OFF: Can and Neu - which albums?

[K Henderson]

Hi there...

Well, no great need to post this, as my opinions pretty much match those who
have already spoken...but...

For Can, yes, of course, the Damo-period "Tago Mago" through "Ege Bamyasi"
and "Future Days" is the place to go.  And even then, this stuff takes a
little while to get used to...or at least it did for me when I first heard
some of it back in the early 80s.  Damo is great - though just once I'd like
to see a lyric sheet containing what he *thinks* he is singing.

I do have all the cheap bootleg Neu! CDs that came out years ago, but now
(as has been said) the 'real' ones are just appearing.  The one to get is
the first Neu! (pink on white), and then Neu! '75 (white on black) second.
As great as it is to listen to, it's even more amazing to see now (in
retrospect) how important the first Neu! album really was, or rather still
is.  Having only heard it for the first time in 1996, it seemed to
foreshadow so much that's happened since, that 90s music didn't really seem
all that new anymore.

They only really did three albums (the '4th' being a mid-80s hodgepodge),
with Rother going off and joining up with Cluster (actually this happened
after '2', and '75 was a reunion effort I think) to create Harmonia (still
don't have those albums, though 'Sehr Kosmisch' is on that Cleopatra Space
Box thingy), and then Dinger (and his brother) formed La Dusseldorf, which
was a rather fun little punky-pop outfit based on the Neu!/Kraftwerk motorik
motif.  "Cha Cha 2000" gets a bit tedious on the second La Dusseldorf called
"Viva", so I'd stick to the first self-titled one.  They're all available on
Captain Trip, again some other extraneous 80s releases attributed to various
similar entities.  And even more recently there's La? Neu! stuff that
essentially solo Dinger I imagine.  The live Neu! '72 is also out there, but
I've heard disappointing reviews about the sound quality, and never bought
one as a result.

The first two Kraftwerk's (Kraftwerk 1 and 2) with the green and red road
cones are also part of this same experimental/motorik movement, though they
are even moreso absent from the marketplace.  "Ruckzuck" and "Klingklang"
are classics of the genre.  Rother and Dinger both appear on '2' I think,
just as they were splintering off to form Neu!, so the cross-pollination is
evident.  'Ralf and Florian' was next (never found that one), and then the
breakthrough 'Autobahn' represents the transition into pleasant humming
synth-pop territory.  Not bad, but they soon turned into a bit of a parody
of themselves IMHO.  (Tone Float by Organisation, the pre-Kraftwerk Ralf &
Florian band, is also out there in the legitimate marketplace, usu.
attributed to Kraftwerk.  Not critical to own IMHO.)

And then, of course, you all need Faust IV, and now that you can get both on
one cheap CD, 'Faust/So Far'.  And Cluster's Sowiesoso...absolutely
marvelous.  Nothing else from Cluster really moves me so much...this one is
essential.

Grakkl (FAA)