Forty Minutes Of Neu! Rother And Dinger

Some West German motorik cosmische musik for Sunday, from the combined talents of Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger. Rother and Dinger formed Neu! in Dusseldorf in 1971, after both left an early incarnation of Kraftwerk. Rother, a calm, reflective man brought up in Munich, Wilmslow (!), Karachi and Dusseldorf played guitar and keys. Dinger, a lively, opinionated and extroverted drummer. In the studio Conny Plank produced and mediated between them. The clash of personalities and styles produced some of krautrock's greatest music- Neu!'s 1972 debut, their follow up a year later Neu! 2 and the third album '75. 

Between them they forged a new sound- Dinger's motorik drums, a repetitive, gliding, four four beat (that he preferred to call 'endlose gerade', which translates as endless straight, and later on he renamed the Apache beat) with Rother's guitar and keys layered on top, a futuristic, non- blues based, Mittel Europa music. Hallogallo, ten minutes of sensational, perpetual momentum bliss, opens the debut album, Neu! sounding forever new. Rother went off in various directions, to Harmonia and solo, coming back to Neu! and then off again. Dinger formed La Dusseldorf with his brother Thomas and Hans Lampe. Rother's solo albums are all worthy of investigation, not least the first four and especially 1977's Flammende Herzen and 1979's Katzenmusik. The mix below is built around the forever sound of motorik drums and melodic/ rhythmic guitars and keys, a blissed out but insistent way to spend forty minutes on a Sunday morning. 

Forty Minutes Of Neu! Rother and Dinger

• Flammende Herzen
• Rheinita
• Hallogallo
• Isi
• Viva
• Fur Immer

Flammende Herzen is from Michael Rother's 1977 solo debut of the same name, a five song instrumental album recorded with Conny Plank and with Jaki Liebezeit of Can on drums. He really knew how to pick drummers.

Rheinita is from La Dusseldorf's 1978 second album Viva, an album a friend once described to me as sounding like 'a happy Joy Division', which it does. Viva is the title track. 

Hallogallo opens Neu!'s 1972 self- titled debut, the sound of motorik announcing itself over ten glorious, relentless minutes. Hallogallo comes from the German slang word halligalli, meaning wild partying.

Isi was a 1975 single by Neu! and the opening track from 1975's Neu! '75, another example of the relentless, hypnotic interplay between Dinger's beat and Rother's music. By 1975 the pair had diverged, Rother's more ambient direction and Dinger's more rock styles coming back together to some kind of compromise, each directing a side of '75.

Fur Immer is the eleven minute opening track from Neu! 2, Rother's fluid, harmonic guitar playing pushed ever onwards by the drums. Somewhere, this song is still playing. 

Silver Cloud

The heatwave continues and nothing you do to cool down works for very long. Music from West Germany in the 1970s might help. Silver Cloud was La Dusseldorf's debut single, released in 1976, a slow paced, melodic eight minutes of joy from Klaus Dinger's post- Neu! project. The crashing guitar chords, musical box synths and lightness of touch are all magical. That's it- too hot to type anything else.

Silver Cloud

Isolation Mix Fourteen

Isolation Mix 14 or Songs The Lord Sabre Taught Us. Fourteen songs, an hour and a quarter mix of records played by Andrew Weatherall. Most of them, not quite all but most, I heard first because he included them in a set or a mix on the internet or one of his radio shows, for 6 Mix or Music's Not For Everyone, or he referred to them in an interview. The quality of the songs and the breadth of genres and styles tells you everything you need to know about his taste and ear for a tune. The selection of songs here spans 1956 to 2019 and covers rockabilly, blues, 60s modbeat, post- punk, weird southern blues/ rock/ gumbo, 80s dance and proto- house, krautrock, Paisley Underground guitar heroics, 21st century fuzz rockers and electro- cosmische funkers, ambient- drone, avant- disco and a 70s country tinged ballad. Something for everyone.



Tracklist-
Cowboys International: The ‘No’ Tune

James Luther Dickinson: O How She Dances

Wayne Walker: All I Can Do Is Cry

The Animals: Outcast

Johnny Jenkins: Walk On Gilded Splinters

The Dream Syndicate: John Coltrane Stereo Blues

Crocodiles: Foolin’ Around

Liaisons Dangereuses: Los Ninos Del Parque

Fujiya & Miyagi: Extended Dance Mix

La Dusseldorf: Rheinita

AMOR: Paradise

Piano Fantasia: Song For Denise (Maxi Version)

Rich Ruth: Coming Down

Donnie Fritts: We Had It All

La Dusseldorf 'Rheinita'

England play Germany tomorrow. This opens several can of worms, from Twentieth Century history to always losing at penalties. Two World Wars and One World Cup. Don't mention the war. Achtung, surrender. Dambusters. Stuart Pearce. And so on. Most of it seems to be in fairly good humour now, especially since England's travelling support go to watch football and have a good time, rather than take part in racist/anti-Irish songs and seeing who can fling plastic chairs furthest across foreign plazas at riot police while being sprayed with the water cannon, and half murdering anyone foreign. The German media seem to have accepted our obsession with them, the war and football, and can smile benignly, especially as they usually hold the upper hand on the pitch when it counts.

This is La Dusseldorf's Rheinita, one of the most gorgeous pieces of music I've heard. Formed by one half of Neu! Klaus Dinger and released in 1978, David Bowie called them 'the sound of the Eighties'. If only more of the music of the 80s had turned out like this. Attention krautrock sceptics- this does not sound like your idea of krautrock. This is perfection spread over seven minutes thirty eight seconds. This has more in common with the production of disco, the attitude of punk and the feel and anything goes spirit of acid house and dance music. I can't recommend it enough. Typical Germans eh?

Rheinita.mp3

La Dusseldorf 'Silver Cloud'

If the thought of dragging your weary self into work tomorrow is bringing you down this Sunday evening, perhaps this lovely, dreamy slice of post-Krautrock (don't let that word put you off) will ease the pain slightly. La Dusseldorf were Klaus Dinger from NEU!, Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe and this is off their 1976 debut album Dusseldorf, a pristine 1976 pressing of which I snaffled on ebay a while back. Quite lovely this Silver Cloud.

silvercloud.mp3