Archives

NEU!/NEU! 2/ NEU! 75

NEU!

(Astralwerks)

Articulating the relevance of the definitive Krautrock band NEU! in the rock canon is a nigh impossible task. I would have better luck wounding the sun with ice-cream arrows. The band’s three proper albums have been criminally out of print in this country for 25 years. Krautrock, an appellation buzzed up by lazy British journalists, was a musical movement primarily based in West Germany that sought to fuse the concepts and methodology of avant garde composition with the melodies, tropes, and trappings of rock-and-roll. The most visible and most easily parodied group in all of Krautrock was Kraftwerk (see Saturday Night Live‘s “Dieter” skit). In 1971, Kraftwerk served as the meeting point for guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger, who soon departed from the band to form NEU! — all CAPS, every time, exclamation point! — a screaming pop-art adjective meaning new, fresh, or modern, usually written in eye-catching Day-Glo, like a detergent ad.

The band’s eponymous debut was released in 1972 to relatively little acclaim but gradually began to gather recognition. The first album is an epiphany. It’s as simple as that. On “Hallogallo,” Rother starts out making guitar noises that one would swear are seagulls playing the bagpipes — trance-inducing yet galvanizing. Dinger, who just edges out the Velvet Underground’s Moe Tucker for greatest rock non-drummer of all time, has an extremely limited repertoire: one beat (at various tempos) and one fill. But the sound is never tiresome. Once Dinger starts his relentless motorik rhythm, the heartbeat of the autobahn, one wishes the song would never end.

The success of the first record put more pressure on the duo to release a profitable sophomore effort. In the studio for NEU! 2 things were going well until the group realized that they had exceeded their budget after recording only two full songs. In this case, necessity was the mother of invention and thus was born the rock-and-roll remix. NEU! put their two completed songs, “Super” and “Neuschnee,” on side 2 of the record at different speeds (16 rpm and 78 rpm) and one track with Dinger just manually diddling with the tempo. Ultimately NEU! 2 is a wondrously prankish, but failed, experiment.

Due to the inevitable split based on “artistic differences,” the band took a two-year hiatus. They re-formed, and the result, NEU! 75, is a fascinating rock chimera. NEU! 75 lets Rother and Dinger rule their own fiefdoms, with each getting a side of his own. Rother’s work, while bucolic and luxurious, doesn’t necessarily gain any new artistic ground. Side 2 is where Dinger exercises his id and gives Johnny Rotten a template for affected electric lunacy. Dinger’s howled, high-in-the-mix vocals on “Hero,” the most important NEU! song since the first album’s “Hallogallo,” truly acts as a harbinger for the punk sound, particularly the British bad-teeth-on-the-bleedin’-dole variety.

NEU! has always been about motion. The parents of Krautrockers are of a generation that Tom Brokaw would probably not call the greatest. A collective national guilt pervaded daily life in Germany. NEU! evokes that desire to continually keep moving, dancing away from the past. Their influence on other musicians has been phenomenal. David Bowie openly credits them as the major influence on his Berlin trilogy of albums (Low, Heroes, Lodger).

The remastering on these three reissues is superb. Supposedly, it took three go-arounds at the control boards and months of legal wrangling. But it’s worth it to have them back in print. And if you notice some sonic dropout effects and needle-dropping surface noise, don’t return it as defective. It is all an intentional part of NEU!’s little gambit — you know, that German sense of humor. — David Dunlap

Grades: NEU! (A+); NEU! 2 (B); NEU! 75 (A-)

Better Day

Continental Drifters

(Razor & Tie)

The Continental Drifters are a testament to how modest talent can be maximized by healthy group dynamics: With Vicki Peterson (the Bangles), Peter Holsapple (the dbs), and Susan Cowsill (the Cowsills, natch) leading the way, the band melds classic-rock power chords, folk-rock jangle, and girl-group harmonies. The result is a second-tier rock-star collective turned first-rate bar band. The esprit de corps that made Vermilion, the band’s 1999 de facto debut, such a charmer is still in place. But, on Better Day, the camaraderie doesn’t enliven the band’s often well-worn lyrical tropes quite as much. Instead, it’s the bright, AM-radio vibe of songs like “Na, Na” and “Live on Love” that stands out on an album less notable for its solid songwriting than for its playful sonic mix, which makes room for N’awlins horns and bluegrass fills in its roots-pop blueprint and puts the lovely, lived-in voices of Peterson and Cowsill up front. “Live on Love” is especially invigorating, with the pas de deux between Holsapple’s lead vocal and Peterson and Cowsill’s soulful backup mirroring the interaction between Booker T. organ and Crescent City horns. — Chris Herrington

Grade: B+

The Continental Drifters will be at the Hi-Tone Café on Thursday, July 26th, with the Billygoats.

