Name: Chaton Laveur
Members: Julie Odeurs, Pierre Lechien
Nationality: Belgian
Current release: Chaton Laveur's new album Labyrinthe is out March 13th 2026 via EXAG'. Latest single "La Source" is available now.
Musical Recommendations: We’d recommend En Attendant Ana – Principia. It’s one of our favorites, and it’s personal for us: we actually chose to record our own album with Vincent Hivert, who plays bass in En Attendant Ana and contributes to their writing process. It’s a wonderful blend of dreamy textures and a bit of that French indie charm.
Also, Blonde Redhead – Sit Down for Dinner is an extraordinary album. It’s not strictly Kraut, but it shares that spirit of hypnotic atmosphere and subtle, intricate songwriting. Both are albums that have inspired us deeply.
Recommendations for Liège, Belgium: Definitely head over to the Outre-Meuse neighborhood. It’s a vibrant area with a couple of great spots for indie rock lovers – La Zone and KulturA. You’ll find venues there that capture the local indie spirit and have that experimental vibe we’re passionate about. It’s a perfect

If you enjoyed this Chaton Laveur interview and would like to stay up to date with the band and their music, visit their official homepage. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, and bandcamp. 



How would you describe your personal relationship with Krautrock? When and how did it start?

We first encountered Krautrock indirectly — through contemporary bands like Beak>, Suuns, and Minami Deutsch.

They opened a door we didn’t even know existed, one that eventually led us back to the original movement.



For Julie, coming from sound engineering, the attraction was immediate: the tape experiments, the tactile noise, the sense that sound itself was being bent, sculpted, questioned. For Pierre, it was the drums — that repetitive pulse that feels disciplined yet strangely liberating.

Pierre’s path into repetition actually began earlier, long before Krautrock: he played in the Belgian band Moaning Cities, where psychedelic and krauty elements first entered his vocabulary.



But even deeper than that, it traces back to his cultural roots — the Carnaval traditions of La Louvière, Binche, and Morlanwelz. Those celebrations are built entirely on repetition: the same rhythms played for days, creating a trance state for musicians and listeners alike.

That experience shaped his understanding of percussion long before he could name it. When he discovered Krautrock, it felt like recognising something already inside him — a sonic ritual he had lived before he had ever heard it.

So Krautrock didn’t just influence us musically; it became a shared language. It connected Julie’s fascination with sound manipulation to Pierre’s love of hypnotic rhythm — and in that overlap, we realised: “This is where we belong.”

Tell me about one or two of your favourite Krautrock records please.

Faust – Faust IV: a masterclass in sonic collage, rebellion and odd beauty.



Beak> – >>>: a modern embodiment of Kraut ethos — hypnotic, stripped down, deeply immersive.



Krautrock always seemed tied to a specific era in German history. What about that time do you connect with?

We see Krautrock as a movement of musicians rebelling against imported cultural norms — trying to invent their own language at a moment when most European bands imitated American trends. That spirit feels extremely contemporary.

As independent artists, we also feel the need to experiment, resist formats, and carve out our own path. That sense of searching for identity is what ties us to the movement.

Kraut musicians loved blues, psychedelia, electronics, improvisation, and rejected virtuosity. How much of that do you recognise in yourselves?

A lot, actually. We’re amateurs in the best sense — we play for feeling more than technique, and we cherish the freedom that comes with not knowing too much. That naïveté often leads us to unexpected places.

Pierre has always been a strong advocate of improvisation. He loves the unpredictability, the accidental moments, the way you can get lost inside a loop or a groove. Julie, on the other hand, approaches improvisation with more caution. As a sound engineer, she tends to believe that improvisation is often far more rewarding for the musicians on stage than for the audience listening.

That difference in sensibility is part of our creative tension: we do improvise, but we shape those improvisations into finished tracks that we rarely deviate from live. It allows us to keep the raw, exploratory spirit of Krautrock while still crafting something intentional and generous for listeners.

Krautrock was about imagining different worlds. What is the experience of listening like for you, and how do you listen to it?

Kraut puts us in a state of hypnosis — that internal tunnel where repetition becomes meditative. Motorik rhythms and analog sounds feel like doorways toward introspection, almost like a sonic ritual.

Our preferred way of listening is at home, on vinyl, letting the needle run and the mind wander.

Community was central to Krautrock. Have you worked in such a constellation, and can it be emulated at home?

We’re a couple, so we literally live in creative community. We rehearse and record nearly every day — often in pyjamas. This proximity shapes everything: ideas evolve organically, we experiment constantly, and music is woven into daily life.

Working from home can absolutely emulate that intense communal presence — at least for us.

What, to you, are the elements that make something “Kraut”? What practices of the 70s inspire your own?

For us, Krautrock begins with repetition and experimentation. As a duo, our live setup relies heavily on looping — and those loops naturally generate a motorik pulse that has become part of our identity.

But beyond that, there’s a deeper fascination at play: we actively research rhythms and hypnotic percussive structures. Pierre is always exploring how a simple, circular beat can shift a listener’s state of mind, and how tiny variations within repetition can create tension, release, and trance.

Sound experimentation is equally central. We don’t treat instruments as fixed voices — they are raw material to sculpt, distort, or detune until they feel alive.

These two elements — rhythmic hypnosis and sonic exploration — are the clearest lines of inheritance from 70s Krautrock to what we do today.

Tell me about a Kraut-leaning piece of your own that you’re proud of.

