German music formed a large part of RUSTY EGAN’s DJ sets at The Blitz Club between 1978-1981.
The legendary Blitz Club DJ and Chi Ming Lai of ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK recently participated in a well-received discussion about how German electronic music influenced the New Romantic movement at the ELECTRI_CITY_Conference in Düsseldorf.
Including other international acts such TELEX, SPARKS, YELLO and YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA, The Blitz Club‘s soundtrack cocktail was to prove highly influential on the UK music scene and spawned a wider movement that led to the success of acts such as VISAGE, SPANDAU BALLET, LANDSCAPE and ULTRAVOX who formed part of the clientele.
The discussion formed part of a wonderful three day event which co-organiser Rudi Esch said was to “honour the global importance of Düsseldorf’s pop-cultural heritage”
Taking place in front of a live audience, the amusing chat focussed on Düsseldorf, Berlin, DAVID BOWIE, KRAFTWERK and NEU! while Motorik beats and modern DJ culture also formed part of the spirited conversation.
RUSTY EGAN and ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK have previously worked on several projects together including a successful 25 week radio show series. Egan’s current radio show Electronic Family Tree broadcasts every Friday night / Saturday morning on internet dance station Mi-Soul Radio.
Mention Liverpool and the first thought is Merseybeat; Washington could be considered the Go-Go capital of the world, while Detroit is the home of Motown. And of course Nashville is the centre of Country Music.
Folk icon Richard Thompson once joked: “In Heaven, the English greet you at the door, the French do the cooking, the Italians provide the entertainment, and the Germans organise everything. In Hell, the French greet you at the door, the English do the cooking, the Italians organize everything, and the Germans provide the entertainment!”
Yet paradoxically, Germany has provided worldwide entertainment by setting the blueprint for modern electronic music. And if you want to name its spiritual birthplace, then look no further than Düsseldorf…
Rudi Esch’s German language book ‘Electri_City – Elektronische_Musik_Aus_Düsseldorf’ documents the city’s innovative and inspiring music scene.
“Düsseldorf is the capital of electronic music” says Esch, bassist with industrial trailblazers DIE KRUPPS who also hail from the Rhineland city.
In the book, he gives an account of how the Düsseldorf electronic scene developed from 1970 to 1986 and spawned acts like LA DÜSSELDORF, DER PLAN, LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, RIECHMANN, RHEINGOLD, PROPAGANDA, DAF, NEU! and KRAFTWERK. DAVID BOWIE, IGGY POP and BRIAN ENO were among those listening.
The music became so influential that artists and producers throughout the world rethought their approaches and developed their own variations on the electronic theme. As KRAFTWERK’s Ralf Hütter put it later: “From all over the world comes inspiration. We have been very lucky, because the music we envisioned, the ideas we had of The Man Machine and electro music, have become reality and technology has developed in our direction…and electro is everywhere”
To further celebrate Düsseldorf’s contribution to the world, Esch has unveiled the ELECTRI_CITY_Conference to be held from Thursday 29th to Saturday 31st October 2015.
Held in association with Düsseldorf Congress Sport & Event, the event will take place at three locations: CCD Congress Center, NRW-Forum and Zentrum für Aktion, Kultur und Kommunikation (ZAKK) in Düsseldorf.
The three day programme will feature lectures, discussions, concerts and DJ sets. Those taking part will include academic specialists, musicians and creative artists who were themselves part of Düsseldorf scene. There will also be international guests whose music was influenced by bands from the scene such as Rusty Egan, Peter Hook, Stephen Mallinder, Daniel Miller, Andy McCluskey and Martyn Ware while there will be live performances from HEAVEN 17, MICHAEL ROTHER, WRANGLER, VILE ELECTRODES and METROLAND.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK had the pleasure of chatting to Rudi Esch about the ELECTRI_CITY_Conference…
What inspired you to conceive an event dedicated to the Düsseldorf music scene?
It’s partly based on the success of my book that got released eight months ago. It got overwhelming reviews and explored a different angle on my hometown. It discussed the art and music scene of the late 60s, 70s to the mid-80s with the people who created it, who built the hype. The book stands as a foundation to this legacy of the city – the ELECTRI_CITY.
The initial kick for me was attending Uwe Schüttes’ conference ‘Industrielle Volksmusik for the Twenty-First Century’ at Aston University in Birmingham. I went with Rusty Egan and we were both excited to find the first ever international academic conference on KRAFTWERK. I thought: “I have to take this to my homeland”.
What are the aims of the ELECTRI_CITY_Conference?
The ELECTRI_CITY_Conference will honour the global importance of Düsseldorf’s pop-cultural heritage. The three-day event will include lectures, panels, discussions, concerts and DJ sets. We will have a meeting point for international guests to discuss electronic music at its birthplace. We talk about the connections and interactions between experimental electronic music and synthpop, techno or electronica. Our aim will be to have a combination of an old fashioned auditorium with lectures and a mini-fair that will attract everyone from passionate music lovers to artists, to hardware manufacturers. We are just thrilled that the city of Düsseldorf is nowadays ready to host an event like this.
How did you realise as a youngster that Germany, and in particular Düsseldorf, was developing an artistic identity of its own, outside of the American influenced music that was prevalent in the country at the time?
I know today that Düsseldorf was highly influential on me and my upbringing. Without DUS, I probably would never have thought of forming a band. As a youngster, you don’t have a feeling for the characteristic features of a city.
Only by travelling to other places do you learn about your hometown. When touring with DIE KRUPPS, I was surprised about the reactions we got in Europe outside of Germany – you don’t get this at home.
For a long time we liked travelling to the UK, Scandinavia and Belgium more than playing in Germany. Nobody understood our music at home. America came as a big surprise as they were really into our music and knew about NEU! and KRAFTWERK, as well as everything Krautrock. They were and are aware of Düsseldorf, especially because of the art academy: Beuys, Lüpertz, Richter and Paik are big names – and always KRAFTWERK.
