Friday 23 October 2009, 22.00

Compilation of live performances by the godfathers of electronic music, Kraftwerk. Filmed during the Teutonic foursome's 2004 world tour and featuring some of their most notable tracks, including Autobahn, Radioactivity. and Trans Europe Express.

Friday 23 October

9.00-10.00pm BBC FOUR

This documentary film examines how a radical generation of Krautrockers rebuilt a new German musical identity out of the cultural ruins of war.

Overlooked in their own country, these bands were grouped under the unsympathetic heading of Krautrock by an inquisitive British music press, when Dad's Army and war jokes were the lingua franca of the times. Nearly all of the bands objected to the term, apart from when it helped to shift records.

Today, Krautrock is one of the coolest influences any band aiming at credibility can drop.

Devotees include The Fall, Franz Ferdinand, Radiohead and Kasabian.

In 1968, the world was in the grip of a youthful revolution, and nowhere were the stakes higher than in Germany. Despite a post-war economic boom, the youth of the country felt that nothing had changed for a generation growing up in the aftermath of war. Power was still in the hands of an older generation and Germany's once magnificent artistic culture lay trashed and looted, much of it sullied by Nazi associations. For young people in cities like Berlin, Dusseldorf, Cologne and Munich, it was time for something new.

Between 1968 and 1977, bands including Neu!, Faust, Can and Kraftwerk looked beyond Anglo-American pop to create some of the most radical and original sounds ever heard in the country. The experiments of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Cluster would give the world its first taste of electronica.

By the late Seventies, some famous English and American ears took notice as David Bowie, Brian Eno and Iggy Pop decamped to Germany in an attempt to tap into the Zeitgeist. Meanwhile, in a studio overlooking the Berlin Wall, Iggy and Bowie would record Low, Heroes and Lust For Life, taking the sound and feel of Krautrock to the bank and to the world at large.

BBC FOUR Friday 16 October 2009

The film features interviews and music from a host of artists and industry figures, including Daniel Miller, Richard H Kirk, Martin Gore, Vince Clarke, Andrew Fletcher, Philip Oakey, Martyn Ware, Gary Numan, Bernard Sumner, Alison Moyet and Neil Tenant.

Friday, 21:00 on BBC Four

After Leaflet Drop Kills Afghan Girl, a Search for Safer Psyop Tech. Missiles, Anyone?

• By David Hambling
• September 30, 2009

The Royal Air Force has accidentally killed a young girl in Afghanistan — by dropping a box of leaflets on her. The British Ministry of Defence is carrying out a full investigation. Meanwhile, the seemingly antiquated practice of leaflet bombing continues. In the 21st century, it remains one of the primary tools of psychological warfare; U.S. Special Operations Command is even looking to build leaflet-carrying missiles. And while top American commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal has virtually banned “kinetic” air strikes, paper bombs are in regular use.

According to the BBC, the leaflet box was supposed to open in mid-air, spreading pro-coalition propaganda over rural Helmand province. But the container failed to break apart, landing on top of the girl, who died later in the hospital.

Leaflets have been used by militaries since at least the Napoleonic wars, when the British navy dropped them over France using kites. And they continue to be employed, because leaflets have some advantages over other media. Radio and TV are fine if the audience happen to be tuned in at the time, but printed matter is durable. As the U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations Field Manual explains, a printed leaflet has the advantage that it can be passed from person to person without the message being altered. It can convey a complex message which can be reinforced with pictures if the recipient is illiterate. And a leaflet can be hidden and read in private, and shared around with others.

Delivery methods have ranged from artillery and mortar shells to loose airdrop by hand to “leaflet landmines.” The M129E1/E2 Psychological Operations Leaflet Bomb weighs 200 pounds and can disperse some 60,000 to 80,000 leaflets which are scattered by a length of detonator cord.

However, U.S. Special Operations Command is looking for a wider range of options, and their current R&D budget calls for a “Next Generation Leaflet Delivery System,” which will:

…provide forces a family of systems consisting of unmanned air vehicles, drones,
missiles, and leaflet boxes that safely and accurately disseminate variable size and weight paper and electronic leaflets to large area targets, at short (10-750 miles) and long (>750 miles) ranges. These systems can be utilized in peacetime and all threat environments across the spectrum of conflict, and are compatible with current and future U.S. aircraft.

The fact that the commandos are seriously developing missiles to deliver leaflets shows the importance given to this mission. Hopefully, improved safety measures will mean less chance of tragic accidents.But the technology does not stop there. In addition to digital broadcast capability and advanced loudspeakers, new psychological operations tech also includes development of appropriate emerging technologies including “remote controlled electronic paper.”

This sounds a lot like the video advertising inserts being pioneered by Entertainment Weekly, which includes a wafer-thin screen which plays up to 40 minutes of video. (See “video in print” in action here, featuring Tony Stark, appropriately enough.) It’s like an evolution of the musical greeting cards, with added video. But the difference with the Special Operations version is that it is remote-controlled, so presumably new messages or video can be sent as required. The applications for such a device would be endless, and as a shiny gadget it would have a much greater chance of being picked up, retained and shown around — if it can be made cheap enough to distribute in significant quantities.

Photo: DoD