Michael Rother

*whimpers*

Last night was so, so good! I've only ever seen him as a little ant on a stage in a huge place like the Southbank Centre. Seeing him up close in a little club was... exciting. His guitar tone is so... I don't know how he does it. He is the least guitar hero guitar hero I have ever seen.

Also he continues to be an astonishingly good looking man. He's not very big though. He never stops grinning it seems; there's something very impish about him.

Did he have lots of pedals and things sitting on top of a table in front of him?

He only had 4 guitar pedals (maybe 5? But I think one was a tuner) but yes a whole table of gear. I was so close I couldn't actually see well what was on the table because of the angle of the stage. I could definitely see he was using a laptop (with a sequencer that cut him off if he got too bashful and said "danke" too much) and some kind of rack mount - could have been a sampler, could have been a processor; I could only see the back. But an unfeasible amount of wires and cables and what looked like splitters or DI boxes. Hans Lampe was using headphones for a click track and some kind of trigger pads on the drums that I suspected came from Michael's gear. A lot of what they were doing was playing against samples and backing tracks - for NEU! songs they had one set of (processed) drums on the sample track, and then Hans would play the second, live drums on top - so there were 2 drummers, one living one dead, which was a bit strange. There were a lot of ghosts onstage, which Michael acknowledged several times. For the Harmonia tracks, again, he had his bandmates in a silver box while the three of them (there was another lad who played live rhythm guitar or bass) played on top.

It was very sensitively done! A real sense of "this is how these tracks were meant to be performed but there wasn't the technology at the time" balanced with the fact that so many of his collaborators - Klaus, Dieter, Conny - are now dead. It was a moving tribute - but also it felt live enough that it totally ROX0Red. Hans broke a sweat, even if Michael is ageless and also poreless. Have I mentioned how beautiful he is? He is phenomenally handsome, that man.

I'm trying to remember all the songs he played. He would say "that was Neuschnee" or "that was Isi, from NEU! 75" or "Veteranissimo which we performed as Harmonia" to which we would laugh and say "yes, Michael we know" (the front row probably knew his catalogue better than he did) so then he stopped introducing the tracks and played at least 2 songs I didn't recognise! He did Katzenmusik "because there was a request from England" which made me very very happy. Seeland, Negativland, Immer Wieder (without words which was weird) and several others I've forgotten.

Katzenmusik! So cool!

His first three solo albums are all stunningly good, some of Liebezeit's finest ever work on them as well.

This thread revive inspired me to blast out Flammende Herzen this aft, such a euphoric album.

feuerland is the motorik sound taken to perfection

Flammende is my special favorite

His first three solo albums are all stunningly good, some of Liebezeit's finest ever work on them as well.

This is doing my head in at the moment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b071c24k

He has so many adorable stories, he just sounds so lovely.

66 years old yesterday! Happy Birthday Michael!

Michael Rother boxset "Solo"
The vinyl and CD boxset "Michael Rother - Solo" will be released in collaboration with Groenland Records on 22 February 2019.

The vinyl version of the boxset will contain the original and digitally remastered albums "Flammende Herzen", "Sterntaler", "Katzenmusik" and "Fernwärme" as well as the album "Soundtracks" with Michael Rother´s scores to the feature films "Houston" and "The Robbers" as well as the album "Live & Remixes" featuring two remixes for Paul Weller and the British band "Boxed In" and live recordings of the new track "Groove 139" (with Hans Lampe and Franz Bargmann) and "Drone Schlager" by his project "Hallogallo 2010" (with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Aaron Mullan of "Tall Firs").

(A bit) more here, incl. a youtube of "Groove 139", which is some groovy motorik stuff (and (therefore) awesome)
http://thequietus.com/articles/25758-michael-rother-new-box-set-solo

Those records are so, so good, completely core kraut-kosmische for me (I may actually listen to Flammende Herzen more often than Neu tbh)

I will totally take any of those first four Rother albums over anything else he ever did. Katzenmuzik is actually on my shortlist for favorite records ever.

otm - they are apex expressions of 'innigkeit'

Wish I liked these records more, but I think these three Rother albums (I've never heard the fourth) are some of the silliest and least challenging albums to emerge from the whole Krautrock scene: "Sonnenrad" is lovely, yes, but every other Rother track is like a less-good version of that one ("Stromlinien," for instance, is nearly identical). Katzenmusik is one idea spread across an entire album. The brittle guitar sound on songs like "Karussell" reminds me of The Cars or something, and not in a good way. Compared to an immediate contemporary such as, say, Manuel Gottsching (whose run of albums between '77 and '79 mops the floor with anything Rother ever did, including Neu!), Rother hardly rates. Every Rother solo tune sounds like he's about to break into the melody of "Modern Love" by Bowie at any moment; every song.

