Neu! 2 [CD]

NEU!’s first album, NEU! – presumably they used all their imagination on the content of their albums, rather than the names – is something of a departure from the kind of Krautrock that is embodied by the inspired improvisation of Can, or the fearsomely bonkers avant garde experimentation of Faust, the other big names in this fascinating genre. In some ways, NEU! are actually the most progressive of all Krautrock groups: their music seems less bound by the conventions of traditional rock music, or even jazz, blues, or the avant garde. Their best music has an amazingly crisp, fresh sound that doesn’t seem so apparent in the work of their peers. It’s fair to say that Cluster or Harmonia’s best work also has the same kind of freshness to it, but there is a real sharpness to NEU!’s minimalist work: like the air on a cold winter’s morning.

There are clear similarities between NEU! and NEU! 2, not least in the opening tracks of each record. ‘Hallogallo’ from the first album is a bright, vibrant start, and ‘Für Immer’ (‘Forever’) on this album, is very nearly as good. It is similarly lengthy, and again built on ‘motorik’ drumming, but with repetitive, strummed guitar overlaid with pretty, repeated figures, as well as washes of cymbal sound and hints of keyboard that add to the song’s hypnotic, spacey air. The sound is very clean – almost icy – and characteristically uncluttered, meaning the song combines elegance with its urgency, before it fades into a wash of distorted drums and the sounds of the sea on a beach. This leads the record into a strange, transitional phase where the tracks ‘Spitzenqualität’ (‘Highest Quality’) and ‘Gedenkminute’ (‘A Minute’s Silence’) seem a little like they are marking time. Although ‘Spitzenqualität’ is interesting in that it mimics the effects of some of the varispeeded songs later on the album in real time – it begins with fast, repetitive drumming and treated guitar, before getting slower and slower until nothing is heard but the sound of whistling wind – it feels a little like filler, as does ‘Gedenkminute’, (a tolling bell and whistling wind).

Where NEU! had a coherent dynamic, its six tracks just about hanging together as a whole, the second album is far more disrupted by the tape and record ‘experiments’ of tracks like ‘Super 16’, ‘Neuschnee 78’ and ‘Super 78’. As both ‘Neuschnee’ (‘New Snow’) and ‘Super’ are great NEU! Tracks, it’s a shame Dinger and Rother didn’t manage to create more material from their apparently limited budget, or just leave the new tracks to stand on their own merits. Something like ‘Lila Engel’ (‘Lilac Angel’) may seem a little out of place with the smoother songs here, as it has heavy, repetitive drumming and industrial sounding slabs of atonal guitar, all of which speed up when a second guitar riff kicks in. It also features another odd and indecipherable vocal performance from Klaus Dinger (not unlike his croaking on ‘Lieber Honig’ from NEU!), and the whole track feels rather off kilter and angular, although it clearly explores similar ideas to the first album’s ‘Negativland’, getting faster and faster until it collapses and fades into feedback and echo effects.

‘Neuschnee’ is such a strong track that even when it is speeded up for ‘Neuschnee 78’, it still sounds okay – although it is horribly butchered on ‘Hallo Excentrico!’ – but in its proper state it almost matches the brilliance of ‘Für Immer’. The drumming is brisk and simple, guitars strum prettily and there are slowly unfurling curlicues of treated guitar, and like most NEU! songs, it is built on repeated structures, progressing and developing through the additions and embellishments made during the course of the song. As with so much of NEU!’s best material, its lightness and dynamism give it a beautiful, almost otherworldly, quality. And although ‘Super’ is much darker, with a threatening, stop-start riff, it’s still a great piece of music. There’s something slightly unhinged about it that only adds to the sense of threat, but, essentially, this is Punk a good three years before it really came into the public consciousness. Clearly NEU! were well named. Interestingly, the threat here is amplified on ‘Super 16’, where the slowing down of an already aggressive sound makes the song throb eerily, almost like some kind of monstrous heartbeat. In this way, it’s reminiscent of Can’s ‘Aumgm’, another song where the boundaries of the musical envelope were thoroughly pushed.

Although this album doesn’t seem like that much of a musical leap forward from their first, that probably doesn’t matter too much as NEU! were so far ahead of virtually everyone else at this stage anyway. This, perhaps, is what keeps their music so vital thirty-odd years on. A lot of the things that NEU! did on their first two albums have been heard many times since, but they’ve never been done better, and as the likes of Thom Yorke and Damon Albarn claim to be NEU! fans, it’s fair to say their influence is still felt today. Perhaps the only pity is that these artists don’t show NEU!’s inspiration more clearly in their own work, because if they did, it would not only make their music a great deal more interesting, but it would also give a truly visionary band the credit they richly deserve.

