Neu! music
In 1971, Kraftwerk asked guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger play some live shows and a TV appearance. The duo’s debut is great. Every song is terrific. Metronomic rhythms, simple repetitive guitar lines and found sounds built up into hypnotic songs, it’s what the J.B.’s would sound like if they were androids. Post-punk started here. Neu!’s old bandmates in Kraftwerk got some inspiration from it too. Nobody else sounded like this in 1971. “Hallogallo” was a hit, John Peel liked the song and played it quite a bit. If you only want one Neu! album, get this one.
Hoping to keep the momentum going, Neu! recorded a 45. This record wasn’t a hit but somebody in Stereolab must’ve heard it.
The next record NEU! 2 has everything working against it. The duo was starting to have musical differences and the label did not give them enough time or money to record a complete album. So they didn’t. Side two of the LP is the two songs from the single repeated at various speeds and directions. One version is a cassette being played on a faulty tape deck. Despite the manipulation and studio tricks, the album works and holds up better than most records released in 1973. This album does have my very favorite Neu! song as the album opener.
Then Neu! collapsed. Klaus Dinger started a rock trio called La Dusseldorf with his brother Thomas and Hans Lampe, Neu!’s engineer. Michael Rother recorded an album with Cluster, another German duo. The trio called themselves Harmonia and the LP is worth hunting down.
In 1975, Neu! put their differences aside long enough to record one more album. Side 1 is Rother’s, three elegant instrumentals that would’ve fit on the first LP. I also hear hints of what David Bowie and Brian Eno would be doing a few years later. Side 2 is Dinger’s and it’s unlike anything Neu! had done before. It’s Rock. No roll, just Rock. It’s been called punk but I don’t hear that myself. The band I hear is the Feelies. It’s much louder and tougher the Feelies ever were but I hear them in these songs.
And then Neu! broke up again. Dinger went back to La Dusseldorf, Rother produced the next Cluster record and then joined that duo for another album as Harmonia. Collect ‘em all!
Hoping to keep the momentum going, Neu! recorded a 45. This record wasn’t a hit but somebody in Stereolab must’ve heard it.
The next record NEU! 2 has everything working against it. The duo was starting to have musical differences and the label did not give them enough time or money to record a complete album. So they didn’t. Side two of the LP is the two songs from the single repeated at various speeds and directions. One version is a cassette being played on a faulty tape deck. Despite the manipulation and studio tricks, the album works and holds up better than most records released in 1973. This album does have my very favorite Neu! song as the album opener.
Then Neu! collapsed. Klaus Dinger started a rock trio called La Dusseldorf with his brother Thomas and Hans Lampe, Neu!’s engineer. Michael Rother recorded an album with Cluster, another German duo. The trio called themselves Harmonia and the LP is worth hunting down.
In 1975, Neu! put their differences aside long enough to record one more album. Side 1 is Rother’s, three elegant instrumentals that would’ve fit on the first LP. I also hear hints of what David Bowie and Brian Eno would be doing a few years later. Side 2 is Dinger’s and it’s unlike anything Neu! had done before. It’s Rock. No roll, just Rock. It’s been called punk but I don’t hear that myself. The band I hear is the Feelies. It’s much louder and tougher the Feelies ever were but I hear them in these songs.
And then Neu! broke up again. Dinger went back to La Dusseldorf, Rother produced the next Cluster record and then joined that duo for another album as Harmonia. Collect ‘em all!
posted by KS at 10/18/2006 08:49:00 PM
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