krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electronic music, a ...
band formed in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize t ...
. The group's albums were produced by Conny Plank, who has been regarded as the group's "hidden member". They released three albums in their initial incarnation—'' Neu!'' (1972), ''
Neu! 2
''Neu! 2'' is the second studio album by the krautrock band Neu!. It was recorded in January 1973 and mixed in February 1973, both at Windrose-Dumont-Time Studios in Hamburg, Germany, and released in 1973 by Brain Records. It was officially reis ...
'' (1973), and ''
Neu! 75
''Neu! 75'' is the third studio album by the krautrock band Neu!. It was recorded and mixed at Conny Plank's studio between December 1974 and January 1975. It was released in 1975 by Brain Records, and officially reissued on CD on 29 May 2001 by A ...
'' (1975)—before disbanding in 1975. They briefly reunited in the mid-1980s.
Though Neu! had minimal commercial success during their existence, the band are retrospectively considered a central act of West Germany's
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.jpg, Clockwise from top left: President of the United States, U.S. President Richard Nixon doing the V sign#The V for Victory campaign and the victory-freedom sign, V for Victory sign after his resignation from office fo ...
krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electronic music, a ...
movement. They are known for pioneering the "
motorik
Motorik is the 4/4 beat often used by, and heavily associated with, krautrock bands. Coined by music journalists, the term is German for " motor skill". The motorik beat was pioneered by Jaki Liebezeit, drummer with German experimental rock b ...
" beat, a minimalist 4/4 rhythm associated with krautrock artists. Their work has exerted a widespread influence on genres such as
electronica
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to ...
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...
as an offshoot from an early line-up of another seminal krautrock band,
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize t ...
, whose early works were also produced by Conny Plank. Drummer Klaus Dinger had joined Kraftwerk midway through sessions for their eponymous debut album. Guitarist Michael Rother was then recruited to the Kraftwerk line-up on completion of the album. (Rother had been playing in a local band called ''The Spirits of Sound'', the line-up of which also included drummer Wolfgang Flür, who would himself go on to join Kraftwerk two years later.)
Kraftwerk founder Ralf Hütter left the band at this point to complete his studies and, for six months, Kraftwerk consisted of a trio of Rother, Dinger and Florian Schneider. This line-up played sporadic gigs and made a live appearance on German TV programme Beat Club. Recording sessions at Conny Plank's Windrose studio were unsuccessful (Rother later attributed the failure to "a difference of temperament"). Dinger and Rother parted company from Schneider and began Neu! with Plank. Hütter rejoined Schneider and the pair continued recording the second Kraftwerk album with Plank.
1971–1975: Main career
The band name NEU! ("new!") was inspired by the prevalence of the advertising business in Düsseldorf at the time, according to Dinger, who described it as "the strongest word in advertising" and even owned a pro forma advertising agency himself for the purpose of booking studios. The band's eponymous first album sold just 30,000 records, yet is today considered a masterpiece by many, including influential artists such as
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
,
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...
,
Iggy Pop
James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. Called the " Godfather of Punk", he was the vocalist and lyricist of proto-punk band The Stooges, who w ...
Motorik
Motorik is the 4/4 beat often used by, and heavily associated with, krautrock bands. Coined by music journalists, the term is German for " motor skill". The motorik beat was pioneered by Jaki Liebezeit, drummer with German experimental rock b ...
benchmark tracks "Hallogallo" and "Negativland" (the band Negativland took their name from this track), and bizarre "songs" like "Sonderangebot".
Their second album, ''
Neu! 2
''Neu! 2'' is the second studio album by the krautrock band Neu!. It was recorded in January 1973 and mixed in February 1973, both at Windrose-Dumont-Time Studios in Hamburg, Germany, and released in 1973 by Brain Records. It was officially reis ...
