In the sixties German musicians wished to put some aspects of their cultural past behind them, so they actively cultivated new forms of music. Many took to exploring embrionic forms of electronic music because it carried fewer cultural antecedents. Emerging out of post war, post hippy politics, they often had left wing or anarchic backgrounds, and their musical approaches often echoed that. Nonetheless you can spot influences, such as the Velvet Undeground, Stockhausen, free improvisation, jazz, and a certain stream of consciousness word association psycho-babble. What emerged along with the German Economic Miracle, was a mercurial adventurousness across a broad range of types of music and people. In the UK the xenophobic music press bunched them all together and named them 'krautrock' but they were never musically that homogeneous group, as I hope this series of blogposts will demonstrate.
The quintissential band of this era was Neu! aka Michael Rother & Klaus Dinger. The influence they had on punk, post punk and electronic bands in the UK in the Eighties is clear, without even mentioning Eno and Bowie. Rother & Dinger were involved in the making of Kraftwerk's first album when they were still a loosely formed collective, making experimental electronic music with classical influences, and little trace of the beautiful clean electro pop they became famous for.
Rother & Dinger left Kraftwerk in 1971 and formed Neu!. On their first album you can see what they'd learnt from, as well as given to, Kraftwerk. But Neu! were venturing a lot further than Kraftwerk would ever do, experimenting with a rawer minimal rock using electronics and sound distortion. Often by messing around with playing backward guitar loops and sheer out of control screaming noise.
On Negativland you can see what they musically gave to the likes of Cabaret Voltaire, Test Department and Einisturzende Neubauten.
Hallogallo is classic Neu! with electronic embellishments fading in and out of the mix over a steady rock riff and beat that goes on for ten minutes or more. Kraftwerk appear to have taken this idea and given it a purer electronic setting.
In 1971 Neu! could sound as though they are like a proto-Kraftwerk. Though Kraftwerks's stylistic breakthrough album Autobahn wasn't to be released until November 1974, Neu's seminal influence on them is pretty obvious. Kraftwerk went on refining and refining these ideas until they ended up with their pure inimitable electronic sound. Neu! would, however, keep tearing up their own rule books, which explains why few have heard of them these days.
As for others they've influenced, well there's far too many to mention them all. Listen to Hero and you could be forgiven for thinking Jonnie Rotton derived his whole vocal delivery from this one track.
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| Neu! |
The quintissential band of this era was Neu! aka Michael Rother & Klaus Dinger. The influence they had on punk, post punk and electronic bands in the UK in the Eighties is clear, without even mentioning Eno and Bowie. Rother & Dinger were involved in the making of Kraftwerk's first album when they were still a loosely formed collective, making experimental electronic music with classical influences, and little trace of the beautiful clean electro pop they became famous for.
Rother & Dinger left Kraftwerk in 1971 and formed Neu!. On their first album you can see what they'd learnt from, as well as given to, Kraftwerk. But Neu! were venturing a lot further than Kraftwerk would ever do, experimenting with a rawer minimal rock using electronics and sound distortion. Often by messing around with playing backward guitar loops and sheer out of control screaming noise.
On Negativland you can see what they musically gave to the likes of Cabaret Voltaire, Test Department and Einisturzende Neubauten.
Hallogallo is classic Neu! with electronic embellishments fading in and out of the mix over a steady rock riff and beat that goes on for ten minutes or more. Kraftwerk appear to have taken this idea and given it a purer electronic setting.
In 1971 Neu! could sound as though they are like a proto-Kraftwerk. Though Kraftwerks's stylistic breakthrough album Autobahn wasn't to be released until November 1974, Neu's seminal influence on them is pretty obvious. Kraftwerk went on refining and refining these ideas until they ended up with their pure inimitable electronic sound. Neu! would, however, keep tearing up their own rule books, which explains why few have heard of them these days.
As for others they've influenced, well there's far too many to mention them all. Listen to Hero and you could be forgiven for thinking Jonnie Rotton derived his whole vocal delivery from this one track.
This opening track from Neu 75 is five minutes of pure joy, and if you think it reminds you of someone from the 1980's then look no further than OMD.
If you want to hear more from their run of three great albums, seek them out.
The 1973 Album ~ Neu! 2
The 1975 Album ~ Neu! 75
They attempted a come back in 1986 to mixed reviews. Your ground breaking days are past when the best thing someone can say of you is that 'its very 1980's'.
