Charting the birth of 'Krautrock'

'Krautrock' was a term dreamt up by the British music press to describe experimental German bands which flourished between the late 1960s and the mid 1970s.

Throwing away his promising career as a conductor, Irmin Schmidt from the Krautrock band Can told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that everyone thought he was "insane for starting this crazy group".

He added that "we started to make music according to our own experiences growing up in ruins" after World War II.

Author David Stubbs, whose book Future Days charts the rise of Krautrock, said Germany was in denial about what was going on at the time "so it felt the new generation of Krautrockers were coming to terms with all of that".

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday 30 July.