'', features some of the earliest examples of musical remixes. The duo, excited about recording another album, decided to expand their horizons by purchasing several new instruments. With the money they had left as an advance from the record company, they could only record half an album's worth of material. The company would not increase their advance because the first album did not sell well enough and the label did not see a reason to further finance what was most likely to become a flop. To rectify the lack of material, the band filled the second side with manipulated versions of their already-released single "Neuschnee"/"Super", playing back each song at different speeds and sometimes warbling the music by messing with the tape machine or placing the record off center on the
turntable
A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
. The songs "Super 16" and "Super 78" (slowed down and sped up versions of the proto-punk song "Super," respectively) unwittingly became the theme songs to the 1976 martial arts cult classic '' Master of the Flying Guillotine'' by Jimmy Wang Yu. This film was later referenced by
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, dark humor, non-linear storylines, cameos, ensemb ...
in Kill Bill Volume 1 by also featuring the track "Super 16".
Dinger and Rother were both very different when left to their own devices, and this led to their final album of the 1970s, '' Neu! '75'' being two solo half-albums. Side One was Rother's more ambient productions which were similar to the first album, albeit more keyboard-driven. Side Two (particularly the song "Hero") was acknowledged as important influence by many later involved in the UK's punk rock scene, with Dinger's sneering, barely intelligible vocals searing across a distorted
Motorik
Motorik is the 4/4 beat often used by, and heavily associated with, krautrock bands. Coined by music journalists, the term is German for " motor skill". The motorik beat was pioneered by Jaki Liebezeit, drummer with German experimental rock b ...
beat with aggressive single chord guitar pounding.
To aid with performing on the album (and more importantly, live), Hans Lampe and brother Thomas Dinger were enlisted to help execute more music than was possible by two men. Upon its release, and arguably to this day, ''Neu! '75'' is the most diverse record available from the krautrock scene. While this can be seen as a positive point, the differences in musical direction (as well as personal issues) not only isolated the Dinger/Rother duo, it isolated their already small fan base. Neu! broke up after the release of ''Neu! '75''.
Neu! are highly praised in Julian Cope's '' Krautrocksampler'', along with other
krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electronic music, a ...
artists such as
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize t ...
and Can, and Cope has also written a song called "Michael Rother" which appears on CD2 of the Deluxe edition of the album '' Jehovahkill''.
1975–1986: Band inactivity and reunion
In 1974, Rother had already collaborated with German electronic duo
Cluster
may refer to:
Science and technology Astronomy
* Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft
* Asteroid cluster, a small asteroid family
* Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study th ...
Deluxe
Deluxe may refer to:
Corporations
* Deluxe Corporation, check printers
* De Luxe Motor Car Company, an American automobile manufacturer
Media and entertainment
* DeLuxe Color, a brand of color photography used in motion pictures, especially t ...
'', and further sessions followed with
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...
, which were not released until 1997 as '' Tracks and Traces''. In 1977, Rother started recording as a solo artist. His first three albums; '' Flammende Herzen'' (1977), '' Sterntaler'' (1978), and '' Katzenmusik'' (1979) were recorded with Neu! producer Conny Plank.
Klaus Dinger, his brother Thomas and Hans Lampe formed
La Düsseldorf
La Düsseldorf was a German band, consisting of onetime Kraftwerk drummer and Neu! multi-instrumentalist Klaus Dinger and occasional Neu! collaborators Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe. La Düsseldorf was formed after Neu! disbanded following the rel ...
, cited by
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
as "the soundtrack of the eighties". The band released three successful albums; ''
La Düsseldorf
La Düsseldorf was a German band, consisting of onetime Kraftwerk drummer and Neu! multi-instrumentalist Klaus Dinger and occasional Neu! collaborators Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe. La Düsseldorf was formed after Neu! disbanded following the rel ...
'' (1976), '' Viva'' (1978) and '' Individuellos'' (1981).
Between October 1985 and April 1986, Dinger and Rother tried to rekindle the flame that was Neu!: by adding more synthesizers and a slightly more commercial aspect to some compositions, the band sounded like a cross between their old selves and the recent new wave groups. Then they were torn apart again by personal and musical issues.
An example of the sharp contrast between Dinger and Rother was evidenced by such tracks as "Crazy", Rother's attempt at pop, and "'86 Commercial Trash", a Dingerian collage of dialogue and sound effects from
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
's television commercials of that year. The work that took place in these sessions would later resurface as '' Neu! 4'' in late 1995.
