AFTER a year apart, guitarist Michael Rother and drummer, singer and guitarist Klaus Dinger had opposing visions when they regrouped as Neu! in 1974. Rother wanted to develop the textural music he’d recently been exploring with Harmonia, while his bandmate was shifting towards more primal rock’n’roll. The compromise was Neu! 75, which appears along with its two predecessors and a remix album on the boxset Neu! 50!: our archive album of 2022.
The showpiece of Neu! 75 is “Hero”, where Rother’s gorgeous melodies and drones are stampeded by Dinger’s proto-punk vocals, raging against the perceived injustices of his personal life and career. It ends with a bitter declaration: “Your only friend is music until your dying day!” The message is intensified by the powerful playing of his brother Thomas and Hans Lampe, two drummers who went on to record with Dinger as La Düsseldorf.
“The way Klaus sings on ‘Hero’ is so impressive,” marvels Rother. “He wasn’t used to doing vocals, but he did it – bang! – just like that. And of course it gives that track so much of its energy.”
As with the rest of , “Hero” was guided by producer Conny Plank, the godfather of the German kosmische scene. Rother and Dinger were polar opposites as personalities, never socialising together and rarely discussing the music they made, but Plank was able to illuminate their unique studio chemistry. “Conny was a marvellous producer, because he had a