How significant was The Cold War and the presence of NATO armed forces in acting as a political and artistic driving force among the German student population?
The Cold War represented a hard cut in German culture and the post-war generation had been occupied with themselves up until the time of the Wirtschaftswunder. Light music, operettas and musicals were popular amongst the general public.
The Americans brought their leitkultur of blues based rock ’n’ roll. People listened to AFN and BFBS, and they huddled around the radio to listen to the British Top Twenty on Radio Luxembourg on a Saturday. The British also created public radio stations following the blueprint of the BBC.
But they also failed to remove some of the brown structures within higher education. This created the clash between the old ideas of the professors and the new ideas of the students, resulting in the student uprisings in the sixties. Without a doubt, students got some of the more liberal ideas from listening to the radio stations of the occupying forces and this in turn led to a cultural revolution later which laid the ground to the experimentation with new sounds in the end. The people involved in the student riots – like in Paris ’68 – were all born after WW2. They were in deep protest to their Nazi parents and didn’t accept the Allies musical dominance anymore. People like Rother and Hütter were looking for a German sound aside the Rhythm ‘n’ Blues patterns. They said they were looking for a Volksmusik for the Twenty First Century.
Berlin is also noted for its recent artistic heritage. Can you recall any rivalry with what would have been West Berlin between 1970 to 1986, or was Düsseldorf’s much noted antagonism with neighbours Cologne more prominent? 😉
I’m not sure one could call it rivalry. We were so occupied with doing our own thing that we didn’t really go out and look what was going on in other cities.
One of the reasons, besides the Art Academy, was the liberal attitude in Düsseldorf that enabled musicians and artists to concentrate on creating these new sounds.
In Düsseldorf, the art scene was integrated into daily life, unlike in other cities like Hamburg for example, and the general attitude towards people was more open. It just wasn’t possible to deviate from the norm in Berlin in those days without running the risk of getting a bloody nose! Düsseldorf gave people the freedom to express themselves, and the bourgeois were used to seeing all sorts of colourful birds in the town.
Musically, it was a perfect co-existence of the ‘Berliner Schule’ and the ‘Düsseldorf School’. Bands like TANGERINE DREAM created something with more pathos and classical attempts than the bands from DUS. Here, you always were looking for something minimalistic, modern, reduced and hypnotic.
The city spawned many acts like LA DÜSSELDORF, RIECHMANN, DER PLAN, LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, RHEINGOLD, PROPAGANDA, DAF, NEU! and KRAFTWERK. You are a member of DIE KRUPPS; but who were your own particular favourites and why?
I always loved DAF. They were a great band and had a huge impact in the early eighties. I loved DIE KRUPPS before I joined them 😉
With all the other bands, it is difficult because I know the people and it’s not easy to just only concentrate on the music. I had a band with Klaus Dinger before I joined DIE KRUPPS and I remember that I didn’t like his bands too much at the time.
Nowadays I know how great NEU! is and I think LA DÜSSELDORF did a lot for this town. I loved LIAISONS DANGEREUSES ‘Los Niños Del Parque’ and I had a soft spot for RHEINGOLD. I wasn’t a fan of KRAFTWERK at all – that changed and only shows how stupid I was as a youngster!
RIECHMANN is the tragic lost figure from the scene. What do you think he might have gone on to achieve?
Wolfgang Riechmann was so talented and was so influential on VISAGE and ULTRAVOX for example, I like to think that he would have come up with more great electronic music. ‘Wunderbar’ showcases his talent perfectly and I think he would have been a German JOHN FOXX if he hadn’t been stabbed in Düsseldorf-Altstadt in 1978.
As influential as the Düsseldorf scene was, it was not necessarily very song based. How significant do you think the British acts, who took that sound to create ‘synthpop’, have been in allowing the city’s cultural contribution to be recognised internationally?
Whooa – I think it helped a lot that OMD, HEAVEN 17, THE HUMAN LEAGUE and all the synthpop bands always referred to KRAFTWERK, or nowadays to NEU! Without the recognition in the outer world, you’re nobody at home. We learned this the hard way. Only after DIE KRUPPS had a record shelf with their name on in New York’s Tower Records did we start getting free drinks in Altstadt 😉
Who do you think have been the most ‘German’ of all the British acts who owe a debt Düsseldorf?
To me the GARY NUMAN from the late 70s is somehow very close to ‘The Man-Machine’. Or is it just me?? I also think the early Vince Clarke DEPECHE MODE are close to KRAFTWERK in presenting themselves.
I know OMD are closely connected to ‘Radioactivity’ and you can hear this in their sound and way of production. Martyn Ware told me the cover of ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ is a direct response to the Capitol ‘Trans Europe Express’ cover.
The Foxx fronted ULTRAVOX! took their name with an exclamation mark at first only because of NEU! and on and on and on … but the most German of the British acts would be ULTRAVOX, because of the three albums they produced at Conny Plank’s studio.
The ELECTRI_CITY_Conference has Andy McCluskey, Peter Hook, Rusty Egan, Martyn Ware and Stephen Mallinder as special guests from the UK. What will be their contribution to the event’s three day programme?
From 29th to 31st October 2015, our music tradition will be avidly debated with people knowing our history better than we do, and we meet at its place of origin 😉
We have lectures by Stephen Mallinder and Martyn Ware, panel talks with Daniel Miller and Michael Rother, concerts by Rother, HEAVEN 17, METROLAND and WRANGLER plus DJ sets by Rusty Egan and Daniel Miller. We will have Q&As with Peter Hook and Andy McCluskey. You can see: it’s always the bass player!!
Are there are more plans to be announced?
