Neu - Neu '75

Neu
Neu '75


Released 1975 on UA/Brain
Reviewed by Julian Cope, 15/03/2000ce


This is Neu's perfect album. The reunion that transcended all their previous history. Perhaps the lack of pressure brought everything into clarity for just long enough. Neu '75 begins with the totally typical motorik drivingness of "Isi", but all the guitars have been substituted with a schoolroom piano or remedial efficiency and beautiful oboe like sythesizers that billow and coo like Eddie Jobson, when he was still trying to sound like Eno hadn't left Roxy Music on Stranded. "Seeland" follows, a floating drifting sunset of a song with weeping dual lead guitars like an awesomely slowed down New Age version of Thin Lizzy around "The Boys are Back in Town". Okay, that's exaggerating, but the guitar is between that first description and Bowie's Heroes title track. But then, this LP and La Dusseldorf were the two blueprints for Big Dave's Berliner period. The side finishes with the Damo Suzuki-type vocal of "Leb' Wohl", another schoolroom piano from another kindergarten - drifting, wistful and charming with its obvious tapes of waves lapping on a beach.

Side 2 begins the transformation with the classic Ur-punk of "Hero", in which every proto-punk device is thrown into its six heavenly screamed minutes. Klaus Dinger sings like a man possessed (though not possessed with a singing voice) over banked Steve Jones massed guitars and the double drumming of life. This is followed by the 10-minute Krautgroove of "E Music" - a kind of mantric Bavarian shuffle that subtly pulverises the flesh over a long time. Then it's back to "Hero" again, here re-named "After Eight", and a much wilder version. Klaus Dinger has by now given up even attempting to be coherent and just drools the words out. It's the best Neu! LP of all. Buy it and find out.


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