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- Jesse Niemenen
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There's two types of people reading this electronic magazine: those who have heard of Neu! and those who actually own the bootleg CDs. If you're one of those who have heard of them and claim you don't know their music, you're most likely already familiar with their sound as it can be heard quite clearly in Stereolab, Echoboy, Legendary Pink Dots, Einsturzende Neubauten, Nurse With Wound, OOIOO, Couch, OMD, Wire, even early Smashing Pumpkins and the Blue Man Group, etc,... After two decades of compact disc technology, the timeless original three studio albums are finally officially available on CD. For those who own either the boots or the original LPs (heh), the treatment on these issues is well worth the wait.
Like any genre-defining musical term, at first 'Kraut Rock' got tagged to groups who shared members and ideals, but over time it became an overused catch phrase. (Consider other sub-rock genres like post-rock, math-rock, industrial, techno, gunge and how much Front 242 have in common with Throbbing Gristle!) It wasn't so much what similarities the original Krauts had with their music, but the similarities of what was absent: during the 60s and 70s chart-toppers like Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Cream and Elvis Presley were all ripping off black rhythm and blues singers, while Krauts like Can, Kraftwerk, Faust and Amon Duul stayed far away, with a soul-less, almost faceless exploration of psychedelics and technology, tone poems, Stockhausen and Moog synths. The term Krautrock soon became the tag to anything both German and rock oriented, Xhol Caravan for example completely embraces soul elements and emotive singing.
The eponymous debut is probably my favorite: the duo established their sound and developed it into six legendary, solid tunes of varying lengths into a wonderful 45 minutes. It was punchy beats, wakka-wakka rhythm guitars and backwards tape-manipulated long humming lead guitars experimenting with both consonance and dissonance, faceless and distant. Listening, it's easy to start singing Stereolab's "Jenny Ondioline" or "Simple Headphone Mind" and if you're new to Neu!, it hits you this predates the 'Lab over 20 years.
The follow-up, '2' however wastes a chunk of time playing with their records on different speeds. "Super" gets the treatment at 16, 45 and 78 (hmm, ever hear of the Duophonic Super 45's label?) '75' comes in a good second as they expanded their sound to include piano melodies and encompass beauty without compromising their edge. By now the group, now a quartet, have become able to do some soul bearing and quiet reflection while still keeping a decent amount of distance from stadium-rock wankery. While a swirly guitar and flange effect begins to creep into a very dated sound of the 1970s, the influence of a song like "Seeland" can be heard clear as day in Neubauten's "Stella Maris" from 1996, Trans Am's "Motr" from 1997, and even Macha/Bedhead's "Hey Goodbye" from 2000!
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- Jesse Niemenen
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There is a greater dimension to the sound than the relatively-flat bootlegs. Of course, the price for greater clarity of the original analog source material means some audible hiss in spots, but I think the improved quality otherwise outweighs this minor annoyance. The new CDs also offer more music on each disc — about 20 seconds apiece for the first and third albums, and 41 seconds for Neu! 2. Some of this disparity can be be attributed to the fact that the bootlegs were taken from inadequate source (I have heard they were made from the best vinyl copies available). In remastering, Neu! brought back in some skips and pauses that had been errantly "fixed" for the bootlegs. Some tracks are also broken slightly different than on the bootlegs. As for the packaging, it's slightly more aesthetically pleasing than the bootlegs, and borrows a bit from the big foldouts that accompany Dinger's releases on the Captain Trip label. And although the promo material promises "new liner notes," don't expect any further insight into the music itself. Having owned the bootleg versions for several years, I can say that the quality of the official reissues is definitely worth the investment.
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This is the latest in a series of CDs presenting one live performance from each stage of the Fall's more-than-25-years-long career. Most of the tunes on "Live in Zabreb" come from the "Extricate" album of 1990, a point in the Fall's life when they were past the angular, percussive post-punk scream of their classic albums (such as "Hex Enduction Hour") and were moving ever-closer to repetitive techno-rock.
Smith's lyrics are mostly bitter rants about his ex-wife (a tune which might about her then-new solo music career is pointedly titled "Sing! Harpy"? yikes?), but that unhinged quality that made the early 1980s albums unique is gone, replaced by bitter grumbling over dance beats.
The music references funk (as in the overblown wah-pedal exercise that is "Telephone Thing") and disco ("I'm Frank", supposedly a tribute to Frank Zappa, though you'd never know it), yet it bears only a hint of the full-blown Manchester dance-party that would be "The Infotainment Scan" album a few years later. The high point of this Yugoslavian concert is the overexcited organ solo which ends their cover of the Monks' "I Hate You", a beautiful minute of sloppy exuberance that only reminds me of what the band used to be like.
In older days, the band would nervously fight onstage, improvise lyrics, rewrite songs while they played them; songs could be half their recorded length or twice as long; poems were read over some songs, other blurred by tapes of fragmented noise. By comparison, "Live in Zagreb" contains music by a professional group, well rehearsed. The tunes are good, catchy pop, but this is not the place to start if you want to hear what the Fall are all about. It's fine, but ultimately not essential.
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What a great influence Weezer have had on the youth music scene. Their fun-sounding geek rock was almost revolutionary to most kids (who unfortunately had heard nothing like Weezer before) when "Undone: The Sweater Song" hit the radio and television airwaves. And now the kids influenced by Weezer and the like are starting to record music.
Take the b-sides, for example. From the first notes of "The theme song," you hear the Weezer influence. You immediately wonder: can they sustain this for a whole album? No. Can they show us that there is a maturity in the other songs, mixing the poppy moments with sober rock songs that are well-crafted and hooky? Yes, they can. This first release for the band, sub-titled their greatest hits from their next four albums in the liner notes for the CD, is the first full-length release from the b-sides, whose members are no older than 21, except bassist Ken Mosher of Squirrel Nut Zippers fame. The CD is a pop gem. Vocal harmonies and hummable melodies abound, backed by rhythms that will make your toes tap on their own. The b-sides try hard on this release, showing off a great range of styles and sounds. They also show competent proficiency with their instruments for their (seemingly) tender ages. Independent geek rock has new saviours in the b-sides. Yes, indeed, quite.
 
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A lot of places on the album turn me off because the sounds mimic thoseripped off any old groovebox or Roland synth. I guess there's somethingto be said for old school sounds but I am not going to say it nor willI hear that.Most of the tracks can be broken down like this: they have their kindof nice places, then more bad parts, and then the awesome atonalcomposition that seems to be taking electronic music by storm!!I guess my issues with this album is that the chosen sounds could havebeen better and the melodies could have made sense or shown an emotionpresent on the any other full-length releases by Squarepusher.
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