We are working on some more nice surprises and ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK will be the first to announce these… we got something in the pipeline that would be highly attractive to all subscribers.
As you are co-hosting Rusty Egan’s appearance, you can be the one to break the news *laughs*
Your ‘Electri_City’ book has been very well received in Germany. How is the English translation coming along and when will it be published?
I will start working on the English translation after the ELECTRI_CITY_Conference as Omnibus Press is putting out the book in July or October next year. I am so happy to have a professional publishing house that specialises in music. I can’t wait to present the English edition in 2016 – “Es wird immer weiter gehen – Musik als Träger von Ideen”
The ELECTRI_CITY_Conference takes place from Thursday 29th to Saturday 31st October 2015 at various locations in Düsseldorf and features live performances from HEAVEN 17, EMOTIKON, MICHAEL ROTHER, WRANGLER, METROLAND, VILE ELECTRODES and LEN SANDER
NEU! founder members Michael Rother and the late Klaus Dinger are two of the most highly renowned exponents of Kosmische Musik, a distinctly Germanic form that was unfortunately termed by the UK music press later as krautrock.
Along with acts such as KRAFTWERK, CAN and TANGERINE DREAM, NEU! had helped restore a sense of German artistic identity, in reaction to the Americanisation of European post-war culture. But Dinger in particular was keen to disassociate NEU! from the krautrock scene, especially in relation to bands such as FAUST and AMON DÜÜL who he considered overrated and unmemorable.
Rother had been a member of SPIRITS OF SOUND with Wolfgang Flür and the late Wolfgang Reichmann while Dinger was in THE NO and THE SMASH. The pair met after being recruited as members of KRAFTWERK in 1971. They even appeared on West German TV with Florian Schneider in a short-lived line-up minus Ralf Hütter, who at this point had temporarily left the band! On Hütter’s return to KRAFTWERK, Rother and Dinger left to form NEU!
The name had been chosen by Dinger as “a protest against the consumer society”. Their aim was to develop a musical form that was distinctly original and not under the influence of the Trans-Atlantic culture that was now prevalent in West Germany. Working with Conny Plank, the legendary producer acted as mediator between the pair’s quite different personalities and artistic aspirations.
Dinger and Rother were never easy bedfellows even at the start; Dinger was a manic and confrontational character who wanted to be more than just the drummer, despite becoming synonymous with the motorik beat. Rother though was laid back and more conventional, texturing his guitars and later electronics to produce mini-cacophonies of sound that suited a more esoteric backdrop.
Inevitably, the pair had a creative tension that produced great music which was experimental, yet accessible. Unable to recreate their template live as a duo, Dinger and Rother sounded out possible willing conspirators to augment the sound. While Dinger turned to his brother Thomas and friend Hans Lampe, Rother headed to the countryside in Forst to meet with Dieter Moebius and Achim Roedelius of CLUSTER.
By the time of their third album ‘NEU! 75’, relations between Rother and Dinger had got so bad that they agreed to conceive a side each, with minimal input from the other! But David Bowie had been listening and was particularly taken with the track ‘Hero’. Rother was subsequently asked to play on the album sessions for ‘Heroes’ in Berlin, but the collaboration never materialised… legend has it that this was due to interference from Bowie’s then-management.
After NEU! disbanded, Rother’s more ambient nuances led to him eventually becoming Germany’s answer to Mike Oldfield, while Dinger continued with the magnificently spiky LA DÜSSELDORF and never really mellowed. A NEU! reunion in 1986 was aborted but Dinger released the recordings as ‘NEU! 4’ in 1995 without Rother’s knowledge. Rother later described this experience as “a rather painful disaster between Klaus Dinger and myself”. As if relations couldn’t get any worse, Dinger then toured and recorded for several years using LA! NÊU? as an umbrella name for a loose collective of musicians including his mother Renate.
The project had a particularly loyal cult following in Japan where local label Captain Trip regularly released LA! NÊU? studio and live material, but Rother felt that his former bandmate was trading off their pioneering legacy. As a result, Rother and Dinger took several years to agree on how to reissue their long out-of-print NEU! albums which were now only available on CD as vinyl sourced bootlegs.
A deal was eventually brokered in 2000 with Grönland Records, the imprint of German singer / songwriter Herbert Grönemeyer who had compiled an eight CD box set entitled ‘Pop 2000’ tracing the history of German music. The reissues were a great success and finally gave the duo some much deserved recognition.
The influence of NEU! can be heard in artists as diverse as U2, SONIC YOUTH, STEREOLAB, OMD, SIMPLE MINDS, VISAGE and ULTRAVOX. An attempted reconciliation between Rother and Dinger around this time came to nought, with the pair barely being able to tolerate each other’s company during interviews to promote the reissues. The photos taken by Anton Corbijn notably captured the tension…
Dinger had been recording updated versions of tracks from LA DÜSSELDORF’s ‘Viva’ and some new compositions with Japanese musicians, but he sadly died in March 2008. In 2013, Grönland released ‘Japandorf’, a collection of the material Dinger had been working on prior to his passing. It became a best selling record on Grönland, an indication of the regard with which Dinger was still held.
Since then, Rother has paid tribute to his friend and foe with the belated formal release of the 1986 NEU! sessions as ‘Neu! 86’, while also playing the music of NEU! live as HALLOGALLO 2010 with SONIC YOUTH’s Steve Shelley and TALL FIRS’ Aaron Mullan. More recently, Rother has been playing concerts comprising of work from throughout his career and has a new project MICHANIKA with singer / songwriter Annika Henderson.
So the music lives on, but what twenty tracks would make up an imaginary compilation to serve as an introduction for electronic music fans new to NEU! and its various offshoots? With a restriction of one track per album project, this is ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s Beginner’s Guide to the NEU! axis…
NEU! Hallogallo (1972)
The 1972 eponymous debut album released on Brain Records outlined the musical manifesto of NEU! Produced by the Conny Plank, the almost trancey combination of a repetitive Apache drum mantra and a drifting layers of guitar interplay over a lengthy time space on ‘Hallogallo’ hit the spot and announced that Germany was indeed calling.
