A good mate recently visited me in the ‘dorf, and while perusing a music mag in an airport lounge on the way home, he came across NEU! He put me on to them, I did some research and discovered music history gold. NEU! was two guys, Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother, who were members of the original Kraftwerk. They left the band early on and formed their own duo in the early seventies. They never had huge commercial success, but have retrospectively been recognized as an important influence on a lot of the music we have and love today. And they did their thing right here in the ‘dorf.
Listen to some of these references. They’ve been cited as an influence, and their first album as a masterpiece, by David Bowie, Brian Eno and Radiohead. Bowie apparently quoted NEU!’s “Hero” as one of his favourite songs. They’re also considered significant for Sonic Youth, Joy Division and a lot of the electronic music styles that have emerged since their time. Stereolab have clearly been shaped by them in a big way. NEU!'S remix “Super 16” was featured in Kill Bill Volume 1. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had Michael Rother jam with them for over twenty minutes on stage at the end of their concert in Hamburg in 2007.
NEU! is listed as one of the big bands in the krautrock genre. Krautrock is a term that was initially coined comically by the British to label the experimental rock music scene that emerged in West Germany in the late sixties and early seventies. Despite the irreverent name though, these bands developed a large following and respect for their innovation.
In an interview a few years ago with The Wire, Klaus Dinger said that the determination to do something different to what was coming out of America and England at the time was very conscious. “I always promoted the individual, the original and so on, and it still doesn’t make sense to play Beatles, or so. It’s quite natural,” Klaus said. “From the beginning I felt we were quite special.”
NEU!’s development was organic. When asked about the line-up, Klaus said they were only two members simply because it was difficult to find people in those days who understood what they were doing musically, that everything else was far away from what they wanted to do. They were very experimental, taking “sketches” of what they wanted to explore into the studio sessions, and seeing what happened spontaneously from there.
From what I’ve dug up, it looks like these guys paved the way for a lot of musicians in various musical elements. Klaus was the drummer, and is credited with having invented the “Motorik beat”: a repetitive 4/4 beat which generates a monotonous and hypnotic effect. Klaus actually called it “apache”, but it was also known as “hammer beat”, “Dingerbeat” and “Neu beat”. It’s the driving force behind a lot of their songs, and at its most effective I reckon in “Hallogallo” and “Negativland” on the self-titled first album.
Their second album, NEU! 2, is considered to be the birth of the remix, and it came about in a great twist of rock fate. The story goes that just before making the album; they recorded a single called “Neuschnee/Super” which nobody wanted to buy. Later when they went into the studio to record NEU!2, they bought a heap of new instruments, and then ran out of money before the album was finished. Then Klaus had what he called a Schnapps idea. They took the single and manipulated it by scratching it, speeding it up and slowing it down, to produce different tracks with which they filled side 2 of the album. Cassetto was created by chewing the tape on Michael Rother’s old cassette recorder. It was considered really subversive at the time and fans thought they were mocking them. Now there’s an Argentinean band named after that track.
And they’ve also been described as punk before punk. Listen to the droning guitar, fast beat and the groaning vocals of “Lila Engel” on NEU!2 and you’ll know what they mean. And in “Hero” on NEU!75, Klaus’s "singing" is rough and raucous, and he directs blatant obscenities at their record label.
Pronounced noy, the name means “new”, and was, according to Klaus, at that time the strongest word in advertising. The album cover designs look like advertisements too. Düsseldorf was already recognized as a hub for advertising agencies, photographers and the fashion industry. Klaus himself was trying to earn a living through advertising. Unfortunately it didn't have too much effect on album sales.
The two musicians split after their third album NEU!75, on which you can plainly hear their diverging interests. They both collaborated with and had relative success in other groups throughout the seventies, eighties and nineties. Klaus Dinger went on to form La Düsseldorf (perhaps another story for another time in the ‘dorf). He died of heart failure last year. Michael Rother still records and produces solo albums.
A compilation Brand Neu! was released as an homage to the band this year with tracks displaying their influence, featuring Primal Scream, Oasis and LCD Soundsystem among others, but the review in Record Collector recommends just listening to NEU! albums. There’s a link to “Hallogallo” on You Tube below to give you a taste test, and you can find a few of their other songs there too.
Although there are countless references to these guys in music articles, I asked around in the ‘dorf but couldn’t find anyone in the flesh who had heard of them. Until Tuesday night. My neighbour Michael was around the right age in the seventies, and an artist, so I went to enquire. “NEU!?” he asked, hoisting an eyebrow at the memory. “Ja. Funny guys.” And he reached into a drawer beside the door and pulled out all three of their albums released between 1971 and 1975. So I’ve had the pleasure all week.
There’s a lot of variety there, and familiarity. I get the sense when listening that I’m witnessing the birth of so many sounds I’ve loved my whole life. At times it’s sparse, spacey and atmospheric, at others tight and edgy. From gently lapping waves to grating machines: Here sweet and ambient, there gritty and grinding.
Describing music musically is not my thing. All I can tell you is that NEU! is all about the journeys. There are mostly no lyrics, so no words to think about. You can just listen to the sounds and ride. The last few nights I’ve been adrift in rowboats, free floating in space, submerged in submarines, and walking through eerie underwater caves. I've been carried along a highway in a cage on the back of a truck, chased by a madman down a deserted beach and through eerie industrial landscapes with no floors.
Now, listen to “Hallogallo” and see if it doesn’t make you wanna take off on a road trip.
PS Thanks for the tip-off TC xo.
Sources:
The Wire: transcript from interview with Klaus Dinger
http://www.michaelrother.de/
www.krautrock.de
Wikipedia
The Wire: transcript from interview with Klaus Dinger
http://www.michaelrother.de/
www.krautrock.de
Wikipedia
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