Neu! 2
Encyclopedia
Neu! 2 is an album by Krautrock
band Neu!
.
, Germany
, mixed in February 1973 at Windrose-Dumont-Time Studios, Hamburg, Germany, and released in 1973 by Brain Records. It was officially reissued by Astralwerks
on May 29, 2001. Illegal bootleg CDs (with the audio taken from vinyl) from the Germanofon label were widely available in the late 1990s.
This album further focused the classic Neu! 'Krautrock' sound, with 11 minute "Für immer" in particular being the archetypal example of their style—a seemingly endless forward-driving vamping, propelled by Dinger's 4/4 drumming and Rother's layered guitar with its fluid lines and droning harmonic structure.
Side 2 of the record caused consternation at the time: Neu! had quite simply run out of money to finish recording the album, so side 2 is made up entirely of their previously released single "Neuschnee/Super", manipulated at various playback speeds on a record player, or mangled in a cassette recorder. Critics at the time dismissed this as a cheap gimmick and a rip-off. Whilst it was indeed an experiment born of desperation and necessity, it was entirely in keeping with Neu's pop art
aesthetics, taking a 'ready-made' sound object and re-presenting it with a series of stylized manipulations, and also quite in keeping with the way Neu's music deconstructed and pared down the form of rock music. Dinger has since pointed to side 2 of this album as being a prototype of the now ubiquitous multiple 'remixes' which typically accompany any pop single release.
Additional personnel
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
band Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
.
Overview
It was recorded in January 1973 at Windrose-Dumont-Time Studios, HamburgHamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, mixed in February 1973 at Windrose-Dumont-Time Studios, Hamburg, Germany, and released in 1973 by Brain Records. It was officially reissued by Astralwerks
Astralwerks
Astralwerks is a New York-based record label that releases primarily electronic music. It is owned by Virgin Records/EMI and distributed by Caroline Distribution in the United States....
on May 29, 2001. Illegal bootleg CDs (with the audio taken from vinyl) from the Germanofon label were widely available in the late 1990s.
This album further focused the classic Neu! 'Krautrock' sound, with 11 minute "Für immer" in particular being the archetypal example of their style—a seemingly endless forward-driving vamping, propelled by Dinger's 4/4 drumming and Rother's layered guitar with its fluid lines and droning harmonic structure.
Side 2 of the record caused consternation at the time: Neu! had quite simply run out of money to finish recording the album, so side 2 is made up entirely of their previously released single "Neuschnee/Super", manipulated at various playback speeds on a record player, or mangled in a cassette recorder. Critics at the time dismissed this as a cheap gimmick and a rip-off. Whilst it was indeed an experiment born of desperation and necessity, it was entirely in keeping with Neu's pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
aesthetics, taking a 'ready-made' sound object and re-presenting it with a series of stylized manipulations, and also quite in keeping with the way Neu's music deconstructed and pared down the form of rock music. Dinger has since pointed to side 2 of this album as being a prototype of the now ubiquitous multiple 'remixes' which typically accompany any pop single release.
Track listing
Personnel
Band members- Michael RotherMichael RotherMichael Rother is a German experimental Krautrock musician and composer.- Early life and education :Born in 1950, Rother went to school in Munich, Wilmslow , Karachi, and Düsseldorf. He also lived in Pakistan in the early 1960s where he was exposed to Pakistani music that would influence his own...
– guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, zitherZitherThe zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...
, percussion, electronics, cassette recorder - Klaus DingerKlaus DingerKlaus Dinger was a German musician and songwriter most famous for his contributions to the seminal krautrock outfit, Neu! He was also the guitarist and chief songwriter of new wave group La Düsseldorf and briefly the percussionist of Kraftwerk.-Pre-Neu! :Klaus Dinger was born in Scherfede,...
– shamisen (Japanese banjo), 11-string guitar, drums, percussion, FarfisaFarfisaFarfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy.The Farfisa brand name is commonly associated with a series of compact electronic organs, and later, a series of multi-timbral synthesizers. At the height of its production, Farfisa operated three factories to produce instruments, in...
electronic piano, vocals, electronics, record player
Additional personnel
- Konrad "Conny" PlankConny PlankKonrad "Conny" Plank was a German record producer and musician. He was born in Hütschenhausen. His creativity as a sound engineer and producer helped to shape some of the most important and innovative recordings of postwar European popular music, covering a wide range of genres including...
– producer, engineer - Hans Lampe – engineer