37:Neu! - Neu! 2

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.

38:Neu! - Neu! 75

Though this should be called Neu! - the '75 bit being added on the inner sleeve only (at least on the reissue copy that I have at least). For this record I swapped the sunny skies and cute dogs of San Francisco for the cold and wet picturesque Sheffield. This one accompanied me as I dashed round the city, down to Palo Alto, back to the Mission and then onwards; lugging my case to Oakland for my last meal in the US and tearful farewells. It's almost ironic that the record almost sums up my time on the west coast - dazzling, beautiful, accomplished and that byword of the best krautrock: optimistic.

Neu! 75 totally makes up for the awfulness of Neu! 2. The terror of that second side washes away with the opener Isi - classic Neu! in the Hallogallo style but with a light piano. Then two tracks of that contemplative noisy ambiance that they do so well. Side 2 kicks off with Hero - proto punk? maybe but only in the sneer. Riffs and drums and some barely coherent singing, it's wondrous and fills the record with joy and sneer. E-Musik is back to the drums and riffing and then After Eight, revisits Hero with more sneer and more impudence.

All in this is just a great record and such a relief after the last one disappointed so. If you only get one Neu! record then get this.

36: Neu! - Neu!

The band that defined the sound. Dinger and Rother together at last. Speedfreak clean as Cope says. I had my Neu! spiel all ready to go. Oh yeah, Hallogallo's great but the rest of the album is all those stupid noise experiments. But, as usual, I'm dead dead wrong and I've completly underestimated how good Neu! are in their totality.

So Hallogallo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItXUqk_eIE8), Dinger's drums, that wikky-wikky sound and the rest. 10 minutes of pure joy and non stop fury. It's as incredible as you remember and it's way better than the last time you listened to it. They could retire on that and go down as one of the greatest bands in the world. But then they go off into "experimental" territory and do things that most groups would completely fail at. BUT. And it's a big BUT. They do it really really well. Between Hallogallo and Negativland are three beautiful meandering tracks that drift in and out of your consciousness and are just stunning. Negativland is slower than hallogallo and adds some aggressiveness to the mix, but the pattern of drums and bass is the same. Then it rounds off with Lieber Honig which is more drifty but with strange child like horror vocals.

I was never sure if they were trying to re-create music or if that was just something that people made up. But this is just a really fantastic record and the best thing is that it's a record that you can listen to from start to finish and every track is an eye opener. Maybe they weren't trying but they sure achieved something.

35: Moebius and Plank - Rastakraut Pasta

So Labour Day (or Labor Day) caught me out. Labour Day is like bank holiday monday but for the US, and seemingly has some link with May Day but the specifics escape me. I spent my Labour Day Day on a foggy beach watching crabs, eating burgers and drinking beer. So pretty much a typical bank holiday affair.

The week prior had been spent in the company of the oldball entry in the list. Except that, now that I've heard it, I don't think it's particularly oddball any more. The Moebius is Dieter from Cluster and the Plank is Conny from everywhere. It's all a bit worthy but has moments of excellence. This was a funny one as it seemed like a crappy record from the cover and I seem to recall that all the purists hated it's inclusion, though I don't really know why.

It has the fun elements of Harmonia and Cluster but with a bit of an arch overtone. The first track is all grates and cluster drums. The title track veers slightly towards reggae but is quite listenable - it's weird how takes on reggae often turn out all right. There's a bit of a noise break and then the best song on the record Missi Cacadou. Over reggae-ish drums and guitars Plank (presumably) puts down tons of electronic squiggles and bleeps and some bonkers processed vocals. I have doubly no idea what whoever it is is going on about but it's a fun journey nonetheless. The album then rounds off with some noodling.

So, overall, this is pretty good - not amazing, or as good as the cluster axis and not as fun as the La Dusseldorf things but better than the cosmic jokers at their worst.

