I have recently taken an excursion into the second album of possibly my favourite 'Krautrock' (GOD I HATE THAT WORD) group, Neu!.
The first album, 'Neu!', of course being an experimental classic that unleashed the driving
motorik rhythm; the third album, 'Neu! 75', honing Michael Rother and Conny Plank's live ambient soundscapes to
sonic perfection.
Neu!2 seems to split listeners, and I'd like to know what people here think of it as it calls into question the thin divide between music and high art. Wikipedia says it best:
Quote:
This album further focused the classic Neu! 'Krautrock' sound, with 11 minute Für immer in particular being the archetypal example of their style—a seemingly endless forward-driving vamping, propelled by Dinger's 4/4 drumming and Rother's layered guitar with its fluid lines and droning harmonic structure.
Side 2 of the record caused consternation at the time: Neu! had quite simply run out of money to finish recording the album, so side 2 is made up entirely of their previously released single "Neuschnee/Super", manipulated at various playback speeds on a recordplayer, or mangled in a cassette recorder. Critics at the time dismissed this as a cheap gimmick and a rip-off. Whilst it was indeed an experiment born of desperation and necessity, it was entirely in keeping with Neu's pop art aesthetics, taking a 'ready-made' sound object and re-presenting it with a series of stylized manipulations, and also quite in keeping with the way Neu's music deconstructed and pared down the form of rock music. Dinger has since pointed to side 2 of this album as being a prototype of the now ubiquitous multiple 'remixes' which typically accompany any pop single release.
|