Formed in: 1971, Düsseldorf, Germany
Key Albums: Neu! (1972), Neu! 2 (1973), Neu! '75 (1975)
Neu! are one of the most influential bands in alternative music history. Powered by drummer Klaus Dinger's 4/4 'motorik' rhythm, Neu! played a repetitive, largely-instrumental take on simple, stripped-down rock music. Their almost 'mechanical'-sounding music became heralded as founding the krautrock movement, and went on to influence countless musicians.
Background
Dinger began playing with electro pioneers Kraftwerk during the making of their debut, self-titled LP in 1970, and the following year Rother joined as a live member. Feeling stifled by the "psychological warfare" waged by control-freak Kraftwerk founder Florian Schneider, the two became allies, and split from Kraftwerk in '71 to form their own band.
Dinger wanted the duo to be "heavily influenced by the live-concerts we had played with Florian," where Kraftwerk routinely jammed songs out past ten minutes. "Florian was not so much in favor of the direction in which the music was going," Rother would recount, to NME, of these 'workouts'. "Klaus and I had the same idea so it was easy for us to go off on our own."
Beginnings
Dinger decreed the new band should take German word for new (pronounced 'noy') as their iconic handle, as critique of the increasing consumerism of a post-WW2 West Germany. On another level, the name Neu! gave them an ideal to live up to: making music that was completely new.
Said Rother: "It was certainly a big deal for me: to develop something of my own, something that was not directly developing something you picked up from somewhere else."
Dinger and Rother recorded the first Neu! album in 1971, in the space of four days. Working on a shoestring budget, the band slept on producer Conny Plank's bedroom floor, and ate little. Dinger spent much of the four days working under the influences of LSD, whilst Rother remained stone cold sober.
The two found common ground on songs that jammed with simple repetition; "Negativland" rolling out for 10 minutes on bass/drums, and opener "Hallogallo" founding a sound of unbroken constancy that many would compare to driving on the autobahn.
Neu! sold 30,000 copies in West Germany on its release ("much more than most krautbands," Dinger said, to POP), making their new project an immediate success. Neu! quickly recorded a follow-up single, "Neuschnee/Super," but their label, Brain, didn't think experimental-music fans wanted 7"s.
The "Neuschnee" single would remain unreleased, but serve as a creative catalyst on Neu!'s infamous second album, Neu! 2. Armed with only enough money for one day's recording, Neu! decided to try and make an album in that time. After laying down four tracks as close to live as they could, they were on the clock and running out of options. So, they improvised.
Taking the "Neuschnee/Super" single, Neu! and Plank played it back at wildly varying speeds (from 16 to 78 RPM), scratched it on the turntable, and even mangled the tape. Knocked together in just two hours, these ad-hoc experiments were almost proto-remixes.
Born out of desperation but done with Dada-esque humor, these 'experiments' were thrown onto the LP's flipside. Side 2 of 2 immediately entered into rock lore. Even if many derided what they had done.
"Many people were irritated when that was out," Rother would recount. "They thought we were making fun of them, which we weren't. No way."
Rother Leaves, Returns
After 2, Rother left Neu!, feeling unhappy that Dinger was taking a commanding voice (Neu! 2's Side 2 had been, for example, largely Dinger's decision). Upon leaving, Rother moved to the rural village of Forst, where the members of fellow krautrock travelers Cluster had built a country studio. There, they formed Harmonia, the first kraut 'supergroup.'
After two Harmonia LPs, Rother returned to Neu!; he and Dinger getting back together, in 1975, simply because they "had a contract." For a contractual obligation, Neu! '75 proved just as groundbreaking and influential as its predecessors.
'75 is essentially two solo records stuck together. Side 1 is Rother's more ambient work, whereas Side 2 is all Dinger. Screaming out his frustrations —with music, with his bankruptcy, with a failing relationship— in a stream of expletives over top of primal percussion, the sound of the 'Dinger side' would go on to heavily influence English punks like the Sex Pistols.
Shortly after the release of Neu! '75, the two would go their separate ways: Rother making solo records, Dinger working with his brother Thomas in the band La Düsseldorf. Neu! were, for all intents and purposes, dead.
Aborted comeback and "Neu! 4"
In late-1985/early-'86, Rother and Dinger reunited in an attempt to rekindle Neu!. The two were operating at entirely different ends of the music spectrum —Rother close to new-wave pop, Dinger more angry and experimental than ever— and soon quit amidst tensions.
From there, the two had a fraught relationship; something only exacerbated when Dinger allowed a Japanese-only bootleg of these aborted sessions to be released, in 1995, as Neu 4. This tension meant that, up until 2000, the Neu! albums were never reissued, never made available on CD.
"We've never been very close," Dinger told journalist John Mulvey in 2000. "I think the only thing we’ve done is make music together, and in my opinion, that's the only thing we can do."
With the two on vaguely-agreeable terms after the reissues, there were rumors of new Neu! recordings throughout the '00s, but hope was lost when Dinger died of heart failure on March 21, 2008.
Legacy
Neu!'s influence has spanned generations, from David Bowie/Brian Eno in their 'Berlin years,' to late-'70s UK punks, to pretty much the entire post-rock movement in the '90s, the list of bands who worship them (like Stereolab, Radiohead, Tortoise, LCD Soundsystem) is long and impressive.
Said Dinger, in 2000, of Neu's perennial place in the rock canon: "I think it's the greatest thing that you can achieve, to last forever with what you did."
