“The only track we’re not doing is Ohm Sweet Ohm because...” There is a long pause as Matthew Bourne chooses his words carefully. “Because it’s shit!” he finally decides.

He’s talking about his tour project Radioland, a radical retooling of Kraftwerk’s Radio-Activity which is 40 years old this year. 

“The original album is right there in your face,” he says. “It’s stunning. So clear and clean. I think it’s extraordinary.”

We meet in a bar near Leeds College of Music where the musician is a part-time lecturer in composition. The decor runs to junk-shop finds and 1970s house-clearance chic, while the playlist juxtaposes jazz with wonky electronica, all of which seems to chime with an impressively bearded Bourne. 

“I love analogue technology and machines,” he says, sipping from an artfully presented cup of tea. “It’s retrospective for me. It’s nostalgic. But it’s only because of the stuff that superseded it — like techno — that the music has acquired a sense of charm and place in a certain niche of history.”

A Perrier jazz musician of the year, Bourne is something of a cheerleader for analogue keyboards. At last year’s Leeds International Film Festival, using his beloved Memorymoog, he performed an impressive solo live accompaniment to FW Murnau’s murky silent curio The Last Laugh. 

Having amassed a fine personal collection of vintage synthesisers, he admits that those utilised by Kraftwerk are something else entirely. “A lot of the technology they used is pretty obscure to track down, with the exception of a Minimoog,” he says. “The Sennheiser vocoder and the Vako Orchestron, which they used for the string and choir sounds, are worth a fortune.” 

Radio-Activity, Kraftwerk’s fifth studio album, was the first to be produced at the group’s legendary Kling-Klang studios in Dusseldorf, as well as the first to feature the definitive line-up of Ralf Hutter, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flur. A manifesto of sorts, it’s pithy and disciplined at a time when others were bombastic and flabby. 

Leaning heavily on phased distortion and pared-back production, it is shot through with wry Teutonic humour — a facet of their work for which the group rarely receives any credit. Bourne says people dismiss Kraftwerk for their use of synthesisers but forget that “hardly any of that stuff existed back then. They were busy crafting and developing things that suited their approach.” 

The idea of marking the 40th anniversary of Radio-Activity came from Bourne’s collaborator on the project, French avant-garde composer Franck Vigroux. 

Originally, the intention was to recreate the album live in its entirety, note for note, but this proved of no interest to them at all. With the involvement of installation artist Antoine Schmitt, however, the project was transformed. “His input was really important. His visuals influenced how we responded and shaped the entire project,” says Bourne. “That’s what prompted us to consider how we make it relevant to us as musicians and not just a recreation, a cover version.” 

With rehearsals scheduled weeks apart to accommodate the crammed work diaries of those involved, the addition of Schmitt meant Bourne and Vigroux needed to fix everything as far as possible in advance, working up rhythmic templates for each of the tracks to give a sense of the durations required. 

“Antoine programs what he does by code and it’s bewildering,” says Bourne. “It’s like looking at a piece of music and not being able to read music. I’m fascinated by it.” 

Early Vimeo footage of the three rehearsing together suggests the visuals have a stark, linear purity. Oddly attuned to Kraftwerk’s minimalist aesthetic, these have now apparently been totally reworked, evolving as Radioland has evolved. It is intuitive and spontaneous, indicating the chemistry that exists between the players. “Antoine performs with us. That’s really important. He’s not just pressing play. He’s not doing a VJ thing either. He’s producing these visuals in real time.”

Bourne confesses that Kraftwerk’s back catalogue was unknown to him at the outset of the project and was conscious merely of the group’s influence as electronic pioneers. As he delved deeper, he was surprised by the warmth and humanity he uncovered. The material was precise, unambiguous and full of charm. What Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flur described as the group’s “very strict romanticism,” appealed to Bourne, never one afraid to wear his love of British pastoralism on his sleeve. 

Counteracting this tendency is Vigroux’s rather more hard-edged sensibility. “He’s very blunt,” says Bourne. Having worked together previously on 2007 release Me Madame, Bourne has found himself pushed and challenged by Vigroux in ways that have almost made him question himself. 

“Franck saying it’s not good enough, being harsh with me. I’ve really hated it,” he says, “but that fine tuned, acute sense of listening is what he’s brought to this project and to be honest it’s kicked me up the arse.” 

Bourne credits Vigroux with sustaining the project’s focus. “Franck was particularly quite keen on the ideas of radio waves and vibration, communication and frequency,” he says, picking up on key motifs of the original Radio-Activity. “They’ve been really important concepts to hold onto while we’ve been putting the music together.”

When Radioland is performed, the focus will be very deliberately on the here and now and not 1975. There is little appetite for hagiography and any audience members hoping for a faithful copy will leave empty-headed. 

Bourne points out it is about striking a balance. “I’m sure Kraftwerk would be horrified to think we’re trying to recreate exactly what they did in 1975,” he says. “There are some points where we’ve wildly departed, but there’s some where we’ve stayed really true to the original because it’s fucking ace.” 

While there is talk of an album to accompany the project, Bourne is keeping his mind firmly focused on the tour. “It’s going to be fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants stuff,” he says. “Impulsiveness is one of the tools I work with. It’s what makes what I do honest.” There is a beat before he adds the caveat: “But now I’m also like, ‘What would Franck say?’” 

Radioland opens at Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds on March 13 and then tours nationally, details: sounduk.net