Available on the NEU! album ‘NEU!’ via Grönland Records
NEU! Neuschee (1973)
Problems surfaced during the making of ‘NEU! 2’ when the duo ran out of budget. In a fit of madness or genius, Dinger came up with the idea to fill the second half of the album with speeded up and slowed down versions of their single ‘Neuschnee’ and its B-side ‘Super’, complete with needle drops! Other experiments included drilling an off-centre hole into the vinyl and using a faulty cassette player!
Available on the NEU! album ‘NEU! 2’ via Grönland Records
HARMONIA Dino (1974)
With NEU! having an existential crisis, Rother went to Forst to meet kindred spirits Dieter Moebius and Achim Roedelius of CLUSTER. The trio’s resultant jams became HARMONIA. Based around simplistic preset rhythm unit patterns, the restrictions allowed them to experiment on tracks such as ‘Watussi’ and ‘Dino’.
Available on the HARMONIA album ‘Musik Von Harmonia’ via Motor / Universal Records
NEU! Leb Wohl (1975)
NEU! resolved their artistic differences by supervising a side of ‘NEU! 75’ each, with Rother showcasing his thoughtful ambience alongside Dinger’s angry proto-punk; Rother’s haunting ‘Leb Wohl’ with its plaintive piano was the stand-out on side one. This contemplative number was a combined effort as Dinger provided a slow, tapping rhythm and a mournful lead vocal.
Available on the NEU! album ‘NEU! 75’ via Grönland Records
LA DÜSSELDORF Silver Cloud (1976)
For his half of ‘NEU! 75’, Dinger had recruited his brother Thomas and Hans Lampe as percussionists and took the band in a more rocking direction than the ambient-inclined Rother cared for. When NEU! split, the trio became LA DÜSSELDORF and recorded their debut self-titled LP with Conny Plank. The instrumental ‘Silver Cloud’ was a meditative masterpiece with a shrill pipey overlay.
HARMONIA & ENO ‘76 Vamos Companeros (Recorded 1976 – officially released 1997)
HARMONIA played several gigs including one in the presence of Brian Eno. He later collaborated on what became the HARMONIA & ENO ‘76 ‘Tracks & Traces’ collection. Recorded after Rother had finished his first solo album, the ambient rock of ‘Vamos Companeros’, with its choppy synth rhythm and improvised basslines, perhaps foresaw some of Eno’s later sonic experiments with U2 as PASSENGERS.
Available on the HARMONIA & ENO ‘76 album ‘Tracks & Traces’ via Grönland Records
MICHAEL ROTHER Karussell (1977)
Rother’s first solo album ‘Flammenden Herzen’ was recorded in the summer of 1976 with Conny Plank, with Jaki Liebezeit from CAN providing the percolating percussion. Although Rother had utilised synthesizers on ‘Isi’ from Neu! 75’, they took a greater role in his solo work. ‘Karussell’ had a distinctly European flavour and with its strong symphonic melodies, sounds like a one-man ULTRAVOX.
Available on the MICHAEL ROTHER album ‘Flammende Herzen’ via Grönland Records
LA DÜSSELDORF Rheinita (1978)
LA DÜSSELDORF’s second long player ‘Viva’ was their most successful album. There was the 20 minute madness of ‘Cha Cha 2000’, but the album also yielded the beautifully epic ‘Rheinita’. With big blocks of taped choir, synth strings and a simple pounding rhythm in the vein of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, this glorious instrumental became the seed of OMD’s ‘Architecture & Morality’ album.
Available on the LA DÜSSELDORF album ‘Viva’ via WEA Records
MICHAEL ROTHER Sonnenrad (1978)
Rother’s second album ‘Sterntaler’ saw a greater use of synths for melody lines. The moody textures of ‘Sonnenrad’ were the inspiration for ULTRAVOX’s ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’. During the recording of ‘Systems Of Romance’, Billy Currie was given the album by Conny Plank and a few years later, he became inspired by its muted guitar line, steady rhythm and melancholic resonance.
Available on the MICHAEL ROTHER album ‘Sterntaler’ via Grönland Records
MICHAEL ROTHER Katzenmusik #2 (1979)
Rother celebrated his love of cats with a guitar symphony entitled ‘Katzenmusik’. The twelve numbered segments were each layered around variations of four different five-note melodies that recurred throughout the album. Within a pared down musical structure, Rother’s distinctive six string purr found its ideal setting. Beautifully melodic, it was to be Michael Rother’s final work with Conny Plank.
Available on the MICHAEL ROTHER album ‘Katzenmusik’ via Grönland Records
LA DÜSSELDORF Menschen 1 (1980)
On the final official LA DÜSSELDORF album, the band were thrown into turmoil when guest keyboardist Andreas Schell committed suicide. The album was abandoned but eventually released with what was in the can. A grand statement with layers of synths and piano that was simultaneously mad and melodic, the percussive ‘Menschen 1’ comes over like the blueprint for Phil Lynott’s ‘Yellow Pearl’!
The final LA DÜSSELDORF release was a maxi-single featuring ‘Ich Liebe Dich’ and ‘Köksnödel’. By this time, Hans Lampe had left so the Dinger brothers continued as a duo. While the Thomas Dinger co-write ‘Köksnödel’ was the most crisply electronic track LA DÜSSELDORF ever recorded, ‘Ich Liebe Dich’ was a sub-six minute brooding gothic drama that could have come from ‘Organisation’ period OMD.
