It’s a great shame that the entire contribution of Neu! to contemporary music has been reduced to a single rhythm conceit – the grand Motorik. While the liner notes of this compilation sees many of its contributors acknowledge the Germans’ contributions to everything from graphic design to musical minimalism to electronic/electric hybrids, listening through to the tracks it quickly becomes apparent that it is the motorik that has been the main criteria for track selection. This is sometimes a blessing but more often a curse.
For a band like Oasis, this compilation has the positive effect of recontextualising their work into a more experimental frame. For most of their releases post their Britpop heyday, they have been criticised for being unfocused and self-indulgent. But their ‘Can You See It Now? (I Can See It Now)’ fits in snugly amongst bands with far greater underground credibility, it’s lack of pop hooks rendered redundant as they show an ability to roll along abstractly and atmospherically with the best (and add the very obvious nod to the Velvet Underground to their long catalogue of ‘Artists We’ve Ripped Off’). Pets With Pets probably come closest to straight Neu! pastiche with ‘We Only Found This Plate’, though I can’t help but find the obvious drop in tempo as the hi-hats switch from 8th beats to 16th beats and their drummer struggles to hold the timing annoying, no matter how many times I listen and try to read the “I wish I was faster” refrain as self effacing. By contrast, Foals seem to channel the ideas of Neu! rather than the actual sounds, to great effect. Cornelius gets all psychedelic-funky with ping-pong guitar improvisations over a juttery version of ‘that’ beat. Holy Fuck and Kasabian add a Kraftwerkian edge to their ‘Super Inuit’ and ‘Stuntman’ freakouts respectively. School Of Seven Bells do their thing on ‘Device (Feur M)’ (one of the few previously unreleased tracks in the set) with low-key electronics taking front and centre place, their usual shoegazing guitars a little more subdued than normal. The only other true rarity is the last ever track recorded by Klaus Dinger (Neu!’s drummer) before his death in 2008. It sounds like the demo it undoubtedly is, but is unhinged enough to hold its place (just).
I have mixed feelings about this compilation. When I originally heard rumours of it, I was truly excited at the prospect of particularly hearing one of my favourites, LCD Soundsystem, in the context of a Neu! tribute. But their contribution points out the downside of this compilation. ‘Watch The Tapes’ is, of course, a track I have heard over and over in my listening to their own album. The vast majority of these tracks are already released elsewhere on the different artists’ own releases, and are all their own work, not Neu! covers. This in itself, is not a problem – the tracks are, without exception, all great. But that curatorial process mentioned earlier becomes a problem. In this context, choosing all the tracks based on a level of allegiance to the motorik means that each artist ends up sounding less inspired than they actually probably were when creating their tracks. Instead of the motorik being but one of countless influences colouring their own long form releases, it reduces them all to sounding like they’ve unimaginatively ripped off the exact same thing.
I really love the music found on this disc. But my recommendation (granted – a much more expensive and involved one) would be to track down the separate releases by each of the artists to hear them in a broader context, and to, of course, get the original Neu! albums. I think this would give a much truer indication of Neu!’s influence and the scope of where their blueprints have been taken by these diverse artists. It would also alleviate the horrible notion, (no doubt) inadvertently propagated by this compilation, that Neu! themselves were merely one-trick ponies.
Adrian Elmer
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