Description
This album further focused the classic Neu! krautrock sound, with the 11-minute “Für immer” in particular being the archetypal example of their style—a seemingly endless forward-driving vamping, propelled by Klaus Dinger’s 4/4 drumming and Michael Rother’s layered guitar with its fluid lines and droning harmonic structure. It also features elements of ambient music and proto-punk. Side 2 of the record caused consternation at the time. Neu! had quite simply run out of money to finish recording the album, so side 2 is made up entirely of their previously released single “Neuschnee/Super”, manipulated at various playback speeds on a record player, or mangled in a cassette recorder. Critics at the time dismissed this as a cheap gimmick and a rip-off. While it was indeed an experiment born of desperation and necessity, it was entirely in keeping with Neu’s pop art aesthetics, taking a “ready-made” sound object and re-presenting it with a series of stylized manipulations, and also quite in keeping with the way Neu’s music deconstructed and pared down the form of rock music. Dinger has since pointed to side 2 of this album as being a prototype of the now ubiquitous multiple remixes which typically accompany any pop single release.
