KRAFTWERK ALBUM RADIO-ACTIVITY 50TH ANNIVERSARY REISSUE
To celebrate reaching its 50th Anniversary, Kraftwerk have announced three new editions of their landmark 1975 album Radio-Activity for release on 15 May 2026.
Using the original 16-track master tapes, Kraftwerk founder Ralf Hütter with engineer Fritz Hilpert have created a brand-new Dolby Atmos Mix which takes Kraftwerk’s first all-electronic album and brings vivid new shading, forensic detail and richly layered cinematic depth to the most boldly experimental album in the Kraftwerk catalogue.
Writer Stephen Dalton summed up the album and lyrics as “playful meditations on wireless communication, but also on the dawning age of nuclear power, atomic weapons and radioactive fall-out.”
“Reflecting a new era of artistic autonomy and creative daring within the band, Radio-Activity was Kraftwerk’s first fully electronic album, and the first to feature both English and German lyrics. Like its predecessor Autobahn, it was recorded at their fabled Kling Klang sound laboratory in central Düsseldorf. Radio-Activity was then mixed by sound engineer Walter Quintus at Rüssl Studio, Hamburg. Assisted by newly recruited percussionists Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos, plus lyricist and visual artist Emil Schult, Hütter and Schneider confirmed their growing profile as global figureheads of the emerging electronic music scene, creating an avant-garde symphony from elegant conceptual foundations.”
“Sonically, Radio-Activity pushed the band’s sonic explorer side to the max, borrowing from musique concrete, audio collage and circuit-bending sound art as much as any contemporary pop influences. Alongside Kraftwerk’s growing studio arsenal of Minimoogs, Farfisas and home-made drum machines, the album also features game-changing instruments like the Sennheiser Vocoder, the Votrax speech synthesizer and the Vako Orchestron, an ornate keyboard-sampler that used pre-recorded optical discs to replicate choral and instrumental effects. This seminal synthesizer was bought, programmed and played by vocalist and composer Ralf Hütter, and later became an instantly recognisable signature sound on all the band’s classic 1970s albums.”
Radio-Activity proved to be influential for many of the classic synth acts of the late 70s and early 80s, including The Human League, OMD, Yellow Magic Orchestra and Depeche Mode.
The three formats of Radio-Activity are as follows:
1. Blu-ray audio disc featuring Dolby Atmos mix plus inner booklet housed in 50th Anniversary artwork. The Blu-ray contains the following audio content:
- Dolby Atmos Mix
- 5.1 mix (re-rendered from the Dolby Atmos Mix)
- Stereo Mix (48kHz/24 bit) of 2009 stereo remaster
2. A spectacular 12″ vinyl picture disc vinyl (2009 stereo remaster)
3. Full digital release of the Dolby Atmos mix through Apple Music, Amazon, Tidal etc
All formats of Radio-Activity to be released by Parlophone Records on 15 May 2026.
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