1987–2009: Acrimony, CD reissues, Dinger's death
Dinger and Rother did not work together during the 1990s, and indeed some degree of bitterness existed between them, not least because Dinger had released a couple of old substandard Neu! recordings on the Japanese Captain Trip label without Rother's knowledge or consent. In late 1995, this label released the previously mentioned '' Neu! 4'' recordings from the 1985–1986 sessions. It also released '' Neu! '72 Live in Düsseldorf'' (recorded on 6 May 1972), which comprised poorly recorded rehearsals for some abortive live shows, but notable for the inclusion of Eberhard Kranemann, who had briefly been in Kraftwerk with Dinger.
A 1999 tribute album, entitled ''A Homage to Neu!'' (
Cleopatra Records
Cleopatra Records is an American independent record label based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1992 by Brian Perera. The record label has since grown into a family of labels, including Hypnotic Records, Purple Pyramid Records, ...
Autechre
Autechre () is an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both from Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are among the best known acts signed to UK electronic label Warp Records, through which all of A ...
Khan
Khan may refer to:
*Khan (inn), from Persian, a caravanserai or resting-place for a travelling caravan
*Khan (surname), including a list of people with the name
*Khan (title), a royal title for a ruler in Mongol and Turkic languages and used by ...
, System 7, and James Plotkin, as well as an original track from Rother entitled "Neutronics 98 (A Tribute to Conny Plank)". Plank had died in 1987.
For many years the acrimony and legal wrangling between Rother and Dinger prevented their reaching agreement over licensing arrangements to make Neu!'s music available on CD. In the ensuing vacuum, illegal and inferior-quality bootleg CDs ( mastered from old vinyl records) were distributed by an outfit called Germanofon.
This situation was finally resolved in 2001, when Rother and Dinger put aside their differences and entered a studio to transfer the three Neu! albums to CD, from the original master tapes (reportedly mastering each album three times). These were produced and released by Grönland Records (licensed to the Astralwerks label in the US), packaged with stickers featuring rave reviews by notable artists, including Thom Yorke. Following the release of the first three albums, Dinger and Rother tried but failed to agree on a legal release of ''Neu! 4''. Rother called the failure of those negotiations "unfortunate".
Rother has said that he and Dinger had been considering recording a fifth Neu album, but the idea was aborted after personal disagreements resurfaced between them. Dinger died of heart failure on 21 March 2008. Rother said that he was unaware of Dinger's illness until just before he died.
Rother writes and produces solo albums. Before his death, Dinger was a member of the band
La! Neu? La! Neu? (stylized as ''la!'' NÊU?) were a German band founded by Klaus Dinger. After around 1985, Dinger had difficulty getting records released and distributed in Germany, but the Japanese record label Captain Trip Records signed him in 1994, set ...
- whose name also irritated Rother - as well as collaborating with Miki Yui and band sub-tle. in a project that is unreleased to this date.
On 25 May 2009, the new record label Feraltone released a compilation CD called ''Brand Neu!'' containing tracks by many modern artists who credit Neu! as an influence. Most notably, it featured a track from Michael Rother from the previous Neu! homage album (''A Homage to Neu!'') and a new track by La Duesseldorf.de, one of Klaus Dinger's final recordings before he died. The compilation features both new and established artists from all around the world including
Oasis
In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentPrimal Scream, Kasabian, School of Seven Bells, Ciccone Youth (Sonic Youth), Holy Fuck and the young band Pets With Pets from Australia. This was to outline the enormous influence of Neu! which spans multiple decades and countries.
The rights to the Neu! back catalogue are jointly owned by Rother, Dinger's estate and Plank's widow, Christa Fast. Rother worked with them to produce a box set that included all of Neu!'s recordings including material that appeared on the '' Neu! 4'' album (now officially released as '' Neu! '86''). '' Neu! Vinyl Box'' was released in May 2010 and '' Neu! '86'' followed as a standalone release later that year. The box set included some of the 'live' recordings from 1972 on a maxi single.
In 2010 Rother teamed up with Steve Shelley (of
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of th ...
) and Aaron Mullan (of Tall Firs) for Hallogallo 2010, a live project to present Neu! music and some new pieces. He has since toured sporadically with the German trio Camera, performing the work of Neu!, Harmonia and his own solo music, occasionally with
Dieter Möbius
Dieter Moebius (16 January 1944 – 20 July 2015) was a Swiss-born German electronic musician and composer, best known as a member of the influential krautrock bands Cluster and Harmonia.
