Tour de France Soundtracks is the tenth studio album by the German electronic group Kraftwerk, released in August 2003. It was re-released in October 2009 under the title, Tour de France. The album was recorded for the 100th anniversary of the first Tour de France bicycle race, although it missed its intended release date for the actual Tour. It includes their 1983 single of the same name, the cover artwork of both releases being nearly identical. The announcement of the release caused much anticipation, as it had been 17 years since the group had put out a full album of new studio material since 1986's Electric Café. Unusually for a Kraftwerk album it did not have separate German and international vocal mixes, but was released only in one version, with a mix of French, German and English. The lyrics were co-written by Ralf Hütter and Maxime Schmitt — who had previously been manager of the Capitol label at Pathé-Marconi and had been involved with the band since the mid-1970s. It was recorded by the band in their Kling Klang studio, located in Düsseldorf, Germany; Hütter and Schneider working with Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz. This four piece line-up then took the album on an extensive world tour in 2004. On the tour, they performed the music from four laptop computers running sequencing, sampling and synthesizer software, also controlling and synchronised with large video displays. In 2005, Kraftwerk released Minimum-Maximum, with separate audio and video releases featuring songs performed at various venues during the 2004 tour. Wikipedia [ - ]

Tour de France Soundtracks is the tenth studio album by the German electronic group Kraftwerk,... [ + ]