Neu!

Klaus Dinger had drummed on Kraftwerk’s 1970 debut album, and Michael Rother briefly joined the group’s touring lineup the following year; when that transitional, “floating” version of Kraftwerk dissolved in mid-1971, the two left together to form Neu! in Düsseldorf, recording their debut with producer Conny Plank at Hamburg’s Star-Musik studio that December. Across Neu! (1972), Neu! 2 (1973), and Neu! ‘75 (1975), the duo pushed a sparer, more hypnotic and repetitive electric-guitar-and-drums sound than Kraftwerk’s own contemporaneous, increasingly synthesizer-based direction. The steady, forward-driving “motorik” beat Dinger developed on these records — most audibly on “Hallogallo” — became one of the most widely cited rhythmic templates in krautrock and its later influence on post-punk and electronic music. The Neu! track “Negativland” gave the American tape-collage group Negativland its name and, in turn, the name of its own Seeland record label.