Unbelievable, how flawless and crystal clear “Minimum – Maximum” sounds. If you didn’t hear some cheers of the audience now and then, you’d barely notice that this is a live registration. “Minimum – Maximum” contains 22 tracks that were recorded during the highly succesful world of Kraftwerk in 2004.
Thirty years of musical history are passing by while listening, from ‘Autobahn’ till the ‘Tour de France’ songs of their most recent album. Classic tracks like ‘The Model’ and ‘The Robots’ have been given a slightly altered arrangement to stay up-to-date (comparable to the way which the Kraftwerk-members treated their songs on ‘The Mix’) and sound highly groovy, transparent and danceable.
Though Kraftwerk may have countless followers and imitators, and may be regarded by some as obsolete, the masters themselves prove that they are still able to deliver a high level. Hopefully the group keeps releasing albums with this frequency, because in recent years things were rather quiet around the electro-pioneers. ‘Minimum – Maximum’ has been released in two versions (a German and an English-spoken one). There is also a dvd-release coming up. Boing Boom Tschak!