34: La Dusseldorf - Viva

That back cover makes it all clear. La Dusseldorf are the funningist Krautrock group ever - completely able to humour themselves and those around them. This lot are having FUN and they want you to know all about it. And like the one before this record is ludicrously optimistic and utterly non-pretentious despite potentially being pretentious. Again it's like the best bits of Neu! pushed down and injected with humour. I listened to this record twice a day over the past week - it would settle me into the day at PARC and then I would start it up again getting the train back from Palo Alto. Racing towards San Francisco, reading Sweet Thursday and the clouds rolling over south San Francisco, the fog slowly clearing to reveal the most gorgeous sunsets I've ever seen. It would also join me on walks to the Oakland Whole Foods where the beer selection is better than Beer Ritz, Utobeer and the Dram Shop combined and they even have an Olive Bar in the store than you can pitch up a stool and eat until the store closes*.

And like how Neu!'s Heroes almost pre-defines punk, this record has a lot of the characteristics of the punk sound but without the sneer, and without the fear. The first four tracks slide by in a crescendo of durms and synths. Then Geld with steady drums and wavering lyrics - god knows what they're on about - no doubt Money but I don't really know what their stance is. Then Cha Cha 2000, so good it spawned a band (which is also good: http://www.discogs.com/Cha-Cha-2000-Autobahn/release/159839). And it is good - great in fact. All that great uplifting Neu! piano and drums, and the repetition of Cha Cha Zwei Tousand! It's cheesy as hell but I fucking love it and the line "dance to the future" makes me beam from ear to ear. I am so glad that they could go to this place that no-one else would - no-one sings about paradise anymore and that's something of a shame as this really works.

What a great blissful joy of a record.

*This is a lie.

33: La Dusseldorf - La Dusseldorf

Another great record on the Cluster/Neu/Harmonia axis of krautrock. La Dusseldorf was Klaus Dinger of Neu! and some other boneheads (Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe). I like Neu! a great deal but they can come across a little dry sometimes, ditto for Cluster and you know what - sometimes it's nice to talk things seriously but sometimes you just want to have fun. This is that but with a kraut bent. It's fantastic, uplifting and invigorating music that has (eeek) a sense of humor but isn't stupid. I listened to this walking back from the 24th street Mission BART stop to my place on the Mission. The sun was shining, I was in a ridiculously good mood having spent the better part of the day trading Simpsons quotes back and forth. The optimism washed over me and I cried for at least the better part of one block.

The opener, Dusseldorf, is bonkers - Dinger plays right from the book of Neu! but someone (one of the Dingers) keeps saying "Dusseldorf" over and over in a fairly stupid voice. Following that it's right into "La Dusseldorf" which is pretty much the same thing but with the stupid voice turned up to 11. Silver Cloud is then the most optimistic Kraut song, all plinky synths and low tempo chugging riffs. Then a lower tempo song which is classic slow Neu! with someone wittering on. Presumably about time.

So, I don't want to call this since I haven't revisited Neu! in some time, but this could out-Neu! Neu!. It's like the best part of Neu! - the drums and relentless riffing with the addition of stupid vocals and german male wailing. It's pretty incredible and I will be putting in my order once I get home.

32: Kraftwerk - Kraftwerk

This is a tricky one. So Kraftwerk was a double album on Vertigo which collated the two Traffic Cone LPs which pre-date most of the Kraftwerk that is known and loved. I have something of a confession to make: I don't really care for Kraftwerk. I like the idea of them but in practice they leave me wanting. But this is not the Kraftwerk of synthesisers, robots and drum machines - this is Avant Kraftwerk, all ambience, drones and hums. In theory there's not much not to like but in practice it's Bad Avant rather than good Avant.

The double-albumness of the whole thing doesn't do much to help meaning that even though there's a mixture of short and long tracks everything drags on and at the end of it, you come away with not much. Klingklang is okay but sounds more like Neu! than anything else. Atem is typical of the other tracks, with not much rhythm and a lot of sound effects - like someone breathing for 3 minutes.

The only reason that this album is worth thinking about, however, is Ruckzuck. 8 minutes of frantic flute staccato accompanied by synthesizer tinkling - it's really good but not outstanding. It does, however, stand out amongst the drier parts of the record. I tried this record everywhere - to and from Palo Alto, around SF on the BART, over to my favourite stop: 19th Street in Oakland. Once, on the train, the timing of the train pulling up and the record slowing down ending of one of the tracks was in perfect synchronicity. Even this did not lift the record up above where I had thought it was. It's just quite boring.