Available on the LA DÜSSELDORF.DE album ‘Mon Amour’ via WEA Records
MICHAEL ROTHER Palmengarten (1983)
Rother’s fourth long player ‘Fernwärme’ was his first without Conny Plank. Having acquired a Fairlight CMI to fully realise his own solo vision, ‘Lust’ was recorded without any assistance, with drum machines and electronics taking a more significant role. ‘Palmengarten’ successfully merged modern digital synthesis and sampling with organic guitar textures in a rich, glossy setting.
Available on the MICHAEL ROTHER album ‘Lust’ via Random Records
KLAUS DINGER & RHEINITA BELLA DÜSSELDORF Mon Amour (1985)
With Thomas Dinger now having departed, legal disputes with Hans Lampe stopped Klaus Dinger releasing material as LA DÜSSELDORF. So his next album ‘Néondian’ was effectively a solo project released an the elongated moniker. Conny Plank partly returned to the studio fold and although patchy, the collection featured several worthy highlights such as the tremendously anthemic ‘Mon Amour’.
Available on the LA DÜSSELDORF.DE album ‘Mon Amour’ via WEA Records
NEU! Quick Wave Machinelle (Recorded 1986 – officially released 1995)
The brief NEU! reunion in 1986 saw digital drum computers and a Fairlight CMI brought into the mix by Rother, but continuing tensions with Dinger meant that the album was abandoned. A standout track was ‘Quick Wave Machinelle’ which sounded like a lost OMD demo. It was later revised in 2010 as ‘Euphoria’ for the Rother sanctioned release retitled ‘Neu! 86’.
Available as ‘Euphoria’ on the NEU! album ‘Neu! 86’ via Grönland Records
MICHAEL ROTHER Lucky Stars (1987)
After the aborted NEU! reunion sessions, Rother returned to Forst with his Fairlight. ‘Traumreisen’ saw his work become increasing more ambient and sedate in a far cry from his NEU! roots. But ‘Lucky Stars’ was slightly more uptempo, verging occasionally on Jean-Michel Jarre territory with symphonic synths over a lighter motorik backbone and even had sonic similarities to Dinger’s ‘Mon Amour’.
Available on the MICHAEL ROTHER album ‘Traumreisen’ via Random Records
MICHAEL ROTHER Patogonia Horizont (1993)
Rother included new recordings made between 1988-1993 on a compilation ‘Radio’ and as bonus tracks on album reissues. Whether these recordings sonically fitted onto albums from 1977 or 1978 was debatable, but the beautiful ambience of ‘Patagonia Horizont’ was a wonderful, if incongruous jewel tagged onto the end of ‘Sterntaler’.
Available on the MICHAEL ROTHER album ‘Sterntaler (mit Neue Stücke)’ via Random Records
LA! NÊU? Dank Je Sanne (1997)
Following LA DÜSSELDORF, Dinger had difficulty getting records released in Germany due to his ongoing legal disputes. But the Japanese record label Captain Trip threw him a lifeline and signed him in 1994 as LA! NÊU? The 15 minute ‘Dank Je Sanne’ featured the voice of Victoria Wehrmeister and by Dinger’s more freeform standards, quite structured and peaceful…
Available on the LA! NÊU? album ‘Zeeland’ via Captain Trip
MICHAEL ROTHER He Said (2004)
After a recorded break of eight years, Rother returned with ‘Remember…The Great Adventure’. The album forced a conceptual rethink and included vocals on several tracks by Herbert Grönemeyer. Featuring the dreamy tones of Sophie Williams, ‘He Said’ had a serene Nordic flavour with an emotive chord progression and a gentle but lively pace.
Dinger’s posthumous album ‘Japandorf’ was started in 2007 with several Japanese musicians including his partner Miki Yui and Kazuyuki Onouchi. ‘Sketch No1_b’ was the result of a rocky jam between Onouchi and Dinger, with swirling synths and windy HAWKWIND sweeps added in for good measure. An early version had featured on the 2009 homage compilation ‘Brand NEU!’ as ‘Sketch 1_08’.
Available on the KLAUS DINGER & JAPANDORF album ‘Japandorf’ via Grönland Records
Dedicated to the memory of Klaus Dinger 1946- 2008
1972’s ‘Popcorn’ could arguably be seen as Europe’s first electronic pop hit.
Made famous by HOT BUTTER, they were actually a combo of session players led by Stan Free who had been a member of FIRST MOOG QUARTET with ‘Popcorn’ composer Gershon Kingsley. It was largely considered a novelty record but it inspired many cover versions throughout the world including France where it was a No1.
There, one came courtesy of a young musician named Jean-Michel Jarre who recorded ‘Popcorn’ under the moniker of THE POPCORN ORCHESTRA. While working on his first proper full length electronic album in 1976, Jarre adapted a melodic phrase from ‘Popcorn’ as the main theme of what was to become the project’s lead single. That composition was ‘Oxygène IV’ and the rest is history.
After ‘Oxygène IV’ became a Top 5 hit in the Autumn of 1977, the synth instrumental became a popular medium, even spawning budget covers albums such as ‘Synthesizer Hits’ and ‘Synthesizer Gold’.
But coinciding with accessibility of affordable synthesizers, instrumentals were seen by some as a cop out for a B-side or album filler. A bridge between pop and experimentation, these tracks were actually an artform of their own and many would become cult favourites among enthusiasts who understood that music did not necessarily need words to convey an emotive atmosphere or make people dance.
However today, it does appear to be a dying art with some musicians not understanding that formless noodling, club racketfests or tracks in which the vocalist appears to have forgotten to sing don’t quite cut it. So here are twenty five other instrumentals from the classic era when the synth went mainstream and discerning listeners looked forward to an imaginative wordless wonder.