Listening Log:

This Is BR5-49 — BR5-49 (Lucky Dog): They’d still be an ace cover band for a new version of Hee Haw or Disney’s Country Land, but their schtick is wearing thin and the move toward more “serious” songs, including a straight-faced cover of the Anne Murray atrocity “A Little Good News,” sounds like a call for help. (“While You Were Gone,” “Fool Of the Century”)

Grade: C

Moanin’ For Molasses — Sean Costello (Landslide): A rarity — a young, white blues hope who can play and sing but who rarely overplays or oversings. And he does a shockingly good James Brown. Doesn’t write much, though. (“Moanin’ For Molasses,” “One Kiss,” “I Want You Bad”)

Grade: B+

Scorpion — Eve (Interscope): As is distressingly common for female MCs (see Missy Elliott), Eve comes back “harder” on her sophomore album, and the attitude dulls her charm. Biz talk, braggadocio, no girly stuff. (“Who’s That Girl?,” “Let Me Blow Ya Mind,” “Got What You Need”)

Grade: B

Sad Sappy Sucker — Modest Mouse (K): A “lost album” circa 1994 that packs 23 song sketches into 34 minutes, this is half-assed closet clutter and formative ramblings from a soon-to-be-near-great indie band. (“From Point A To Point B,” “Dukes Up,” “Race Car Grin You Ain’t No Landmark”)

Grade: B

Sugar Ray — Sugar Ray (Atlantic): The band’s multi-culti radio pop sounds good in any setting, great in none. Lead singer/celebrity Mark McGrath is smooth enough to turn groupie sex into a sweet lover’s plea on “Answer the Phone” but not nearly smooth enough to redeem the awkward ’80s nostalgia of “Under The Sun.” (“When It’s Over,” “Disasterpiece”)

Grade: B

Filtered: The Best of Filtered Dance — Various Artists (Tommy Boy): A continuous-mix compilation of dance tracks recorded through a process that I don’t really grasp that makes everything sound like it’s happening in a wind tunnel. The first two songs — from Daft Punk offshoot Stardust and Armand Van Helden — are for the ages, the rest will suffice on Saturday night. (“Music Sounds Better With You” — Stardust; “U Don’t Know Me” — Armand Van Helden; “Big Love” — Pete Heller) — CH

Grade: B+

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.

Rooty, Basement Jaxx (Astralwerks)

Discovery, Daft Punk (Virgin)

Though the age of Dylan and the Beatles still seems to hold sway
over pop music consciousness — the Bard’s 60th birthday and the Beatles’
shamefully useless Anthology repackaging have gotten more respectful
attention than anything else music-related this year — you could make a
compelling case that the most important era of post-war pop wasn’t the Summer
of Love or even the “birth of rock” in the mid-’50s but the
relatively uncelebrated late ’70s. That’s right — the malaise-filled Carter
administration as home to pop’s most thorough cultural correction.

In retrospect, the late ’70s witnessed the birth of three pop
styles that formed the core of most compelling pop that’s been made since —
punk, hip hop, and disco. Disco has been the most maligned from day one, but
with punk in commercial decline, that producer-/DJ-/diva-driven dance music
rivals hip hop for global supremacy. Of course, no one calls it disco anymore,
since the term was long-ago displaced by monikers such as techno, electronica,
and club and gerrymandered into a morass of subgenres seemingly designed to
scare off dilettantes.

But for those who can’t be bothered to distinguish between arcane
subsets like tech-house, 2-step, and speed-garage, there seem to be two types
of dance music that spark more general interest. There’s the hip-hop- and
garage-rock-influenced big beat of Fatboy Slim — DJ bricolage as Big Dumb
Fun. Then there’s the music captured on these two albums, which, terminology
be damned, is just plain disco — disco that Chic and Donna Summer could be
proud of.

Daft Punk’s Discovery is the better of the two — pure,
transcendent, vocoder-laden dance-floor delivery that opens with a four-song
rush that sounds positively historic. The lead cut/single “One More
Time” is Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” reimagined as post-
millenial club hymn. “One more time/We’re gonna celebrate/Oh yeah/Don’t
stop the dancing,” guest vocalist Romanthony sings as the French DJ duo
imbues the mundane sentiments with a sonic aura that borders on the magical.
Next is the smart, witty instrumental “Aerodynamic,” which cunningly
juxtaposes two genres seemingly furthest removed from dance music — guitar-
heavy acid rock and classical-leaning prog rock — without ever losing the
beat or forgoing the funk. “Digital Love” lifts ’70s AOR a la ELO
and REO Speedwagon for a sweet little dance-floor love song. “Harder,
Better, Faster, Stronger” completes the triumphant opening set with a
virtuoso, vocodered-vocal symphony composed primarily of the four words of the
title. Discovery comes down to earth after that, with a barrage of
instrumentals that flirt with, but never succumb to, the monotony that
disbelievers tend to associate with electronic dance music.