Moebius was studying art at Berlin's Akademie Grafik and ...
of Cluster. Since 2014 he has toured with Hans Lampe and former Camera guitarist Franz Bargmann.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Neu! debut album, Rother will play two concerts, Michael Rother & Friends: Celebrate 50 years NEU!. The first in Berlin, on 26 October 2022, and a second concert in London on 3 November 2022.
Musical style and influence
Neu!'s rhythms and sparse atmospherics have been widely influential on genres such as
electronica
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to ...
and punk. Their sound was described as "a droning, hypnotic style made up of Mr. Dinger’s simple, perpetual-motion rhythms and Mr. Rother’s fluid guitar effects" by ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' critic Ben Sisario. Sisario called their first three albums "landmarks of German
experimental rock
Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...
, a genre that was quickly labeled
Krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electronic music, a ...
by journalists and fans."
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...
noted their penchant for "minimalist melodies and lock-groove rhythms."
The band pioneered the "
motorik
Motorik is the 4/4 beat often used by, and heavily associated with, krautrock bands. Coined by music journalists, the term is German for " motor skill". The motorik beat was pioneered by Jaki Liebezeit, drummer with German experimental rock b ...
" beat, a minimalist 4/4 beat often used by drummers associated with krautrock. It is characterised by a kick drum-heavy, pulsating groove, that created a forward-flowing feel. It was probably first used by the group on their debut album and was later adopted by other krautrock bands. Dinger himself later referred to it as the "Apache beat".
Artists such as
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of th ...
,
Stereolab
Stereolab are an Anglo-French avant-pop band formed in London in 1990. Led by the songwriting team of Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier, the group's music combines influences from krautrock, lounge and 1960s pop music, often incorporating a re ...
, and
Tortoise
Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like ot ...
have drawn on the work of Neu! in their music.
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Siouxsie and the Banshees were a British Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bass guitarist Steven Severin. They have been widely influential, both over their contemporaries and with later acts. Q (maga ...
cited the band in their influences. Japanese experimental group Boredoms cite Neu! as a prominent influence on their later sound, evident in their unique application of tape manipulation remix techniques and driving 4/4 rhythms pioneered by Rother and Dinger.
Personnel
* Klaus Dinger – vocals, drums, guitars, keyboards, koto, percussion (1971–1975, 1985–1986; died 2008)
* Michael Rother – guitars, bass guitar, keyboards (1971–1975, 1985–1986)
* Eberhard Kranemann – bass guitar, slide guitar (1972)
* Uli Trepte – bass guitar (1972; died 2009)
* Thomas Dinger – drums (1975; died 2002)
* Hans Lampe – drums (1975)
*
Konrad Mathieu
Neu! (; German for "New!"; styled in block capitals) were a West German krautrock band formed in Düsseldorf in 1971 by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother following their departure from Kraftwerk. The group's albums were produced by Conny P ...
– bass guitar (1985–1986)
* Georg Sessenhausen – drums (1985–1986)
Discography
All Neu! albums on
Brain Records
Brain was a Hamburg-based record label prominent in the 1970s releasing several important Krautrock records by bands such as Neu!, Cluster and Guru Guru. Many of its more prominent records are currently being reissued on CD by Repertoire Re ...
were reissued in 2001 by Astralwerks and Grönland Records. All Neu! albums on Captain Trip Records have at least in part been re-released as part of the 2010 Grönland Records ''Vinyl Box''.
United Artists Records
United Artists Records was an American record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 to issue movie soundtracks. The label expanded into other genres, such as easy listening, jazz, pop, and R&B.
History Genres
In 1959, ...
)
* 2010 – "Crazy"/"Euphoria" (Grönland Records)
* 2022 - "Hallogallo ( Stephen Morris and Gabe Gurnsey Remix)" (Grönland Records)
Tribute albums
* 2001 – ''A Homage to Neu!'' (
Cleopatra Records
Cleopatra Records is an American independent record label based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1992 by Brian Perera. The record label has since grown into a family of labels, including Hypnotic Records, Purple Pyramid Records, ...
)
* 2009 – ''Brand Neu!: Tribute to Neu!'' (Feraltone)