It all started with the perpetual movement of Hallogallo, the first theme of Neu! A continuous and repetitive rhythm propelled by the idea of a journey towards infinity. They are ten instrumental minutes, with hardly any changes, that reproduce the beating of the heart. A smooth bass line, the sloshing wah-wah sound of the guitar, intermittent use of cymbals, and 4x4 percussion in the form of a stubborn ostinato without variation. Ten minutes that activated the motorik rhythm.
The motorik has enjoyed an unexpected influence that crosses several generations of musicians and styles. "If our music could become influential, it's something that never crossed my mind," guitarist Michael Rother has insistently recalled on the occasion of the tour that commemorates the publication of the first album of the project he formed with the temperamental drummer Klaus Dinger, who died in 2008, and who is stopping in Barcelona as a quartet at the Mira Festival.
Neu's story! It begins at the height of the German miracle, in which industrial development defined the futuristic and experimental vision of Teutonic music in the early seventies. A time of social, economic and cultural changes in which a group of young people set out to escape Anglo-Saxon influence and reinvent rock. The first to try were Kraftwerk, and Rother and Dinger were part of the first psychedelic version of the group. However, together they were unable to transfer the energy of rehearsals and live performances to the recording of Kraftwerk's second album.
With the same ambition to create “a new sound; new music”, they said, Rother and Dinger decided to continue as a duo and formed Neu! –new, in German–. "We were less conceptual than Kraftwerk, more emotional, open and free," Rother recalled in an interview published in Wire magazine. With the help of producer Conny Plank, who recorded their first album, they promoted a new sound format defined as metronomic, precise, repetitive; it instilled a sublime sense of contained jubilation. Simple but very effective music, engrossed by a notable load of mystery and a marked oriental drive. Neu's bet! it was not new; others had entered the motorik before. The percussion of Moe Tucker as the rhythm manager of The Velvet Underground, which has been defined as proto-motorik; highlights from The Stooges, such as Down on The Street (1970); or the virtuosity of the drummer Jaki Liebezeit, from another German group with universal ancestry: CAN.
The sound coined by Rother and Dinger, who never accepted the term motorik –“because it sounds like a machine and what we do is more like a human rhythm”–, differed from previous episodes due to its dynamism. This is music that moves, that doesn't stop: it reproduces the same sensations of driving on a motorway, as Kraftwerk later did with Autobhan –motorway in German– (1974), the first motorik song to enter the charts European.
As Brian Eno assures, the motorik of Neu! It was one of the three most important rhythms of the seventies along with those of James Brown and Fela Kuti. For some musicians, a pivotal moment that changed rock history, as witnessed by bands like Sonic Youth, Boredoms, Stereolab, Tortoise, The Modern Lovers, Dr Feelgod and Hakwind; or genres like techno. To commemorate the anniversary of Neu!, Neu-50! (Grönland, 22), a box of records that collects this legacy and continuous influence, in which groups that claim the transcendent rhythmic impact of Neu! have participated: Hot Chip, Yan Tiersen, Idles, Mogwai, etc.
