Michael Rother

yes, he was. One of the best producers ever. Someone should write something about the great German producers like Conny, Uwe Nettlebeck and Dieter Dierks pre-Scorpions and how they influenced lots of other people.

More or less.

you bringing up the whole Autobahn thing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHu9QryT0Xw

einarehn (1 day ago)
Gay!

That was terrific.

Corny German hippie.

There's a big batch of Rother reissues coming soon on Water- Sternthaler, Fernwarme, Flammende Herzen, and Katzenmusik.

Yes!

Again?

AWESOME. got any more info on these?

technically never been available in the US, and I bet you Water will be smart enough to leave off those horrible bonus tracks of 90's remixes that marred the SPV editions, which retailed for $25+ when they came out before dropping... probably english liner notes as well.

Water picked the first four, the ones with Jaki on drums & Conny producing. they know their music, those guys

On 01 July 2007 Michael Rother joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the endjam at their concert in Hamburg. John Frusciante, Flea, Chad Smith, Josh Klinghoffer and Michael Rother played for about 25 minutes to an enthusiastic crowd of 35.000 people

Amazon doesn't have tracklistings yet, but the solicitation text doesn't mention the bonus tracks, thank god. I'm happy it's Water putting these out, after they did such a good job with the Cluster/Eno material, and not, say, Cleopatra's "Purple Pyramid" Kraut/psych division.

Rother has done a whole tour with John Frusciante, so makes sense.

Water picked the first four, the ones with Jaki on drums & Conny producing. they know their music, those guys

That's one way of looking at it, the other is that the rest of his albums are so bad ("Lust" is esp. foul) that you'd mad to want to re-release them. Did Conny produce the 1st 4 albums? I thought Rother prod. them himself - in Forst.

Covers of my copies of Flammende Herzen (in Conny's studio), Sternthaler and Katzenmusik (in both Conny's studio & Forst) say "Produktion Rother/Plank" (FH's cover also says "Toning: C. Plank").

i saw those water reissues at a store today. didn't know they were out

katzenmusik is epic

yes.

i mentioned it on another thread, but: michael rother is a good-looking man.

It's true! He was wearing his 59 years lightly in the recent BBC4 Krautrock documentary. "I've always lived near rivers," he said, by way of explanation of the rhythmic flow of Neu!. He then listed a few places he'd lived, including WILMSLOW. Wilmslow!

Having seen him live a couple of years ago, very much so! Could've passed for 20 years younger.

Plus whenever I find myself reading some internet gear review which suggests that you have to have an expensive top-of-the-range guitar to be worth a damn, I think about how for some customs reason he hadn't been able to bring his own guitar, and he'd been lent a cheap one by one of the local support acts, and he still had that unmistakeable Michael Rother tone.

sonnenrad from sterntaler, my fave by rother. great guitar sound which always makes me think of liquid gold. an addictive tune with a melancholic undertone and an incredible pull. when i saw him a two years ago with moebius that piece with rother on guitar alone saved the whole evening. which on the whole was rather crap as most of the time they made prefabricated computer music.

http://www.lastfm.de/music/Michael+Rother/_/Sonnenrad?autostart

haw - I played Sonnenrad on my radio show last week!! !

Hmmm i need to get Sterntaler. I have Flammende Herzen and fucking love it.

yeah, sterntaler is my fave. I'd rate it close to top-tier harmonia/cluster.

is the BBC4 documentary available for viewing anywhere? Can't see it in eye-player.

it used to be on vimeo a couple of days ago but it isn't anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B89-69icyc

the narration is so fucking dire. is that standard for bbc4 docs?

thanks very much, don't know why I didn't think of YT.

yeah the overwrought narration is the same as on those african music docs that came out last year (?). may even be the same dude?

BBC4 obviously has a house style for these things that can be irritating. as i said on another thread, the conclusion to the krautrock doc was really unsatisfactory. bowie? really? who didn't even play with many german musicians? what about the unending and continually renewed influence of krautrock--stereolab, etc. etc.? that would seem to be the way the BBC would be inclined to go: make it relevant to the youth by showing how this old-guy music has continuing influence. maybe they just ran out of time?

also -- malcolm mooney really got shafted here. in an unacceptable way. the way the doc tells the story, you'd think that can was formed when damo suzuki showed up and started to sing.

also: no damo suzuki's wang, no credibility.

re: Rother's looks; I'm glad someone else noticed this. Something strange is going on with these guys - I hope that I age half as well as he has. Ditto on Karl Bartos. Michael Karoli was also ridiculously good looking. What's wrong with me???

flammende herzen is a very breezy listen. been meaning to pick it up for ages - due to really loving justus kohncke's version of 'feuerland' for a long time as much as the rother-neu-harmonia connections.

i remember accidentally listening to one of his records on 45 instead of 33 and it had some major mystical durutti column vibes going on

As if on cue this morning, Spotify Hipster Boyfriend let me know that Michael Rother has a new album out called Dreaming.

The first track starts with a tangle of Cluster-esque electronics and soft NEU!-esque recordings of flowing water, and I am here for this!

