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Our final Electronic Sound cover story of 2025 is a fantastic deep dive into KRAFTWERK's 'Radio-Activity' album, which celebrated its 50th birthday last month, and we're bundling the issue with a transparent yellow vinyl seven-inch featuring an epic and essential version of the title track by chamber pop superstars THE DIVINE COMEDY.
'Radio-Activity' was KRAFTWERK's first entirely electronic album. It's also the darkest and most complex of the five masterpieces that the pioneering German group released between 1974 and 1981. We've spoken to one-time band members Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür for our detailed examination of the album, as well as Emil Schult, who co-wrote seven of the 12 tracks. We've also mined some rare radio interviews for material from both Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Our piece begins with Schult describing a dramatic raid on his flat in Düsseldorf by police searching for Red Army Faction militants, with the long-time Kraftwerk collaborator showing the officers a copy of 'Autobahn' to try to convince them that he was an artist not a terrorist.
To accompany this month's magazine, we're releasing an exclusive yellow vinyl seven-inch featuring THE DIVINE COMEDY's dazzling version of Kraftwerk's 'Radioactivity'. Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon is a great admirer of the Düsseldorf innovators, describing the original track as "like Beethoven – immense, inevitable and powerful", and this epic and explosive interpretation has been highly praised by lots of Kraftwerk fans. Hannon has a keen interest in synths too, as evidenced by the hugely entertaining 'The Synthesiser Service Centre Super Summer Sale' on the B-side of our single. We guarantee that you're going to enjoy this one.
As with all our magazine-linked music releases, this seven-inch is only available to readers of Electronic Sound, so make sure you grab your copy right away.