Our latest release “Contre-la-montre” embodies what we call Kraut Pop — motorik drive, analogue experimentation, and melodic hypnosis.



It feels like a bridge between legacy Krautrock and catchy pop sensibility, and for us it’s the clearest synthesis of our influences so far.

What instruments or equipment do you use? Any essential vintage pieces?

We work with drums, bass, guitar, loopers, pedals, and especially analogue synths.

We’re big believers in analogue warmth — digital plugins rarely give us the same emotional impact.

We play a Moog Grandmother and a Sequential Prophet, and Julie builds many of our pedals herself. Those tactile, imperfect sounds are essential to our identity.

Could you describe your creative process on your most recent Kraut-leaning release?

For “Contre-la-montre,” the process began with Julie wanting a repeated sound that would function almost like a sequencer — something that would carry the pulse of the track. She built that first hypnotic layer by looping a guitar tone until it became both the rhythmic engine and the emotional tension of the piece.

From there, she added a bass line and brought it to Pierre. Out of the different sketches we had lying around, Pierre immediately connected with this one. He started shaping vocal phrasing and keyboard ideas around it, and together we developed the arrangement further — layering textures, bending sounds, carving space.

The drum pattern came last, emerging from Pierre’s fascination with repetitive, trance-like beats. The rhythmic feel draws on inspirations such as Aphex Twin, Portishead, and Beak>, where drums are not simply timekeepers but psychological drivers.



By the time all these pieces converged, the track had become exactly what we were chasing: something propulsive, hypnotic, and alive.

What role do improvisation and inventive arrangement techniques (like cut-up) play in your work?

We’ve experimented with cut-up approaches too — rearranging fragments, splicing ideas, letting chance reconfigure our material. But so far, we’ve rarely kept those results.

For us, cut-up tends to mix too many ideas at once, and we often feel that the audience receives something less coherent than what we felt while making it.

So while improvisation is a vital part of our process, we usually treat it as raw material rather than the final statement — we refine it, sculpt it, and commit to a clear, finished form rather than leaving the outcome open.

Tangerine Dream fans often see Krautrock beyond motorik beats. Today motorik seems central — are you using it? What makes it special?

Yes — we use it both consciously and unconsciously. For us, the motorik beat isn’t just a rhythm, it’s a foundation. It’s steady, propulsive and simple enough to become the perfect base for everything else to thrive on — melodies, textures, noise, vocals, synth lines.

We’re also deeply influenced by drum’n’bass and its way of giving rhythm a leading role rather than treating it as background support. That sensibility shapes our music too: we assign a great deal of importance to the rhythmic section, letting drums and loops drive the narrative.

So what makes motorik special for us is its ability to push forward without getting in the way — it keeps movement alive while giving space for everything around it to grow and evolve.

Have you ever visited one of the birthplaces of the genre – Berlin, Düsseldorf, Munich – or any spaces connected to Krautrock history?

Yes — we toured in Germany, playing in cities such as Berlin, Hannover, Chemnitz, Frankfurt and Kusel. Performing there felt meaningful, even without seeking out specific Krautrock landmarks.

Berlin carried a cultural resonance — you can sense its history of experimentation — but Chemnitz stood out for its warmth: people were genuinely into the music and remarkably attentive.

And of course, driving along the Autobahn became its own pilgrimage moment — the perfect excuse to put on Kraftwerk and let the landscape sync with the soundtrack. We really loved the experience; travelling through those places gave us a lived connection to the environment where this music first took shape.

Are there artists, festivals, labels, or collectives today that deserve a shout-out for exploring interesting directions for Krautrock?

Beak> opened the door for us and continue to explore fascinating territory — minimal, hypnotic, yet emotional. Minami Deutsch and Suuns also nurture the tradition in very different ways: meditative, propulsive, spacious.



We also feel a connection to artists from the French scene, especially bands like Phoenix or Air, who translated repetition, groove, and analogue warmth into something sleek and melodic — almost a form of Kraut-pop in disguise. Their approach to rhythm, texture and arrangement had a big influence on us as well.

More broadly, any community that values experimentation — modular synth circles, DIY pedal builders, analogue studios — feels spiritually linked to Krautrock. The movement isn’t just a genre; it’s a mindset that continues to evolve in unexpected places.

Several of the original Kraut pioneers recently passed away or withdrew from making new music. If some of your personal favourite artists were affected as well – what did their music mean and what does it still mean to you?

The disappearance of pioneers feels like losing stars in a constellation.

Someone like Damo Suzuki, for example, embodied a kind of vocal freedom that deeply resonates with us — improvisation as lived experience, the voice used less as a virtuosic display and more as a channel for trance and presence. Hearing Can for the first time revealed how human, odd and mysterious music could be.

More recently, Geoff Barrow stepping away from Beak> feels like a loss of a contemporary torchbearer. Beak> were a crucial bridge between past and present for us, and seeing that chapter shift reminds us how fragile, and precious, the spirit of Kraut experimentation remains.

At the same time, we see artists who carry that energy forward in new ways. A band like Corridor in Canada, for instance, introduces a vocal approach that resonates with our own — melodic, understated, woven into rhythm rather than sitting above it. Their sense of momentum and hypnotic drive feels spiritually aligned with the tradition.



In the end, what remains from all these artists is a way of thinking: that repetition can be transformative, that imperfection is expressive, and that music evolves through those willing to step sideways rather than follow the path.

Their influence continues to animate our work every day.