Neu!

About

The legacy of krautrock duo Neu! would be complete if the group had stopped at “Hallogallo,” the glacially unfolding 10-minute track that opens its self-titled 1972 debut. The song serves as the textbook for the genre’s throbbing, gently propulsive motorik beat, with drummer Klaus Dinger resolute and barely shifting for the song’s duration. As devoted Neu! fan Iggy Pop once said, “The guy has found a way of freeing himself of the stupid tyranny of blues, rock, all the conventions I ever heard.” Dinger and guitarist Michael Rother—both brief members of Kraftwerk in the pre-robotic early 1970s—rebooted rock music as something airier and more atmospheric, something linked to the vibrations of the universe as opposed to the emotions of man. Dinger’s beats ran past the boundaries of verse and chorus into infinity; Rother’s spiraling melodies drifted by as weather systems; and visionary producer Conny Plank ran the band through a gauntlet of echoes and delays. In the decades that followed, everyone from David Bowie to Radiohead took notes. Thanks to Plank’s expressionist approach, <i>Neu!</i> was a textural marvel, its sounds floating from the gorgeous to the abrasive. Though the rhythm section of “Negativland” helped define post-punk, its jet-engine roar also presages Japanese noise and shoegaze. The beatless ebb and flow of songs like “Sonderangebot” and “Im Glück,” meanwhile, are simmering cosmic swirls that are part of krautrock’s proto-ambient legacy, dealing in smoky fogs of noise, backmasked weirdness, sitar-like drones, and a field recording of Dinger in a rowboat. And the closing track, “Lieber Honig,” is a barely-there love song. Though it only had modest sales upon its release in Germany, the legacy of <i>Neu!</i> has grown exponentially across generations. To this day, Dinger’s performances on “Hallogallo” and “Negativland” remain the gold standard of motorik itself. Though initially pioneered by Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit, and preserved in electronic amber by Kraftwerk, this rhythm and mindset would live on in songs by post-punk bands like Joy Division and Public Image Ltd, indie-rock experimentalists like Sonic Youth and Wilco, art-rock explorers like Stereolab and Boredoms, and minimalist psych-rockers like Wooden Shjips and Beak>. As Dinger once said about the rhythm of Neu!: “It’s essentially about life—how you have to keep moving, get on, and stay in motion.”

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The Clerk says

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