NEU! (Box Set) by NEU!
LABEL: Gronland Records

Though typically overshadowed by their progeny in terms of fame, the fathers of Krautrock, NEU!, carved a distinct niche in the musical landscape between the early 70’s and 80’s that is still being charted today. While arena rock grew in popularity and Kraftwerk rebelled using electronics exclusively, NEU! struck a middle ground of incorporating both the organic and the electronic, often processing one with the other to create entirely new sounds. Gronland records has recently released the NEU! Vinyl/Digital Box, a marvelous retrospective of the group that collects their studio albums along with unreleased and live material, serving up a prominent reminder of just how genre defying/defining the group was.

The music of NEU! dwells somewhere within the realms of straight-ahead rock and electronic experimentalism. Processed guitars and emphatic drums are met by liquid soundscapes and electronic textures. At times, these selections are not balanced well in NEU!’s releases, but it does manage to create a movie-like dynamic. This is perhaps no more evident than on NEU! 75, which cuts the personalities of the two members, Rother and Dinger, literally side by side.

Synthesizers were still a fresh instrument at the time, and it’s remarkable listening to these recordings and hearing NEU! avoid many of the cliche’s those they influenced would perpetuate for years to come. Some twenty-to-thirty years old, this music has managed to stay sounding vital and new, if not as revolutionary as it was at the time. If anything, it appears that we’ve only recently caught up to what they were doing.

The inclusion of 72 Non-Public Test, a live documentation of NEU!’s May 1972 performance, seems a bit weak and superfluous in comparison to the richness offered in the collection, but it does flesh out the experience of this important milestone in music. With an immense and lavish booklet, stencils, a t-shirt, and five LP’s, Vinyl Box is certainly an unwieldy introduction for newcomers to the band, but essential for those who have longed for a solid assessment of NEU!’s creative breadth and power.


REVIEWED BY NEIL LEVENS
NEIL’S FAVORITE TRACKS: “Seeland” • “Hero” • “Wave Mother”

The special vinyl box set includes:
> 4 vinyl LPs & 1 vinyl maxi-single
> Original studio albums NEU!, NEU! 2, NEU! ’75 and the for the first time, an official release of NEU! ’86
> NEU! ’72 (previously unreleased live maxi-single 20 minutes!)
> 36-page picturebook & NEU! Stencil
> Free download code for all albums
> Free NEU! t-shirt (limited edition)

You can order the vinyl box set here