Neu!
The Reissues: Neu!, Neu!2 and Neu! 75
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Neu!
The Reissues: Neu!, Neu!2 and Neu! 75
Astralwerks, 2001
RiYL: Kraftwerk, Stereolab, Sonic Youth, Can |
What saved the name from blandness was that exclamation point hanging on the end. It made all the difference. The word seemed to move because of that simple mark of punctuation. It was going somewhere, driving, flying, or maybe coming to a screeching halt. Whatever the case, it was in motion. At least that's how I remember it. Perhaps in reality I was just projecting my preconceived notions of what they would sound like onto the word. But it is a valid connection.
Neu! came together as an offshoot of well-known German act Kraftwerk. Architecture student Klaus Dinger and guitarist Michael Rother formed the band after realizing they weren't exactly seeing eye-to-eye with their bandmates on what Kraftwerk should be. They went from something very much machine-like to form something that, while still very much mechanical, carried with it a touch of humanity. They made four records, three of which would go down as classics in the eyes of that underground demographic of critics and rock star name-checkers.
The problem with Neu! was never artistic notoriety, but mainstream acceptance, due partly to the nature of the music, but also to its lack of distribution (a problem exacerbated by Dinger and Rother's inability to agree on terms for contemporary reissues). Unlike their countrymen, Faust, Can, and Kraftwerk, Neu!'s records were not available in Tower Records or on Amazon. One might be lucky to find an overpriced bootleg version of a Neu! record on E-bay or in an import in an adventurous record store, but there had been no officially sanctioned release for quite some time.
Thankfully, on March 29, Astralwerks Records, home to such electronic stalwarts as Fatboy Slim, Air, and Photek, did the world (the record-buying world, that is) a tremendous favor by re-releasing what they consider to be the band's seminal output: Neu!, Neu!2 and Neu!75. Here's what you should expect.
Neu! (1971) -- Rother and Dinger recorded their eponymous debut over the course of four days with Kraftwerk producer and engineer Conrad Plank. The record opens with "Hallo Gallo," from which one might draw the blueprint for the sound that is Neu! (the same sound that formed the basis for the first five or six Stereolab albums): a simple, repetitive, motor beat that would function well as the soundtrack for a film shot from a driver's perspective on the Autobahn. Or Route 66, or any highway, the road disappearing and replacing itself under the car, clouds doing the same from above, an endless cascade of mountains and trees, the silent hum of the engine. Sounds creep in and out of the riff-wah wahs, chirps, blips. It sounds somehow cold but also very humane, like it might just hit a bump in the road, making it very un-Kraftwerkian. Perhaps that explains the split. From there we're led into a drastically less-driven, meandering collage of Hendrix-inspired soundscape atmospherics. Neu! show us that they know how to use space and silence as well as they use the groove. And then, just when you think they've forgotten the beat, we get "Negativland," a heavier, more bass-laden take on "Hallo Gallo" that, feedback in hand, sounds like something you might find on Sonic Youth's self-titled Blue EP. "Lieber Honig" closes the record, featuring a vocal that sounds scratchy, out of tune, unaffected and authentic, like something you might find in a Dogme film. We now have proof Neu! are human beings, not robots.
Neu!2 (1973) -- Neu!2 begins with a track that sounds a lot like "Hallo Gallo," at which point you figure out that these guys are pretty content with that "beat" they've found. But that doesn't mean they're content to make the same record they made with the debut. Neu!2 sounds altogether more electronically processed than its predecessor-less Hendrix, more Stockhausen -- perhaps out of design and perhaps out of circumstance. The angle that Astralwerks seems to have adopted is that Neu!2 is the "first ever example of what was to become one of electronic/dance music's most important devices -- the remix." And essentially they may be right. But it's informative to consider why they did this. According to lore, Dinger and Rother ran out of money while recording the album and were left with only 20 minutes of new material to work with. So they sped it up, slowed it down, and reformed it into "new material." Some might call it hack-work. I prefer to call it ingenious, sort of like the little filter and edit tricks you used to use to make the movies you made on your parent's $900 VHS camera look like film instead of video. It adds a garagey, mysterious, "why the hell did they do this?" feel to the record that keeps me coming back.
Neu! 75 (1975) -- Neu!'s third record, creatively titled Neu! 75, might be likened to The Beatles' Abbey Road, as it highlights the respective and divergent directions and tastes of the members of the band-Rother's devotion to atmosphere and minimalism and Dinger's edgy, attitudinal punk rock. There's nothing really novel on this record in relation to the first two, but it is interesting to hear what the band would have sounded like had they found Johnny Rotten before Malcolm McLaren, on "Hero." Buy the first two first.
Perhaps most interesting in the reproduction of the records is the existence of "drop-offs," "skips," and "scratches," all of which have been absent from the bootleg versions. Apparently these quirks were intentional, and were thus left there when the albums were remastered by Rother and Dinger for the re-release. I guess it's sort of a "fuck off" to all the record nerd-bootleggers that made money off of them all these years. Good for them.
Sounds aside, I think Astralwerks did a good job with the packaging, resisting the option of filling the sleeves with after-the-fact liner notes that might take away from the cut and paste/duct tape feel of the original sleeves, which they have faithfully reprinted.
The quotes that adorn the shrink-wrap come across as kind of lame, but I suppose anytime you put praise by the likes of Lee Ranaldo, Thom Yorke, or Tim Gane on a record, it sells at least 1,000 additional copies. Klaus and Michael will be happy.
JOHN KNIGHT |