This chronological by year, then alphabetical list however has a restriction of one track per artist and features no tracks that use a repeated vocal phrase as a topline, thus excluding most recordings by KRAFTWERK! And if you’re wondering where GIORGIO MORODER is, his work was covered recently in his own Beginner’s Guide to him…
NEU! Isi (1975)
By 1975, NEU! had broken into two artistic factions with Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger unable to agree a direction for their new album. So they divided its space with the manic Dinger piloting his rambling proto-punk of side two and the more sedate and thoughtful Rother directing the less jarring first side. ‘Isi’ was a wonderful synthesizer and piano instrumental that was still driven by a motorik beat but less dominantly Apache.
Available on the album ‘Neu! 75’ via Gronland Records
Effectively the closing track on KRAFTWERK’s iconic ‘Trans Europe Express’ album, this neo-classical piece was eerily emotive with its combination of Vako Orchestron string ensemble over some gentle Synthanorma Sequenzer pulsing. The haunting elegance of ‘Franz Schubert’ was like Ralf Hütter had been possessed by the ghost of the great German composer, reflecting the art of his melodic and harmonic intuition.
Available on the album ‘Trans Europe Express’ on EMI Records
SPACE was the brainchild of Didier Marouani who went under the pseudonym Ecama and formed the collective with Roland Romanelli, and Jannick Top. With compatriot Jean-Michel Jarre and a certain Giorgio Moroder also in the charts, the space disco of the iconic ‘Magic Fly’ heralded the start of a new European electronic sound within the mainstream. With its catchy melody and lush, accessible futurism, ‘Magic Fly’ sold millions all over the world.
Available on the album ‘Magic Fly’ via Virgin France
Inspired by the grim Roman Polanski film, ‘The Tenant’ signalled the Lewisham combo’s move away from funk rock into artier climes. A merging of the second side of David Bowie’s ‘Low’ with classical composer Erik Satie, it saw Richard Barbieri play more with synthesizer and piano textures to create atmosphere while Mick Karn dressed the piece with his fretless bass rather than driving it. Karn’s burst of self-taught sax at the conclusion is also quite unsettling.
Available on the album ‘Obscure Alternatives’ via Sony BMG Records
For anyone who first became a fan of electronic pop during the Synth Britannia era, ‘Airlane’ was a key moment. As the opening track of ‘The Pleasure Principle’ and its subsequent concert tour, it was the calling card that literally announced “GARY NUMAN IS IN THE BUILDING”! Yes, Numan had done instrumentals before, but with its sparkling Polymoog riffs, ‘Airlane’ provoked excitement and anticipation.
Available on the album ‘The Pleasure Principle’ via Beggars Banquet
With their eponymous debut under their belt, YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA fully found their technopop sound on ‘Solid State Survivor’. Written by drummer Yukihiro Takahashi, ‘Rydeen’ was a percussively colourful pentatonic tune filled with optimism and flair. This was the trio at their best as the later ‘Technodelic’ was a quite doomy, while their swansong ‘Naughty Boys’ was overtly mainstream.
Available on the album ‘Solid State Survivor’ via Sony Music
Armed with an ARP Odyssey, Elka string machine and Roland Compurhythm, John Foxx’s ‘Mr No’ was like a futuristic Bond theme or a signature tune for some space gangster. The mechanical giro was menacingly snake-like while the swirling chill invaded the speakers to prompt some almost funky robot dancing. The ‘Metamatic’ era track originally surfaced on the ‘No-One Driving’ double single pack with aother instrumental, the more sedate ‘Gilmmer’.
Available on the album ‘Metamatic’ via Edsel Records
Written by Jeff Wayne for a cinema advert, THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s cover of ‘Gordon’s Gin’ kicks in like an commercial for Moloko Plus being sold at the Korova Milk Bar. Glorious and euphoric with futuristic sounds that weighed more than Saturn, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh left the band shortly after to form a project named after an imaginary group from a scene in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ discussed by anti-hero Alex with a couple of devotchkas at the disc-bootick!
Available on the album ‘Travelogue’ via Virgin/EMI Records
Of ‘Astradyne’, Billy Currie said: “Midge started with that strong melody, Chris’ bass was also a very strong feature. I played a piano counter melody behind. The track was so strong that we felt at ease to lengthen it with a long textural piano bit that is sort of bell-like with the metronomic bass drum beats and the violin tremolo solo… Midge came up with that final section lift taking it out of the long ARP solo. I double it! It is a very good strong keyboard part. It is very celebratory at the end…”
Available on the album ‘Vienna’ via Chrysalis/EMI Records
One of two Martin Gore compositions on the Vince Clarke dominated DEPECHE MODE debut ‘Speak & Spell’, ‘Big Muff’ was a fabulous highlight on the album’s more superior second side. Highly danceable and enjoyably riff laden, this futuristic romp was named after an effects pedal made by Electro-Harmonix who later branched into portable synths. It allowed many a synth obsessed teenager to declare “I like big muff” without embarrassment!
Available on the album ‘Speak & Spell’ via Mute Records
Even with the advent of the free download era, ‘Theme for Great Cities’ is one of the greatest freebies of all time having initially been part of ‘Sister Feelings Call’, a 7-track EP given gratis to early purchasers of SIMPLE MINDS’ fourth album ‘Sons & Fascination’. Starting with some haunting vox humana before a combination of CAN and TANGERINE DREAM takes hold, the rhythm section covered in dub echo drives what is possibly one of the greatest instrumental signatures ever!
Available on the album ‘Sons & Fascination/Sister Feelings Call’ via Virgin/EMI Records
Not actually written as an instrumental, the original was the B-side of VISAGE’s first single ‘Tar’ and much faster paced, featuring Steve Strange rambling about not very much. For its dance mix, ‘Frequency 7’ was slowed down and Strange’s vocal removed. The result was a masterclass in Barry Adamson’s bass counterpointing with Billy Currie’s ARP Odyssey bursts of screaming aggression and Rusty Egan’s metronomic electronic beats for a creepy robotic aesthetic.