Sorry, rant over. I'm still bitter about being convinced to buy those Water reissues a decade ago

LOL totally disagree but totally love your skewering anyway

Yes, total bollocks. Having said that, I always think the Rother albums are a bit on the bland side, a bit too nice, I prefer La Dusseldorf. I love his guitar playing though. I like Ashra too, but they're bland too.

although I raved about "Zyklodrom" above from memory some 14 blink-of-an-eye years back, when I listened again to Flammende Herzen the track that still did it for me was/is "Feuerland", with its smears of sound and fatigued/winded drum sound (which reminds me of JD's Closer, e.g. "Passover"). I suspect that Martin Hannett was listening closely, just as "Oasis" on Ash Ra's Correlations invents Durutti Column a year early.

Every Rother solo tune sounds like he's about to break into the melody of "Modern Love" by Bowie

haha oh wow

I listened to these again last night after reading the thread and agree they do sound a little enervated - like echoes of previous work, work in which he was more immanent. I do love the title track of Flammende Herzen - that and Feuerland.

"Oasis" on Ash Ra's Correlations invents Durutti Column a year early.

This is true btw.

Stromlinien is my favourite thing he's ever done, like a krautrock Shadows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvDmbjqPfb8

idk about enervated/not immanent

the michael rother albums are 'redeemed' music, not 'struggle' music. It is their core identity to be thus. Deluxe and Neu! are at least partly struggle music.

(classic examples of redeemed music/struggle music for context: mozart/beethoven, early stravinsky/mid period stravinsky, david sylvian/scott walker, kottke/fahey)

He'd definitely had a Hank Marvin thing going on.

early/mid stravinsky are the wrong way around in what I just typed

the michael rother albums are 'redeemed' music, not 'struggle' music. It is their core identity to be thus. Deluxe and Neu! are at least partly struggle music.

I like this explanation; I need to think about it. I suppose I instinctively find the former more engaging, where the latter can seem a little programmatic.

yeah it really depends; i have music from either type that reduces me to a shuddering jelly

This is the thing - I'm not against redemptive at ALL; in fact, I might prefer the strange kind of ecstacy that comes with the unburdening of struggle. An obvious point, but it's always the quality of the expression.

Digging this convo
Thanks to all, as always, for tolerating my ridiculous pronouncements

Every Rother solo tune sounds like he's about to break into the melody of "Modern Love" by Bowie at any moment

that 3am manhattan vibe is a good thing imho. "modern love" is self-actualized/-redeemed blues -- "i know when to go out and when to stay in . . . it's not really work, it's just the power to charm" -- resonant like rother's solo stuff of the bittersweet relief/ennui of a world-class artist with nothing left to prove but still the impulse to create

is there a particular origin for the redeemed/struggle dichotomy?

Not entirely, it’s kind of a personal fixation, but it sprang from an interview in the wire with Scott Walker shortly after tilt came out in which Sylvian comes up and, at least the way I remember it, SW contrasted his music and Sylvian’s by describing the latter’s music as coming from a “redeemed” place. Stuck in my mind. Struggle is not a great polar twin term but you see what I’m getting at.

Found it tucked away quoted by a commenter on one of momus’ live journal posts:

He's much more of an ethereal merchant than I am. I'm a man who struggles with spirituality whereas he's given in to it. My album and the one before it is about struggle in a Dostoyevskian sense. It's a real fight for me in every line. Whereas he's given in to a state of grace.

First part of a long interview: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/02/20/39086811/german-guitar-god-michael-rother-talks-kraftwerk-neu-and-the-dubious-term-krautrock

his first four albums are re-released, also available on spotify now.

another good interview: https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2019/03/06/michael-rother-the-aquarium-drunkard-interview/
I like michael rother, he seems like a cool guy.

Played live in London earlier this month, with Thurston Moore opening. Review: https://thequietus.com/articles/26329-michael-rother-neu-live-review

Amazing setlist (4 to 9 constitute Sterntaler, but Scheisse, look the songs that make up the rest of the set!)
1. Katzenmusik 1/Katzenmusik 5/Katzenmusik 6
2. Neuschnee
3. Seeland
4. Sonnenrad
5. Blauer Regen
6. Stromlinien
7. Sterntaler
8. Fontana di Luna
9. Orchestrion
10. Deluxe (Immer Wieder)
11. Hallogallo
12. Dino
13. Negativland (with Thurston Moore)
14. E-Musik (with Thurston Moore)

oh damn, I'd pay like....20 bucks for a live album of that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtYvda-Q2Nc

that was AWESOME thank you

wow <3

it's now impossible for any vaguely avant-garde gig to happen in London without Thurston Moore showing up, apparently

Pretty much.

and an irresistible, groove-driven ‘Hallogallo’ from the first Neu! album, that gets the crowd dancing wildly. An audience member shouts out: ‘Play that one again and for longer!’

Can that clip above loop for three hours?

some days i think if sterntaler was the only music i heard for the rest of my life i'd be okay with it

today is def one of those days

never heard this before. listening now - it extremely owns

hell yes

I hadn't listened to it in a long time so I put it on now immediately my mood improved 100%. Thank you thread and Michael.

I listened to him constantly after Brexit Day - his albums (first 4) are a pure sugar rush.