NEU!, the legendary Krautrock duo of Michael Rother and the late Klaus Dinger, celebrate the 50th anniversary of their self-titled debut album with the NEU! 50! box set, out September 23rd via Grönland. NEU! 50! includes albums NEU!, NEU! 2!, and NEU! 75, plus the brand new NEU! Tribute Album, a NEU! stencil and booklet. As one of the great, belated success stories of rock music, NEU!’s influence continues to be internationally widespread. Since paving their own road ahead, they’ve created a model of forward propulsion away from conventional rock clichés. The NEU! Tribute Album shows how much there is for subsequent generations to unpack in NEU!, how much is buried, implied in their sound. It features reworkings and NEU!-inspired originals by Idles, Guerilla Toss, Stephen Morris (New Order, Joy Division) and Gabe Gurnsey (Factory Floor), Man Man, Mogwai, Alexis Taylor, and more, including today’s new remix of “Im Glück” by The National. In their remix, The National pull back and reveal the latent colors, rhythmic potentials and mental freeways of “Im Gluck.”
Listen to “Im Glück (The National Remix)”
NEU! are a product of Düsseldorf, Germany, home to Kraftwerk’s Klingklang studios, as well as galleries, graphic designers and advertising agencies. Rother and Dinger drew on all of this and their impeccable musical training to create the overall concept of NEU!. They intended to create a previously unheard new music, aping the processes of commodification while remaining resolutely hostile to the commerciality of the music industry. Like other experimental bands of the late 60s and early 70s gathered under the Krautrock banner, NEU! were driven by a mixture of political and artistic imperatives to reject the clichés and conventions of orthodox, blues-based Anglo-American rock and create a music that was, formally, West German in origin.
Pre-order NEU! 50!
Watch “Hallogallo (Stephen Morris and Gabe Gurnsey Remix)” Visualizer
Listen to “Weissensee (Fink Version)”
Listen to “Zum Herz” by Guerilla Toss
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]
