Various Artists: Elektronische Musik

Growing up in 1970s Germany can't have been easy: your parents' generation were responsible for nazism. No surprise, then, that young musicians attempted to create music without a past, but they won't have expected their repetitive rhythms to have formed some of the most influential sounds ever. You can hear the beginnings of techno, Roxy Music, PIL, Happy Mondays, LCD Soundsystem, Four Tet and others in Can's opening A Spectacle alone. Subtitled "Experimental German Rock & Electronic Music 1972-83" rather than the usual "Krautrock", this absorbing compilation misses out on the perennially elusive Kraftwerk, but otherwise mixes less obvious cuts from essential names (Neu!, Faust, Popol Vuh, Tangerine Dream, La Dusseldorf et al) with wonderful obscurities. The hymnal Between or Ibliss's demented Clangersesque odyssey High Life have little in common with more familiar staples like Neu!'s thunderously groovy Hallogallo ("wild partying") except a sense of freedom and discovery. All in all, a near-definitive guide to some of the world's most extraordinary music.