When last we left our Düsseldorfer heroes, Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger, they had left Kraftwerk, overcome their fear of broccoli, saved Camp Chippewa from the machinations of an unscrupulous real estate developer, and recorded a masterpiece that would influence independent music for decades to come. The year is 1973, and again the dynamic duo is holed up in a studio with Can/Kraftwerk producer Conrad Plank to record their sophomore effort.
Neu 2 stands primarily on the strength of its eleven-minute lead-in track, "Für Immer." The song is pounding and serpentine, its straight-ahead rhythms approaching punk, while guitars buzz like helicopters overhead. As Plank twists the knobs, the drums take on a thin, mechanical quality. The guitars are banished to the background, only to be inverted again with renewed force. Washed-out feedback drones in and out, while the bass plods on with undeterred aggression.
"Spitzenqualitat" is equally confrontational, dominated by hard, reverberating drums pounding at various tempos somewhere in the deep space of whispering guitar effects. The track proceeds as if Plank somehow turned up the gravity in the studio: the percussion becomes slower and heavier, as the guitars grow emptier. "Spitzenqualitat" simply falls apart as if it can't be sustained; the silence is too dense. "Gedenkminute" is nothing but the sound of that dissipation; something of a throwaway, it consists of nothing but wind and the occasional clock chime. "Lila Engel" is truly krautpunk, featuring Dinger's nonsensical chant: a cross between Damo Suzuki and Johnny Rotten. It's dour but explosive, channeling Neu's fierce repetition into something anthemic.
Then something happens. In the Nintendo world, the sound of tinkling electronic music suddenly running at double-time can only signal one thing: you are running out of time. But in the real world, it means something else entirely: you are running out of money. I guess it's to their credit that our insolvent heroes didn't simply pad out the remainder of Neu 2 with a giant sucking sound, or the minimalist ambient textures of Rother and Dinger turning out their pocket linings. Instead, they proceeded by inventing the modern remix.
"Neusachanee 78," "Super 76" and "Super 78" are surgically deformed versions of the album's two singles, "Neuschnee" and "Super." Fragmented, spliced, and filled with background noise and studio chatter, these tracks lay bare the process of studio production. Likewise, the tapes in "Hallo Ecentrico!" rewind, fast-forward, and are eaten up by the machine. An inventive way to compensate for lack of funds, and even an ingeniously subversive commentary on music-making, these broke-ass experiments don't satisfy like the original tracks. Thankfully, the budget allowed for the album's superb closer, "Super," a heavy, yet fluid assault of pounding drums and rubbery bass, complete with Dinger's savage howls; "Super" may just be the Boredoms' long lost uncle.
And so, with an album, half-brilliant, half-ludicrous, in their hands, our heroes go out to face a cold world armed to the teeth with "You so poor..." jokes. Will they redeem themselves before God, country and indie posterity? Will their albums ever see U.S. release? Will East and West Germany ever be reunited, and if so, will Roger Waters make good on his promise to stage The Wall live in Berlin? Will Pink Floyd even record The Wall?