If my recollection is correct, I believe there is a quote in that BBC documentary about Krautrock from Rother talking about living near a river his life being an influence upon their sound.

Yeah I can see that, music that both forges forward and shimmers when it's doing so.

Yeah, I think he was talking about the river at Forst, where he records - which I think Roedelius later revealed was actually contaminated with nuclear power plant radiation? But also about the way that Düsseldorf was so centred around the Rhine.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through the album, and it is fantastic BTW. I remember reading an interview a while ago, about the new vocalist he was working with, but I cannot for the life of me remember her name. She does add a lovely intimacy to the record. I'm really digging it - Bitter Tang in particular is quite a good lockdown anthem.

Found the clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B8JF8CRoZc

Das ist kein Michael, das ist Ralfi! <3

Oh wait, no, there he is, indeed, talking about the flow of rivers.

Also YouTube suggestions, up next:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDEaJgZI6ZQ

(So frustrated, because I had tickets for that show, but was not able to go due to being very ill. Now I've no idea when I'll see him again - the shows with Neubauten have been delayed, too, so ...)

This is sounding perfect today: gently propulsive and soothing. Does anyone know who the female vocalist is?

He did mention her in an interview he did fairly recently, but I can't find it on the thread, which means I'm going to have to dig through Tumblr to locate it... eeep.

Ha the algo served this up to me today as well, I assumed it was just something old repackaged as a chunk of the “new music” Spotify recommends is like 60 year old jazz albums and such so it was a pleasant surprise - was very unprepared for the singer lol

https://www.self-titledmag.com/michael-rother-interview/

He did mention her in an interview he did fairly recently, but I can't find it on the thread, which means I'm going to have to dig through Tumblr to locate it... eeep.

Ugh, well the link is there :)

that is the one:

Actually, the story of Dreaming goes back to 1995, ’97, when I met this British singer and cello player…. Sophie Joiner is her name.

I was gonna say Michael Rother only has one track - it's a great track of course - but all this talk of a singer has piqued my interest

New website:
https://www.michaelrother.de/

wish he was on Bandcamp! this sounds cool.

man, i want to buy this, but with shipping it comes out to nearly $70. glad it's on spotify, but man that's disappointing.

Thanks for posting that recent interview! What a sweet, charming man he is. I didn't realize until late in life just how many things I love have his fingerprints on them.

but guys, get this: nothing matters and everyone else is crazy.

concerning rivers not sure if it has been mentioned. eno's "by this river" was written when he was with michael rother and cluster in forst in 1974 i guess. the river of the song is the weser which apparently left a deep impression on eno. a great river & hilly countryside (weserbergland) anyways.

I was gonna say Michael Rother only has one track - it's a great track of course - but all this talk of a singer has piqued my interest

This really isn't the album I was expecting, it's got that Rother melodic shimmer but it's also got a very strong Balearic beach vibe, some of the songs are like hearing a distinctive Michael Rother take on 'Flotation' or 'Barefoot In The Head'.

Also the use of space on the first few songs is amazing.

a lot of great artists just have "one track"!

roedelius riffs on “by this river” here and there on at least one of the selbsportait things.. can’t remember specifically

There are four versions of it – one 14 minutes long – on the Tape Archives release Bureau B put out a few years ago.

Hey hey, now, Michael Rother has at least *three* tracks:

-there's the fast, driving motorik one that feels like flying
-there's the soft, ambient, pretty one that feels like floating
-there's the slow, stately, majestic but anthemic one with the awesome guitar riff

It was meant as an appreciation! But yeah that's probably fair

The new album is really lovely. But vaguely suspicious I'll binge a few more times and then - to pursue the rive metaphor - it'll float on by.

This watery talk reminds me that there's a River Rother in Sussex (flows down from the Weald past Bodiam Castle and into the sea at Rye). Could do some nice walks along it just listening to Michael

Other suggestions for krautrock riverside walks:

Avon Duul
Annexus Cam

Don't forget Ash Ra Temepel and Tynegerine Dream.

Isi(s)
Sowiesosouse

Hallogallouse is probably betterer but it's a tough call.

can confirm Mr Rother was definitely amused when he was driven past the River Rother when he played ATP in camber sands... there may even be a photo of him next to a road sign.

this is awfully pretty. I think I gave up around Fernwarme and now I'm wondering if I missed something.

this is awfully pretty. I think I gave up around Fernwarme and now I'm wondering if I missed something.

I picked up the Solo ll box a week ago, and have listened to pretty much nothing else since. I try not to let reviews affect my personal engagement of music, but they frequently do. Not this time, though.

This is very pretty and melodic and everything you expect but texturally it's an absolute marvel, both on speakers and on headphones there's an incredibly tactile element to the production, you can feel every sound.

I keep coming back to this. There's something about its late 90s post-club comedown feel that's answering a need right now.

'Hey-Hey' is pure Hebden/Beth Orton.

_this is awfully pretty. I think I gave up around Fernwarme and now I'm wondering if I missed something._

Same here. I made a playlist🕸 of the tracks from _Solo II_that were singled out in the Pitchfork review 🕸and have enjoyed it quite a bit!