Library Person

Conny Plank

German record producer and sound engineer, the unifying studio hand behind much of krautrock.

Type
Person
Year
1940
Subjects
Sound

Konrad “Conny” Plank (1940–1987) began engineering and producing in the German underground scene of the late 1960s, building a custom 56-channel mixing desk by hand for the studio he ran near Cologne from the early 1970s on. He recorded Kraftwerk’s earliest albums, engineered Neu!’s self-titled 1972 debut at Hamburg’s Star-Musik studio, and went on to produce Cluster and Harmonia as well as Can, Guru Guru, and La Düsseldorf — a body of work that, more than any single artist’s, defines the sound now called krautrock. His studio also hosted Brian Eno’s sessions with Cluster and Harmonia in the mid-1970s, and he recorded directly with Dieter Moebius as Moebius & Plank, joined by Guru Guru drummer Mani Neumeier on 1983’s Zero Set. Plank later carried his live, hybrid-instrumentation production approach into new wave, producing Ultravox, Eurythmics, D.A.F., and Killing Joke.

Works in the Library