There are two versions of this cult classic; a mutant countrified ambient piece based around the bassline of Brian Eno’s ‘The Fat Lady Of Limbourg’ from the ‘Some Bizzare Album’ and the lively Mike Oldfield inspired album version from ‘Happy Families’. Each has its merits but the percussively jaunty re-recording just wins over with its synthesized wallows, chiming guitars and crashing Simmons drums.
Available on the album ‘Happy Families’ via Edsel Records
The hypnotic B-side to ‘Face on The Wall’ showcased the fusion of the classical, rock and prog elements that were the core talents of Chris Payne, RRussell Bell and CedSharpley who had been the mainstay of the first GARY NUMAN backing band. Not a cover of Edward Elgar’s near-namesake composition ‘Pomp & Circumstance’ , DRAMATIS‘ rousing number would however make a perfect closer for the Last Night Of The Proms in the 22nd Century!
Available on the album ‘For Future Reference’ via Cherry Red Records
Technically, ‘DNA’ is not a really synth instrumental with the hook line being far too guitar oriented. However, it had a key role breaking down barriers for music with a more futuristic bent in synthobic America and snatched a 1983 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. And for that, ‘DNA’ deserves kudos! A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS‘ cultural impact can be measured by leader Mike Score’s iconic hair style being lampooned in ‘The Wedding Singer’ and ‘Friends’.
Available on the album ‘A Flock Of Seagulls’ via Cherry Pop
A solo Dave Ball composition that was on the B-side of ‘What?’, the tall, pensive synthesist created an electronic disco number while Marc Almond was off doing the first MARC & THE MAMBAS’ album that would have done GIORGIO MORODER proud. Reminiscent of the Italian producer’s ‘Chase’, ‘….So’ featured wonderful percolating synths over a fabulously danceable groove and a solid metronomic beat that required no additional vocal histrionics or energetics.
Available on the album ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ via Mercury Records
CARE was a short lived project comprising of soon-to-be main man of THE LIGHTNING SEEDS Ian Broudie and THE WILD SWANS’ vocalist Paul Simpson. Combining acoustic strums with synthesizer melodies, CARE had promise but imploded due to musical differences. ‘On A With Cloud’ was an epic instrumental with thundering percussion, castenets, ringing guitar and heavenly synthetic layers that appeared the 12 inch B-side of the duo’s best 45 ‘Flaming Sword’.
Originally released on the 12 inch single ‘Flaming Sword’ via Arista Records, currently unavailable
CHINA CRISIS recorded a variety of instrumental sketches and the results were often superb. But as the duo of Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon only had a couple of hits, most of this material was little heard having been tucked away on B-sides. ‘Dockland’ is a prime example having been the flip of the flop single ‘Working With Fire & Steel’. The sublime nautical transience inspired by Liverpool’s once vibrant docks lying wasted in a period of high unemployment was captivating.
Available on the album ‘Collection: The Very Best of China Crisis’ 2CD edition via Virgin Records
‘Tiger Tiger’ is the best JAPAN instrumental that Sylvian and Co never recorded plus some would consider any DURAN DURAN track without a Simon Le Bon vocal to be a bonus. That aside, John Taylor and Nick Rhodes had more artier aspirations so indulged on this musical tribute to the William Blake poem. Taylor does a superb Mick Karn impersonation on fretless bass while Rhodes adds a great synth melody to proceedings.
Available on the album ‘Seven & The Ragged Tiger’ via EMI Records
Strangely enough, Vince Clarke is not really known for his instrumentals. Co-composed with Eric Radcliffe, ‘Stop/Start’ was effectively Clarke’s first instrumental as DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Any Second Now’ had a ‘(Voices)’ variant while YAZOO’s ‘Chinese Detectives’ was only played live. A Casiotone infused ditty with Linn drums and a cute melody, ‘Stop/Start’ was the B-side to THE ASSEMBLY’s only single ‘Never Never’.
Available on the boxed set ‘Mute: Audio Documents’ via Mute Records
Throwing off his mental chains, Mr Jones took inspiration from his own Buddhist spirituality and the overtures of Vangelis’ 1979 album ‘China’ for this rather beautiful piece which used to open his early shows. Using pentatonic melodies and sweeping chords on ‘Tao Te Ching’ in the style of Tomita and Kitaro, it’s a shame that this aspect of Jones’ quite obvious musical capabilities has never really been explored.
Available on the album ‘The Very Best Of Howard Jones’ via Warner Music
Inspired by a ‘Blade Runner’ sample, ‘Junk Culture’ was a reggae-ish number set to a bizarre time signature and signalled OMD’s move away from Germanic electronica. Still experimenting, only this time with more World Music forms thanks to the advent of sampling technology, the detuned Tijuana brass, deep dub bass and schizo voice snippets recalled the work of Jah Wobble, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit.
Available on the album ‘Junk Culture’ via Virgin Records
‘The Marauders’ and ‘Empire Building’ showed TEARS FOR FEARS were adept at instrumentals and their best was ‘Pharaohs’, the B-side of ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’. Launched with a crunchy 6/8 heartbeat, the sedate piano motif and drifting synths gave a distinctly nautical feel, enhanced by sound bites from the BBC shipping forecast. But out of nowhere, the middle eight Emulator voice theme from the A-side introduces its partnering chordial guitar solo!
Available on the album ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ 2CD deluxe edition
This theme was composed in 1988 for the eight part Granada TV series hosted by Factory Records’ supremo Tony Wilson and featured two of Manchester’s most iconic club footballers, George Best and Rodney Marsh. With a great string synth melody, Hooky bass, clubby beats and Italo piano stabs, this prompted the FA to commision NEW ORDER to write ‘World In Motion’ for the 1990 World Cup, while the series allowed ‘Best & Marsh’ to embark on a popular speaking tour.
