After more than 35 years of pioneering the genre of electronic music, the legendary German band Kraftwerk has conquered another first in their long career - a live album and what an album it is!!!

"Minimum-Maximum" is a double-CD recorded during Kraftwerk's 2004 tour and contains music from nearly every era of the group's career (except for their very early experimental period). It is essentially a greatest hits album performed live. For those who may fear that a Kraftwerk live album will sound identical to a studio release, fear not. The music performed here is full of fresh approaches and energy not apparent in their studio albums. The rhythms and sequences are heavier and have more of a punch. Also, the sound of a live audience heard over the course of the entire album adds even more excitement to the musical atmosphere. On "Dentaku", you can hear the enthusiastic Japanese crowd singing along while on "Music Non Stop", you can hear people clapping along with the song's relentless rhythm.

Indeed, all of the music on "Minimum-Maximum" is very well performed and proves that Kraftwerk is definitely an established live band and not just reclusive studio perfectionists. Besides containing great music, the CD booklet also includes several color photos of the band onstage during the concerts standing behind their workstations while images of the music's lyric content is projected on the large screens behind them.

"Minimum-Maximum" is Kraftwerk at their very best. Since they are a band who doesn't tour regularly, this double-live CD defnitely serves as the next best thing to being at one of their concerts.

Buy this disc, put it on, sit back and enjoy the ride!!!

Live albums serve one of four purposes:

- An opportunity to try alternate arrangements and versions of songs

- To capture the energy and expressiveness of a performer in a live setting

- To create a "best of" package that might also appeal to fans who already own the back catalog

- An excuse to pad the artist's catalog and create more product

Minimum-Maximum falls primarily in the first category. Kraftwerk get an opportunity to revisit and re-think some of their finest compositions and breath fresh life into them. Kraftwerk's greatest strengths have always been exploring interesting synth voices and building intricate rhythms out of multiple minimalist parts. The synths sound stunning.

For example, "Radioactivity" leaps out of the speakers with an impact and a richness that the 70s studio recording can't match. The slow motion, restrained, heavy momentum of the original is replaced with an energy and urgency in this version. When the synth hook melody line finally appears over hard hitting percussion and sparse but rich synth textures, it hangs in the air with a crystalline purity and beauty that provides a 3-D sonic depth.

This CD allows Kraftwerk to utilize their strengths (inspired synth programming and sound manipulation, brilliant production, creative variations on themes, exploration of rhythmic subtleties) without running up against their weakness (composition - not that their compositions are weak, but rather Kraftwerk have a hard time composing new material, as demonstrated by the years between releases, and the sparseness of total out-put over a 35 year career). The live setting gives Kraftwerk an excuse to work and explore within familiar themes without appearing to plagiarize their own work; and this works exceedingly well.

Even tracks like "The Robots" where the variations don't drift far from the originals take on a unique flavor as live pieces. Whereas the studio track had a momentum and power running under it, giving it the sense of an irresistible march of technology, the live version has a lighter, faster touch that feels more like a victory dance than a march.

The sounds, recording quality and production update and enliven the older songs in a way that may well make them more accessible to a new audience. This CD couldn't sound better if it had been a studio recording, and the mixes are as close to perfection as humans can get.

Does that mean these versions are better than the originals and can replace the originals? Not always, and not in all ways. I still like the restrained power of the studio version of "Radioactivity." "The Robots" from Man-Machine is nearly perfect as is. But these versions standup on their own and are fully enjoyable as separate visions of the compositions.

Whereas The Mix tended to water-down the originals by adding electronica elements used by other artists, the variations and additions on this CD are pure Kraftwerk. If a piece contains a musical cliché, it is only because Kraftwerk first coined it. This is wall-to-wall Kraftwerk, so the pieces aren't weakened by the change in arrangements.

The only way this live outing fails is as "an excuse to pad the artist's catalog." There is no padding here.

What a surprise! A live Kraftwerk album and only 2 years after the "comeback" Tour De France Soundtracks! Wow! It has been 29 years since I first listened to them, as an avid young music fan always seeking new stuff I tried the single Radioactivity/Antenna and I instantly became a totally committed Krafterk fan. One of the few, to be honest, especially in Italy, where they were obscured by other German groups such as Tangerine Dream and Can (of course, I like them too). Funny, very funny to me, that it was Kraftwerk who had to experience critical acclaim and mass success with their post-Radioactivity albums and who became the most influential band since the Beatles, one could easily say that there is nothing electronic in the pop world which has not been influenced one way or another by them. Funnier still thinking about their first albums, virtually unknown by most and sadly erased in their minds by Ralf & Florian themselves, excellent experimental electronic music borrowing from the best sources (Stockhausen, Glass etc.) but wildly (?!) creative (get them if you can, 3 albums that will change the way you see Kraftwerk, the progression from the first album to Computer World is absolutely rigorous and logical). However, personally I rank Kraftwerk among the most important musicians of the 20th century (the judgement is suspended for the 21st...) and I think there is not a single wrong note in any of their albums, so I'm a little biased, you understand. This live album works best if seen as a Greatest Hits of sorts, all in all is electronic music, you hardly expect an incendiary guitar solo or an "impassioned" vocal interpretation! Nonetheless, Ralf & Florian still manage to infuse some new life in past gems or renew old arrangements or slighly alter even the tracks taken from the last album and the sound, of course, is great, so who's complaining? Not me, of course, even though I would have appreciated a couple of inedits (don't be mistaken, Planet of Vision is Expo 2000 with new "words"). But in the end I'm only to happy that they're still "alive" and "kicking" and let's hope they enjoy the ride and not make us wait 17 years again to hear a new studio album.

Kraftwerk appeared very little in North America for their 2004 2005 concerts. I was able to attend three separate concerts. This isn't as good as being there but this is the actual 2004-2005 concert song list as it was in the concerts! Sound quality is great on the CD. Get it now! Kraftwerk rocks on!!!

One wouldn't generally think of Kraftwerk as a naturally great live band. Interestingly enough, they turn out to be brilliant live! With the tweaks to the original versions just different enough to make it clear that these numbers are in some sense actually being "performed."