I’ve often shared this video on Facebook and thought I’d give it a whirl here: Kraftwerk in 1970.

If you only know them as the nattily-dressed man-machines or mocap-outfitted dudes apparently checking email in front of outstanding 3D visuals, you really don’t know them.

This concert features an early incarnation; Klaus Dinger (who’d go on to form Neu!) plays drums while Ralf and Florian cut sick in outfits distinctly less aesthetically pleasing than those they’d sport in a few years. The albums from this period (known by the green and red traffic cones on their covers) have never officially been released to CD.

They’re great, though, and I keep hoping the band makes good on hints they’ve dropped about someday remastering them. Any flute madness is good madness.

To continue your early Kraftwerk trip, try these…

Organisation: Tone Float.

Kraftwerk: Kraftwerk.

Kraftwerk: Kraftwerk 2.

Kraftwerk: Ralf und Florian.

Enjoy these often-neglected albums by one of the world’s most important groups. Just after these came Autobahn, a world-changer.