to an 8 minute (and $10) drive with an awkward Russian cabbie.



S U R V I V E takes more than one page from Jean Micheal Jarre’s early playbook, particularly the ethereal and dynamic Equinoxe, Oxygene, and Les Chantes Magetiques trilogy. Jarre was playful and exploratory on these synth masterpieces. In contrast, S U R V I V E conjures a dark, ominous, and almost gothic tone using the gloomy synth sounds of late 80s Depeche Mode. While other electronic projects like the F*ck Buttons might use more contemporary technology to produce a broader variety of sounds, S U R V I V E does a whole lot more musically with much less.



S U R V I V E is one of several local synth bands that orbit around the Austin vintage synth shop Switched On, and they are so underground that they almost don’t exist. There are a few reviews of their sporadic live shows that indicate that their performances are epic. Aside from these, some links that lead to album download, and an intermittently updated Facebook page, there is very little about S U R V I V E online. I can barely figure out if or when they are playing next, but I would be interested in seeing them live.

From what I have seen, however, they seem to have some sort of following in Germany. While that’s not too surprising, considering the history of synth music in what is Kraftwerk’s homeland, I have never had to do a Euros conversion to purchase an album from a local band before.

Not too long ago, I became a bit snobby about listening only to local music, because I was convinced that it held the potential to stand outside of the agenda of the record industry. “Independent music” is, paradoxically, more mainstream now, and has its own political agenda that musicians have to navigate. S U R V I V E is one of those bands that purposefully fly under the radar, doing something not for fortune or fame, but because they have a genuine love for what they do. They are clearly passionate about the untapped potentials of traditional analog synthesizers and their current relevance, and their adoration of these instruments infuses their music with conviction.

Kraftwerk, Robots, and Conformity

Although I have known about Kraftwerk for decades, I finally began to really check them out earlier this year. After recently watching a BBC documentary on British synth-pop, I was beset by a craving for more of their stuff. My budget for CD purchases, however, was pretty tight at the time. Very rarely do I trade in CDs, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

The next disc on my list was Trans-Europe Express, but after I had already done the deed I went to the racks to find that the single copy that Waterloo had in stock had sold, so I picked up Man-Machine instead. As I was checking out, a gentleman in the line behind me, who had  a stack of vinyl under his right arm, commented on the influence of Kraftwerk and of Man-Machine in particular.  Encouraging!

Kraftwerk’s exploration of new music technologies made them innovators within the emerging electronic music scene in Europe, but they were not working in a vacuum. Kraftwerk had several contemporaries, not the least of which was French synthesist Jean-Michel Jarre, whose fantastic sci-fi tinged soundscapes have been relatively marginalized by history. Kraftwerk, conversely, were inspired by the very real surroundings of post World War II Europe, and because they were grounded in the real, they became one of Germany's leading cultural exports, laying the foundation for a whole genre of music to come.

I immediately liked Man Machine, but the video for The Robots profoundly affected my perception of the album as a whole. As they pantomime the mechanized nature of their own music, their descriptively impressionistic approach spills beyond music into performance art. The song is not really for dancing, and I don’t think that the listener expected to sing along with the thick German accents buried in its vocoder-altered and reversed lyrics. Instead, like the entirety of Man-Machine, The Robots is a futuristic commentary on the present that explores some of the possible street- level outcomes of technology.



A counterculture of working class post-punks armed with Moog synthesizers found a kindred spirit with Kraftwerk when they began to appear on British soul in the mid 70s. Like Kraftwerk, they weren't interested so much as the synth as the replacement for the symphony, but were instead exploring the potentials of emerging synthesizer technology on its own terms to describe their condition. The difference was that they successfully shaped it into a commercially accessible form.



At least in comparison to Autobahn, Man-Machine is a movement toward a more commercially viable Kraftwerk. It’s difficult to discern if songs like The Model are an intentional effort to capitalize on the commercial success of synth pop or an ironic extension of the statement that Man-Machine is making about conformity. In either case, this song made a lasting impression on the synth-pop scene.



Although Man Machine is still relevant today, I’m not sure that I, as a 21st century American, can ever really understand the complex sociocultural environment in which it was situated. As post-war Germans, Kraftwerk was part of a generation that was struggling to make amends for the transgressions of generations past while doggedly pursuing a unique and globally acceptable cultural identity. From this perspective,Man-Machine takes on a much more complex and, I think, satisfying meaning about the cultural tone in Europe during the late 70s.

PoP Campaign, Kraftwerk, and the Innovation of Automation

In the 80s, I was an ambitious garage rocker with an insular progressive rock fascination. Instrumental technique was my primary concern, so at the time I did not really understand the important contributions to sound, technology, and songwriting that bands like Depeche Mode and New Order were making.  Thankfully, my worldview has widened considerably since those days, because it would be a shame to overlook all the amazing work of M83, Ratatat, and other great 21st century electronic/synth-pop projects.  So, when I was presented with the opportunity to review PoP Campaign’s full-length debut Kraut Popping, I felt conceptually well-equipped .  The album turned out to be a different thing entirely, however, and it has pushed my interests into unexplored territory.

PoP Campaign Theme Tune by PoP Campaign

Initially, PoP Campaign's playful brand of head-bobbing instrumentalism reminded me of Kraftwerk, which is pretty weird since, due to my youthful ignorance, I did not really know anything about these German electronic music pioneers.  On reflection, I realized that Kraftwerk's relationship to PoP Campaign was based on impressions I developed from cursory exposure to the band in documentaries and literature. Hoping to gain some realistic perspective on Kraut Popping, I decided to crack open Kraftwerk’s catalog.  By nearly unanimous decision of my readership, Autobahn was suggested as a good place to start.

Predictably, it also was not what I expected. Autobahn was far more ominous and programmatic than I anticipated, with ostinatos veering into soundtrack-like terrain.  While I would stop short of describing it as “ambient,” it is, perhaps, “environmental.” It is certainly not dance music. It is, however, unbelievably musical and decisively cerebral, and because of this, Autobahn clearly transcends the timeframe in which it was created. With no other reference for their catalog, I can agree that it is, indeed, a compelling place to start, but it is probably not the place to end.  More on them later.


For now, Autobahn serves as a reminder that a lot has happened in electronic music. From this distance, it may seem like a stretch to draw a straight line between Kraftwerk and PoP Campaign based solely on one album released in 1973.  The most fundamental reason for the gap between the two is because in Autobahn's day, electronic music was still dependant on the physicality of playing instruments. By the 80s, many synth pop innovators, including Kraftwerk, increasingly relied on rigid sequencing and automation, a practice that was the basis of my past prejudice.



Current technology allows PoP Campaign to transcend the physical limitations of early electronica without changing its essential soundscape or sacrificing spontaneity.  The rippling arpeggios on this track Herzlich Wilkommen, which are found all over Kraut Popping, would take considerable virtuosity and precision to play manually. With the flexible automation provided by current soft sequencers like Ableton, however, PoP Campaign can manipulate and elaborate on complex musical events using the sounds of first-generation synthesists as a matter of conscious, intentional choice.



Although PoP Campaign never loses sight of their music’s potential accessibility,  they have more in common with Kraftwerk than it would superficially seem.  They reclaim the ideology of experimentalism that lies at the foundation of so-called Krautrock while simultaneously acknowledging the historical role of electronic music as a dance style. As a result, Kraut Popping is equally at home in a club or in a more intellectual setting.  The most shrewd implication of PoP Campaign's instrumental commentary, however, is to challenge the notion that these two sites of music experience stand in opposition to each other, and to suggest instead that dance music can also be intellectual.