So my chin sagged under the weight of this years inaugural CHI beard. The weight and the looming deadline, meant that blogging was off the radar as I raced to get my 10 pages done and polished. Neu! 2 is cheap! The sleeve says 1,000,000 vorbestellungen which seemingly translates as 1,000,000 preorders. Well that's 1,000,00 people that are going to pretty pissed off when the record arrives.
The first side is wonderous. Fur Immer is right out the book of Hallogallo, all drums and wandering guitars, utter Motorik heaven. Spitzenqualitat is huge drums in a huge cave, Gedenkminute is exactly one minute of chimes and processing. Lila Engal is a sneering Hallogallo, pre-punk Neu! at it's finest.
Then the second side. The bonkers, stupid mess of the second side. The side that makes you feel ripped off. The real fuck off as Cope says. The legend says that Neu! ran out of money recording the first side - but that feels unlikely to me, it's more likely that they got bored, and decided to stick two fingers up at the world. So the second side is the single Neuschnee / Super played at different record speeds. So Neuschnee played at 78 / Super played at 16 and 78. Neuschnee played back on a tape whilst someone holds the tape player down, slowing it up and speeding it down. The songs themselves are superb - Neuschnee is played slow, Super starts off with somone saying "Neu!" and then leading into superb riffage territory. BUT the "edits" (One of them described them as the precursor of remixes) are utter dross and make you feel like you've been ripped off. It's unlistenable rubbish - a joke taken way too far.
What they were thinking I'll never know but it's just not good nor defensible. It defies sense. They're not a soft target. Neu! 2 makes me feel dirty and ashamed. It should have been solid but it's somewhat embarrassing.
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