Neu! comes alive 40 days after recording debut

Neu! comes alive 40 days after recording debut

Four decades after recording one of the most influential German rock albums ever, Michael Rother of Neu! can finally play it be the way he ever wanted to.

At the age of 60, the guitarist of the Duesseldorf duo who pioneered the controlled, linear, driving "motorik" sound that became a trademark of the 1970s West German rock scene often called "Krautrock," has never been in such high demand.

After watching his career all but grind to a check in the 1980s, Rother`s fortunes have undergone a marked renaissance - built on the bequest of the three albums he cut as Neu! (New) with the late Klaus Dinger on drums between 1971 and 1975.

"The workload has exploded: it`s non-stop," Rother told Reuters in an audience after performing in Berlin. "I`m being steamrolled by everything that`s going on - in a decent way."

"The answer and the enthusiasm we`ve generated at our concerts is incredible. It`s almost like the medicine was created today - and hasn`t been in my question for the past 40 years."

The pursuit in Neu!`s music reflects a wider revival in hold for records produced by German bands in late sixties and early 1970s whose distinctive forays into garage rock, electronica and psychedelia won them many fans abroad.

Since late May, Rother and his band Hallogallo have been performing the medicine of Neu! to crowds across Europe and cities as far afield as Edinburgh, Mexico City and Detroit - with more dates in the offing in South America, Turkey and the Far East.

The line with Neu! could not be starker.

Hampered by the limits of engineering in the early 1970s, Rother played but a fistful of gigs with Dinger, who died in 2008. The pair, who had earlier toured with Kraftwerk, went their separate ways, reuniting briefly for an album in 1975.

NO CHAOS PLEASE

Rother initially enjoyed solo success, but over time he and Neu!`s records gradually faded from memory, leaving the softly-spoken guitarist to question whether he nonetheless had a career.

"By the mid-1980s there was nothing. There was no interest," says Rother, in a voice mirroring the steady, measured tones of his music. "For 12 years it was only about surviving as an artist because my records had wholly disappeared from view."

Since then Neu! have been hailed as an aspiration for artists ranging from David Bowie, U2 and Stereolab, and namechecked by the likes of the Red Hot Chile Peppers and Oasis.

Neu!`s eponymous debut placed no. 25 in U.S. online music website Pitchfork Media`s top albums of the 1970s, ahead of any book by star acts such as Pink Floyd and Stevie Wonder.

Named after the opening track of that album, Hallogallo features Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and bassist Aaron Mullan of the Tall Firs - a combo that has enabled Rother to perform the band`s old music they way he intended.

"In my opinion it`s actually the start sentence the medicine of Neu! can be performed live," he said. "Though it`s not about performing the pieces note for note as they were on the album."

"Back in 1972, we just did about 7 or eight concerts. We saw that with the means available to us and the musicians we had to get on, we couldn`t do it live. So we stopped."

Now in demand across the globe, Rother shrugs and says he`s been lucky. "It`s not like I`m in the top 10 now," he said.

Musing on what enabled him to abide in line in the lean years, he offered one account that could have come directly from the German government, which is now trying to persuade cash-strapped European partners to be inside their means.

"I hate chaos - chaos in the smell of not being able to pay the bills. And existence in debt," Rother said. "That would press on me so often it would get out the joy of living."

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