Neu!

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Neu! (the German word for "new", pronounced "nɔɪ") were a German band, probably the archetypal example of what the UK music press at the time dubbed Krautrock. The band had minimal commercial success when active, but are credited with being a huge influence on a diverse group of artists, including The Sex Pistols, David Bowie, Simple Minds as well as the current electronic music scene.

Note: the band always wrote their name NEU! in block capitals and with an exclamation mark, intending it as a Pop art slogan. Typographic conventions have meant this spelling is not used in this article.

Contents

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Overview

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Core members

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Collaborators

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Musical style

Probably the most cherished element of the Neu! oeuvre is what is often called the "motorik" beat (a hybrid term combining the German words 'motor' and 'musik') - although the band themselves do not use this term, Dinger himself sometimes referring to it as the "Apache beat". At least one third of their recorded output is in the motorik form. Here they deconstruct the traditional rock song format, with its verses and choruses, intros and changes, stripping it down to a single minimalist 4/4 beat, which drummer Dinger repeats continuously throughout the entire track. Although on paper this might seem a recipe for monotony, in fact Dinger's discipline and flair as a drummer generates a very powerful, focussed groove, with a great sense of continuous forward motion (the analogy is often made with motorway driving).

In terms of traditional western and rock music harmonic form, Rother would complement Dinger's rhythm by eschewing chord changes, and instead opting for a harmonic drone – a single chord, layering numerous electric guitar overdubs. Timbral change takes over from harmonic change as the main focus of interest. Conny Plank was renowned as a producer for creating a working environment where musicians could be free to explore such experiments, and also as a master of timbral texture and spatialisation. Many other Neu! tracks are very slow and gentle, sketching out traces of a song in what might be called an 'ambient' style.

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History

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(1971-1975) Main career

Neu! formed in 1971 as an off-shoot from an early line-up of that other seminal krautrock band from Düsseldorf, Kraftwerk, 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, and for a 6 month period, Kraftwerk consisted of a trio of Rother, Dinger & Florian Schneider. This line-up played sporadic gigs and made a live appearance on German TV programme Beat Club (recently made available on DVD). Attempted recording sessions at Conny Plank's studio were unsuccessful ("a difference of temperament", Rother was later to remark), and Dinger and Rother parted company from Schneider and began a new project with Plank: Neu! (Schneider rejoined Hütter and the pair continued recording the second Kraftwerk album with Plank.)

Their eponymous first album sold very little by our standards today (though 30,000 records was a lot for a band of their musical nature), yet is today considered a masterpiece by many, including influential artists such as David Bowie, Brian Eno and Thom Yorke of Radiohead. It included the Motorik benchmark tracks "Hallogallo" and "Negativland", and bizarre "songs" like "Sonderangebot".

Their second album, Neu! 2, features some of the earliest examples of musical remixes. The band, excited to record another album, decided to expand their limits by purchasing several 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 anywhere close to well 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". (Side Note: "Super 16" is available in excerpt form on the soundtrack to the Quentin Tarantino blockbuster, Kill Bill, Vol. 1)

Dinger and Rother were both very different when they were left to their own devices, and this led to their final album of the 1970s, Neu! '75. 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, unintelligible vocals searing across a distorted Motorik beat with aggressive single chord guitar poundings.

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.

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(1975-1984) Band inactivity

In 1974, Rother had already collaborated with German electronic duo Cluster, recording as Harmonia an album titled Musik von Harmonia. In 1975, he subsequently recorded a second Harmonia album, Deluxe, and further sessions followed with Brian Eno, which were not released until the 1990s.

Neu!'s song "Super 16," unwittingly, became the theme song to the 1976 martial arts cult classic Master of the Flying Guillotine by Jimmy Wang Yu. This would later prove to be a source of inspiration for the urban rapper Paleface Mandingo, and is reportedly being used as an instrumental to fine-tune his lyrics.

The two Dinger and Lampe formed La Dusseldorf, who were equally cited as influential David Bowie in a 1979 interview with a music magazine.

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(1985-1986) Aborted come-back

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, and undoubtedly 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's television commercials of that year. The work that took place in these sessions would resurface in 1996 as Neu! 4, see below.

(Conny Plank sadly passed away in 1987. His studio is still run by his widow Christa Fast and his son.)

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(1987-2000) Acrimony

Dinger and Rother did not work together during the 1990s, and indeed some degree of acrimony existed between them, not least due to Dinger releasing a couple of old substandard Neu! out-take recordings on the Japanese Captain Trip label, without Rother's consent:

In 1996, this label released the above-mentioned Neu! 4 recordings from the 1985-1986 sessions.

It also released Neu! '72 Live! (recorded in Düsseldorf on May 6th, 1972) whose title is misleading, as the "live" aspect of it pertains to the fact that it was an on-stage rehearsal of poor audio fidelity, and only of interest to Neu! die hards who want to hear their heroes, musically frustrated that they cannot reproduce their hypnotic studio sound on stage. Definitely not a place to start from in the Neu! catalog, and considered their weakest release, it is notable for the inclusion of Eberhard Kranemann, who was involved with Neu! precursors Kraftwerk as well.

Captain Trip was also responsible for the CD reissues of albums from Dinger's post-Neu! aspirations with La! Neu? and La Dusseldorf.

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(2001- . . . .) CD remasters

The rights to the Neu! back-catalogue are jointly owned by Rother, Dinger and Plank's widow, Christa Fast. However, for many years a degree of acrimony and legal wranglings existed between Rother and Dinger, and they could not agree on licensing arrangements to make Neu!'s music available on CD. (In the ensueing vacuum, illegal and inferior quality bootleg CDs [mastered from old vinyl records] were distributed by an outfit calling themselves 'Germanofon'.)

Happily, this situation was finally resolved in 2001, when Rother and Dinger put aside their differences and entered a studio to transfer the three classic Neu! albums to CD, from the original mastertapes (reputedly mastering each album three times to make sure they sounded how they wanted the mass public to hear it). These were then released on the Astralwerks label, packaged with stickers raving about the albums from musical people of recent notice, again including Thom Yorke. Finally, the world was able to enjoy Neu! music without having to buy the discs illegally or track down rare, expensive vinyl.

Neu! have not recorded anything new since Neu! 4, and are currently inactive. As for its members:

  • Michael Rother currently writes and produces solo albums.
  • Klaus Dinger currently writes and produces solo albums, as well as archival releases by La Dusseldorf.
  • Thomas Dinger died on April 9th, 2002. Before this, he released a string of unsuccessful solo albums.
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Discography

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Albums

All Neu! albums on Brain Records were reissued in 2001 by Astralwerks. All Neu! albums on Captain Trip Records are currently deleted.

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Samples

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See also

nl:Neu! it:Neu! sv:Neu!

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