Available on the album ‘Technique’ 2CD Deluxe edition via London Records
Dramatic, tense and melodic, Vangelis’ closing theme to the acclaimed 1982 Ridley Scott directed Sci-Fi movie ‘Blade Runner’ succeeded in orchestrating a score using just synths and samples to maintain the futuristic unsettlement of the story. However, the glorious track was not actually released until 1989 on the ‘Themes’ compilation, while an actual soundtrack album didn’t actually see the light of day until 1994.
Available on the album ‘Blade Runner’ via Warner Music
‘Individuellos’ was the third and final official album from the project fronted by the late Klaus Dinger of NEU!
As with the first two albums ‘La Düsseldorf’ and ‘Viva’, the self-produced ‘Individuellos’ released on TELDEC developed on the proto-punk first showcased on the second side of ‘Neu! 75’. But for this 1980 release, there was a greater presence of keyboards from Dinger under his pseudonym of Nikolaus Van Rhein and as usual, he contributed his trademark gibberish that passed for vocals.
Variations on a theme have long been a staple of German Kosmichemusik so the first half of ‘Individuellos’ was dominated by ‘Menschen’, a grand statement with layers of synths that were simultaneously melodic, mad and magnificent. Those who liked their Motorik beats were not disappointed as percussionists Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe effectively played the telephone directory with their Apache drums.
This first movement was segued into the title track which was a close cousin with its shifting bass octaves and pounding keys before returning to ‘Menschen2’. An interlude ensued with ‘Sentimental’, an abstract tape collage that sounded like a church service in reverse before hitting with ‘Lieber Honig 1981’, effectively a live version of ‘Menschen’ that basically forms the blueprint for Phil Lynott’s ‘Yellow Pearl’… Attack! Attack! Attack! Attack!
The second half opened with the neo Volksmusik of ‘Dampfriemen’ and its pretty anthemic synth motif before the Dinger brothers joined in sounding like they’ve had a few too many Tizers at Oktoberfest, with of all things, a kazoo section kicking in!
‘Tintarella Di’ followed with an opening section similar to the keyboard intro of SIMPLE MINDS’ ‘Life In A Day’. With the canter of horses hooves helping to continue the Volks theme, this pair of tracks may have confused those who loved their proto punk but it was obvious Dinger and Co were having a lot of fun with their reinterpretations of traditional German culture. In another aural sculpture, ‘Flashback’ featured a boat rowing in an echoing cavern before the church organ from ‘Sentimental’ made a reappearance.
The beautiful piano laden ‘Das Yvönnchen’ was the closer; played by guest musician Andreas Schell (who sadly passed away during the album recording), it was melodically more in line with Michael Rother, Dinger’s former partner in NEU! It underlined the ethereal qualities Dinger was capable of when he put his space cadet mind to it.
Thus ‘Individuellos’ was an album of two distinct halves like many great albums of the period such as Bowie’s ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes’, Eno’s ‘Before & After Science’, and JOY DIVISION’s ‘Closer’. It was 1983 before the final LA DÜSSELDORF release, a maxi-single featuring ‘Ich Liebe Dich’ and ‘Köksnödel’. The former possessed a brooding gothic drama like ‘Organisation’-era OMD while the latter was the most crisply electronic track LA DÜSSELDORF ever recorded. The Japanese reissue CD of ‘Individuellos’ on Captain Trip from 1997 featured these two songs as bonuses, while the recent German reissue on Warners omitted them.
However, the LA DÜSSELDORF story quite didn’t end there as a fourth album was recorded but due to legal reasons, it was released in 1985 as ‘Néondain’ by KLAUS DINGER & RHEINITA BELLA DÜSSELDORF with the subtitle of ‘La Düsseldorf 4’. Given a limited reissue in 2006 as LA DÜSSELDORF.DE ‘Mon Amour’, this included both tracks from the 1983 maxi-single as extras and although patchy, the collection also featured worthy highlights such as the tremendous ‘Mon Amour’ title track and the abridged Linn Drum assisted reworking of ‘Cha Cha 2000’.
There was a NEU! reunion in 1986 during which tensions between Dinger and Rother came to a head. The recordings remained unreleased until 1997 when Dinger issued the album as ‘Neu! 4’ on Captain Trip without Rother’s consent. This strained relations further and although a further reconciliation with Rother was attempted in 2000 as part of the NEU! CD reissue campaign on Grönland Records, this came to nought.
Klaus Dinger continued recording and touring as LA! NEU? particularly in Japan where he had a huge cult following but sadly passed away in 2008. As a final tribute to the madman known as ‘KD’, that final NEU! album was reworked by Rother and finally officially released as ‘Neu! 86’ in 2010. He leaves a charming and simultaneously erratic musical legacy.
‘Individuellos’ is available as part of the LA DÜSSELDORF 3CD boxed set ‘The Triple Album Collection’ released by Warner Music
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German music formed a large part of RUSTY EGAN’s DJ sets at The Blitz Club between 1978-1981.
compilation is released by Grönland Records as a CD, vinyl LP and download
via Grönland Records
via Grönland Records
via Motor / Universal Records
via Grönland Records
via WEA Records
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via Grönland Records
via WEA Records
via Grönland Records
via Grönland Records
via WEA Records
via Random Records
via Grönland Records
via Random Records
via Captain Trip
via Random Records
via Grönland Records
, ‘The Tenant’ signalled the Lewisham combo’s move away from funk rock into artier climes. A merging of the second side of David Bowie’s ‘Low’ with classical composer Erik Satie, it saw Richard Barbieri play more with synthesizer and piano textures to create atmosphere while Mick Karn dressed the piece with his fretless bass rather than driving it. Karn’s burst of self-taught sax at the conclusion is also quite unsettling.
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