Over to Barcelona this weekend for a 2010 performance by NEU! from Primavera Sound – recorded on May 29, 2010 by Radio Nacional España.
NEU! is Michael Rother – who co-founded the original NEU! in 1971 with Klaus Dinger. During that time it has become Ground Zero for much of the German Electronic movement (known somewhat crudely as Krautrock) that got its start in the late 1960s with the likes of Can and Amon Düül II as well as a growing legion of musicians coming from a vast range of musical backgrounds and ideas. Much of it sprang from the even earlier endeavors of Karlheinz Stockhausen in the 1950s who provided an inspiration for many of the German artists who founded their own musical collectives, taking Stockhausen’s basic principles with them.
NEU! also became something of a springboard for other bands (LA Dusseldorf, Tangerine Dream, Moebius, Faust and a host of others) to form, bring their own points of view and take those inspirations a few steps further. The influence Michael Rother has had on other musicians, not only in Germany but throughout Europe and the rest of the world is inestimable – it continues to this day – fortunately because Michael Rother is still very active but also because, since 2010 all the NEU! back catalogue has become officially available – and subsequent box sets are stepping off places for new generations of musicians just making the discoveries.
This set, from Primavera Sound in 2010 was a watershed moment – it was the reconciliation between co-founders Rother and Klaus Dinger which brought about official reissues for all the NEU! albums and subsequently renewed interest in NEU! as an essential musical entity in contemporary music.
Electronic music has gone a very long way from its formative period where early synthesizers required an entire room to accommodate, as well as banks of reel to reel tape machines to construct primarily atmospheric pieces. It has branched off into an instrument for music- a rhythmic basis for dance – a foundation for soundscapes – all of that we can point in the direction of Michael Rother and those who pioneered this genre into being.
So this festival appearance is a kind of homage – a nod to beginnings while glancing to the unknown.
If you’re just getting around to being exposed, I would take some time out and give this concert a listen. Michael Rother still has something to say.
It’s the weekend.
