Thanks to the name-checking done by indie acts like Stereolab, Sonic Youth, Tortoise, and Radiohead in the 90s, the German duo NEU! finally had their sonic blueprints resonate beyond the confines of their decade and their home country of Germany. The yin-yang dynamic that defined Neu!—drumming madman Klaus Dinger and the more meditative guitarist Michael Rother—couldn’t last forever, and each man’s subsequent solo work continued in diametrically-opposed directions, Dinger’s La Dusseldorf project manic and thunderous, Rother’s solo albums placid and elegant.
Back in 2009, duo Gerhard Michel and Gordon Pohl released Hand in Hand, their first album as Musiccargo. Much like fellow Germans Kreidler, Michel and Pohl were indebted to their countrymen’s influence (their website calls Michel “a student of Klaus Dinger”). Their debut emphasized electro with a krautrock drive underneath it, courtesy of Pohl’s sequencers and hardware. A smattering of remixes followed, but in the intervening four years, Musiccargo have stripped away all of that electro sheen.
Judging by the cover and artwork for their second full-length Harmonie, they now seek to bathe everything in pure white light. Released by England’s Emotional Response imprint (which was responsible for last year’s sterling Secret Circuit compilation), Michel and Pohl favor austerity here, the warmth of acoustic instruments over components, organic over the electronic, or—if they must use such devices—analog versus digital, the drum machines mostly replaced by a real kit. There’s a clarity and intensity to every track here like bright eastern light in a parlor. One song title translates as “The Sun Shines On Everybody,” and that may very well be the duo’s intent this time around.
And yet where the assumption might be that Musiccargo would use the drums to conjure the now-departed spirit of Dinger, Harmonie both succeeds yet underwhelms because it instead relies on the sensibilities of Rother. Or rather, they emphasize the measured over the manic, not quite striking a balance. The nine opening minutes of “Domino” begin with audible human breath and windswept sounds, and slowly, carefully, cautiously begin to add more. Bird calls can be heard through the open space of the track and the wordless exhalations and clean, skyward guitar lines of Michel recall Rother’s side of NEU! 3, all proto-new age breathing and music as ocean waves, rising and falling. It’s a well-crafted and gorgeous piece, each gesture emphasized, but the track proceeds at the turning of a screw.
The sizzling cymbals of “La Era” also give the impression of breath, but at least here the track is quicker to escalate and reach the simmering (courtesy of more clanging percussion and plucked guitar) over the course of its eight minutes. More percussion bubbles up on side-ending “Das Buch” suggesting that the duo may soon be back to their danceable ways come the album’s back half. But “Tip Top” continues at the same measure, with more droning electronics low in the mix, chimes, and the most tactful use of a drum machine.
The incessant floor toms and electronic drones of “Sol Lucet Omnibus” bring to mind another krautrock act: Faust with minimalist composer/violinist Tony Conrad for a one-off album back in 1973. Backwards guitars and voices swirl, but the pacing never quickens. It mesmerizes, but also gives the impression that Harmonie operates better as a holistic listen than one of discreet “songs,” and it’s more satisfying when processed in such a manner.
