NEU!

Reaching more directly into the heart of things, the Motorik sound make itself known immediately in Hallogallo. A smooth transaction between disciplined beat (in an almost half-heartedly sloppy way!) and swooping, searching and sleekly self-aware and immediate melodic clarity. Neu!'s debut takes no prisoners. It's a clear and assertive form of expression. Love it or hate it. The regular and almost (sometimes definitely) backwards juggling of phrasings and relaxed melodic self-importance moves about in rising and bubbling guitar arrangements. It's in many ways relatively mundane, but the shape-shifting forms and different layers consciously bring the artistic statement into a forceful start.

Afterwards, in Sonderangebot, resonant metal gongs, slams and crashes reverberate and linger over (and around) tortured electric guitar lines. A claustrophobic darkness of equally lost-in-space, equally aggressive chilling ambience turns into a sombre, but meticulously crafted drive forwards into a meatier and warmer reality in Weissensee. The searching, clashing atmosphere settles into a beautifully rich parade of graceful and guitar-driven spacey orderliness and harmony. The contrast is just something else. The rhythms sneakily kidnap the understated but expressive guitar lines and twists them into a natural progression of smoothly and soothingly rising and falling motions. Im Glück continues down this path of uncertainty between electronic, abstract ambiance and shy, gliding melodic guitar sprinkles. Water, in most shapes or forms, is ever-present in Neu!'s output it seems. A lingering, clucking sound of a slightly underwater shoreline that morphs into instrumental minimalism. An ever so slowly oscillating drone that breaks up into peacefully evolving, wah-wah-ing melodies of poignant, but understated electric warmth and elegance. All of this give rise to a subtle infusion of clear, sapphire-blue and talkative guitars for a while. Ringing tones stroke the sampled watery sounds and sleekly and elegantly bring the sounds into an organic finish.

The twist towards edgier, more drilling sounds that follows is almost unwelcome. Sharp, wailing guitars accentuate a metal symphony of boundless, productive and shearing aggression. Aimlessly soaring screeches and wailing guitar misanthropy scratches and beckons on top of the underlying orderliness. Rhythmic, groovy bass propulsion slithers underneath a busy, flickering soundscape of sharply wheezing undulations of relentless guitars. The propulsive bass and drums accentuate and stress the pre-shoegaze wall of sound into a busy, unwelcoming world of stress in Negativland. It's disorienting in an eagerly provocative kind of way. Repetition, rhythm and texture. Combined into a familiar strangeness. Altogether wonderful. Searching, fleeting, full-bodied and reverently within Neu!'s rigorously self-imposed rhythmic constraints at the same time. It's this bubbling, groovy and often aggressive straight-forward melody that runs amok over the strictness in Neu! that I often find myself enchanted by.

Lieber Hoenig is a hissy lo-fi tribute of things to come. An understated guitar melody that searchingly seeps into a tape hiss of vulnerable, physical and up-close vocal lines that greedily, but warily reach out into the light. This amazing insecurity gets enveloped back into the safe, bassy strings that we've heard before.

I really don't know how to summarize a musical experience such as this. It's a strictly rhythmic commandment to follow along and never look back as well as a relaxed, ambient journey into the subconscious hinterland of human vulnerability. It's a demonstratively futuristic sound of music. And eagerly progressive. Perhaps a bit challenging on your way forward through the album once you've pressed play, but fearlessly plowing its way into the unknown has its own rewards. It reeks of a self-assured poise and a security in its musical ideas, even though its a debut album. Paradoxically, a sense of careful, almost tender, attention and vagueness is equally important. And that's what turns it into a masterpiece. It's so restless. And it feels as restless today as it must have felt like over forty years ago.

Gotta count for something, right?

5 stars.

//LinusW