Saturday, November 08, 2008

Saturday Video

A splinter group formed as a collaboration between two early members of krautrock pioneers Kraftwerk, Neu! produced some of the most experimental, most innovative, most all-out weird proto-electronica ever recorded. Drummer Klaus Dinger and guitarist Michael Rother would greatly influence a generation of techno and ambient musicians who followed their lead, but they were much too willfully strange to find much of an audience back in 1972, when their debut album was released to a largely uncomprehending West German record-buying public. Neu!'s three studio albums were re-released on CD at the beginning of the 2000's, reaching in the process a worldwide audience which had been up until that point entirely ignorant of the group's existence-- which transpired during a brief three-year-period running from the early to the mid 70's.

"Negativland" is ugliness personified, married to a robotic, metronomic beat and a distorted electric guitar that sounds not unlike an electrocuted seagull. This is music designed to be listened to whilst driving in a car, hence the reason Neu!'s sound is often described by means of the German adjective motorik, a turn of phrase coined specifically for the band's unique sound.

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