NEU! '75

Kraut legends Neu! consisting of Klaus Dinger on voice, percussion, guitar, piano, organ, and Michael Rother guitar, piano, synth orchestra, electronics, voice, made an indelible impression with their debut with some stark haunting compositions that are definitive to the Krautrock scene. This is their third album which is at times a very accessible project and at other times lunges deep into the avant territory of the first album. It begins with a surprisingly upbeat motorik electro pop sound on 'Isi'. The commercial sound is striking when compared to the dark drones and experimentation of the debut. It has a great melody and is reminiscent of early Kraftwerk.

'Seeland' is a darker sound with cold stark tones and an ominous guitar and spacey synth lines. The guitars are beautiful drawing in the listener with spacey textures over the hypnotic melody rhythm. The synth pads are laced with ribbons of sizzling electronics. The rain fall, thunder rolls across the heavens and leads to 'Leb' wohl'. This one is haunting and has a slow dreamy feel that entrances. The sleepy piano lines are accompanied by echoed vocals, sung as though half asleep, the beach sounds are part of the ambience. But if this one puts the listener to blissful sleep the next track is a rude awakening.

The album may be seen as an album with a multiple progressive disorder; one half is mesmirising ambience, with the other half, side two of the vinyl, a proto punk bolt of energy. Side one is Rother's ambient influenced instrumental dreamscape, side two is Dinger's aggressive punked up distortion nightmare.

Dinger's excursion into anger as an energy is helped with two supplementary drummers; brother Thomas, and Hans Lampe. This would be the backbone of the next project for Dinger with these members jumping on board, for the esoterica of La Düsseldorf. 'Hero' is the first taste of punk and really sounds extraordinarily like Johnny Rotten's vocals and the angst driven guitar sonics of the Sex Pistols. Dinger sounds better though and the time sig is a simple 4 on the floor with double percussion. I like the keyboard chimes on this and it is so jarring after all the sleepy music that it has to be one of the shining moments of the album.

There are tape noises that are put through effects machines to add a sense of weirdness to it all similar to the first 2 Neu! albums. It is followed by motorik hypno trance rhythms on 'E-musik' sounding rather like 'Autobahn' or other early Kraftwerk in places. The electro sounds augment this feel that is no holds barred Krautrock. The very sweet synthesizer swooshes are similar to early Gary Numan, who must have been influenced here, especially on songs such as 'Complex' and the synth punk of Tubeway Army's 'Listen to the Sirens' and 'Zero Bars'. The beat on 'E-musik' is electronica at its most entrancing, and this is an influential track for all these reasons. The one note or chord of E works well allowing jamming instruments to fade in and out. It ends with a haunting wind howling and a deep slowed down bassvoice. Simply stunning Neu! at their best.

The final track is 'After Eight' and we return to the proto punk, and listening to this may cause one to wonder did Neu! invent the punk sound that almost single handedly destroyed prog? Ironic, if so, but Neu! were pioneers and took incredible risks and are all the more infamous for this. This last track is reminiscent of Hawkwind's punk sound more than Sex Pistols or perhaps closer to Iggy and The Stooges.

This album is perhaps one of the better albums in terms of accessible music and an entertaining sound throughout. I am no fan of punk but on this album Neu! make it easy to digest due to the inventive structures. Rother and Dinger would reunite after a ten year hiatus to try their hand at another Neu! project but the album is nowhere near the legendary status of their first three classic 70s master works.

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