Neu continue where they left off on their first album, but with the most fantastic opener, 'Fur Immer' Drifting in and out from soft ambience with an addictive guitar riff, and piano, to pure rock. This is driving music if you're travelling a few hundred miles. The influences of this record can be clearly heard. Surely someone has noticed similarities to the ridiculously heavy Lilac Angel, and Iggy Pop's Funtime? If not, buy this and hear what Bowie stumbled upon in the early 70s. How much can be done with one basic beat? A lot more, as Neu and Rother continued to prove.

Rating: 8/10

Best tracks: `Fur Immer', `Lila Engel', `Spitzenqualitat', `Neuschnee', `Super'

The second Neu! album, like the first, begins with an epic stretch of open air music. `Fur Immer (Forever)' is a beautiful, glorious slice of motorik that exudes the same on-the-move driving feel as `Hallogallo', but this time, the beat is more urgent, strident, less airy, its eyes more focused on the road than on the sky. Klaus Dinger's formidable drumming keeps everything on course, while Michael Rother's ringing, singing guitars provide amorphous electric bliss. What's also noticeable on Neu! 2 is the slightly punkier approach - less serene, more pounding, a little dirtier even, though there's still plenty of ice-cool beauty in abundance just like last time. There's also plenty of experimentation - sound, volume and spatiality are played and toyed with. Similarities to `Hallogallo' are unavoidable - they both sound amazing on the road, the beat stays the same while the guitars take to the skies, but it's so good that it's great to have a little more of the same!

Also, like the first album, this follow-up has a second track that sees the music take a major turn into the weird. `Spitzenqualitat' isn't quite as surreal as `Sonderangebot', but it's trippy stuff nonetheless, as a cavernous Dinger drum solo gets slo-w-e....d down to within a fraction of its original speed. This is less proto-punk than proto-post-punk, the raw energy of punk already taken into new directions. But this was all before punk, so what the hell is it? It's Neu!, that's what it is! Time genuinely stands still near the end of `Spitzenqualitat', mad stuff it is, believe me. `Gedenkminute' is a brief interlude, reminiscent of `Sonderangebot''s swirling atmospherics, before the amazing `Lila Engel' grinds into earshot. This is a classic, full of guitars which exhale and splurge, vocals that sound drunk and drums that unleash a supremely catchy intense powerhouse performance - after a while, the guitars get hazier and more bleary-eyed, and the whole song resembles some kind of drunk-funk music, headbanging on a motorcycle down the Neu! autobahn, before careering off of the beaten track, into the wilderness and this is when it really gets going - guitars rip and shred, rip and shred!!! Exhilarating, revving up, pure punk-metal, absolutely blinding!

Now, what to make of Side Two? Well, whatever intentions Dinger and Rother had, they couldn't execute them, as they ran out of money, couldn't complete the record, and ended up taking their `Super'/'Neuschnee' single and did all manner of things with it. The original versions of the songs are here, but we also get them played at 45, 16 and even 78 RPM, complete with vinyl crackle and needle interference, jumps and tape scrambles. It's sometimes hilariously silly, as on `Super 78', which is gleefully ridiculous (hear those vocals!) or sometimes creepy, like when the very same song is replayed at just 16rpm. Here it sounds like a steam-powered train moving very, very, very slowly. The original versions are great, the band's epic motorik-groove made single-friendly in three minute long snapshots. `Neuschnee' is radiant, refreshing and sparkling, while `Super' is more punky, foreshadowing the sound of the third album's second side.

We also get unrecognisable messes like `Casetto' and `Hallo Excentrico', which are pure trickery and sonic manipulation - they're even more far gone than the weirdest stuff on their debut. `Casetto' is a brief, woozy, distorted, swaying stomp, while `Hallo Excentrico!' is all over the place - the sonic distortion swirls through your head, only the drums keep it close to anything resembling togetherness....well, that is before the tape goes backwards and dies away , unfocused into the ether.

Some may think this is all a waste of time and vinyl, and fair play to them - but this is entertaining stuff, not as shocking ot unheard of now as it must have been then, but still delightfully bonkers. Besides, I can't imagine anyone listening to this album in the first place who doesn't already have an open-mind regarding music's possibilities, not to mention its ingenuity when faced with limitations such as the ones thrust upon the band during the making of this album. What would Neu! 2 have sounded like if there had been more money to work with? Admittedly, Side One is clearly more brilliant than Side Two, but the latter is still a great feat of creative endeavour, and definitely gives Neu! 2 an identity all of its own.

PS: If you also have a vinyl version, be sure to play side 2 at 45rpm, then you can hear the already messed-up versions messed-up a little more....`Neuschnee 78' and especially `Super 78' sound even more wired, to say the least! As for `Cassetto' and `Hallo Excentrico!'....well, your neighbours may consider putting their house on the market if you play these versions too loud!