Soul Jazz Celebrates Krautrock Pioneers E.M.A.K. with New Compilation

BY Alex HudsonPublished Jul 14, 2010

This year, Soul Jazz Records is on a mission to educate the world about some of the best music Germany has to offer. Back in the spring, the label released Deutsche Elektronische Musik: Experimental German Rock & Electronic Music 1972-1983, collecting some of Krautrock's best and brightest gems. Now, Soul Jazz is getting set to roll out a new compilation from German synth wizards E.M.A.K.

FACT reports that the collection is called A History of E.M.A.K. 1982-88 and is due out sometime next month. The duo of Mathias Becker and Kurt Mill released three albums during the 1980s: EMAK 1 (1982), EMAK 2 (1983) and EMAK 3 (1985). The bulk of the new compilation will likely be drawn from this trio of LPs.

This isn't the first time that E.M.A.K. have received the best-of treatment. In 1994, the band's German label, Originalton West, compiled their first albums with Best of Emak 1981 - 1985. Like this new release, that previous collection didn't feature any of E.M.A.K.'s work from the '90s.

Soul Jazz's retrospective E.M.A.K. album will be released on double heavyweight vinyl and come packaged in a gatefold sleeve. It will also be released as a special box edition CD. The track "Filmmusik," from EMAK 1, previously appeared on the Deutsche Elektronische Musik compilation. You can listen to that song in the embedded video below.

Latest Coverage