Rooty starts off on a high note as grand as
Discovery but can’t sustain it for as long. The lead cut/single
“Romeo” is as thrilling in its own way as the London duo’s great
1999 single “Red Alert.” With guest vocalist Kele Le Roc providing a
vocal filled with more personality than the typical diva-for-hire club vocals,
the song is the catchiest romantic kiss-off in memory. After that stunner,
Rooty reveals its true mission: to be the new decade’s best Prince
album, a feat that, sadly, it is likely to attain. “Breakaway”
sounds like one of the Prince songs he recorded under altered-voice pseudonym
Camille. The over-sexed “Get Me Off” is more salacious than anything
Prince has done since the similarly titled “Gett Off” almost a
decade ago.

Rooty doesn’t hold up, first note to last, quite like
Discovery does, but anyone with a pop sensibility who wants to sample
some modern club music would be well-advised to start with either record. —
Chris Herringon

Grades: A- (both records)

Hot Shots II, The Beta Band (Astralwerks)

While the title of the Beta Band’s second proper album perhaps
unknowingly refers to an unfortunate Charlie Sheen movie from 1993, the spirit
of Hot Shots II suggests that this Welsh quartet is already standing in
line for Lord of the Rings tickets. At times overwrought with trippy
fantasy references and sci-fi-themed lyrics, the album namedrops the Mighty
Morphin Power Rangers on “Al Sharp” and chants “Sell to them
the killing gem/Attack to get it back” repeatedly on “Life.”
But there’s no unifying theme or narrative here to tie everything together:
Hot Shots II is a concept album in search of a concept.

Fortunately, the band emphasizes rhythm and texture as much as,
if not more than, the band’s lyrics. The album’s carefully sculpted beats and
elegant soundscapes are simultaneously precision-calculated and dreamily
spontaneous, making Hot Shots II a very imaginative and listenable, if
not very consistent, album.

The lead track, “Squares,” lays a shuffling electronica
beat over a trip-hop bassline, hits stride with a beautifully spiraling guitar
solo, and ends with a coda of Casiotone handclaps. It’s the Beta Band at their
best: “Squares” grabs handfuls of disparate genre elements, squashes
them all together, and makes them sound not only cohesive but natural and
harmonious.

The album’s closer, “Won,” is a glorious trainwreck:
The band grafts Harry Nilsson’s “One” onto a hip-hop breakdown, over
which New York-based musician Sean Reveron raps about “cinematic
synergy.” The original’s famously relentless chord sequence remains,
although the violins sound like a tip of the hat to the recent Aimee Mann
cover. The song shouldn’t work at all, but it’s a strangely compelling mess of
elements — easily the album’s most inspired risk.

Ultimately, listeners may wish the band had stuck more closely to
experiments like “Won” and had forgone some of the D&D–
inspired digressions. Still, most of the album lives up to the title, even if
some songs never quite rise above tepid shots of playful beats and stilted
lyrics. — Stephen Deusner

Grade: B

The Invisible Man, Mark Eitzel (Matador)

The phrase “singer-songwriter” can rightfully produce a
feeling of petrifying terror in discerning listeners. I’m not discrediting the
entire genre — when it’s good, it’s beautiful, but when it’s bad wow.
I will wager that Mark Eitzel is aware of this. That’s one of the reasons his
output is largely iconoclastic and only occasionally wow. Despite the
trendy electronic overlay, The Invisible Man is an album of wit,
confidence, and individuality. It’s a strong and moody album that doesn’t
resort to assaulting you with a personal holocaust every five minutes, aware
that with the exception of perhaps Arab Strap the listener must not be
constantly subjected to unsubtle baggage.

Much of the ’80s and early ’90s saw Eitzel fronting the acclaimed
American Music Club before dissolving them in 1996 to focus on his already
prolific solo career (this is the sixth full-length under his name). Eitzel,
with and without AMC, has worn a path to and from the alcoholism and self-
deprecation drawing board, using a whip-smart vocabulary to make those two
life-wreckers harmonious. And the songwriting is here in spades, enveloped not
by the chaotic folk element that personified great Eitzel moments of yore (see
“The Dead Part Of You” from AMC’s Everclear if you question
this) but by a thick atmosphere dominated by keyboards, swinging synthetic
percussion, and burbling glitchtronics. It can be awkward and unbecoming, as
with “To the Sea,” with its forced Euro-beats, or when the swooshing
background noises become an unneeded focal point (“The Boy With the
Hammer”), but skip the handful of offenders and you have a unique keeper
that belies the fact that it appears at the butt-end of a 20-year career. —
Andrew Earles

Grade: B+

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.