Sometimes you get the feeling that music has been specifically designed for taking drugs to. The choice would be yours of course, though i would avoid paracetomol. Our dad tried it and he just ended up looking foolish.
There are not a lot of tracks to talk about here, because we're on a Kosmiche trip. It's taken me a long time to try out this music - Kosmische, i mean - because i always suspected it would be the kind of sound that i would have absorbed hungrily as a teen, but would be too cold to move me now. Well, i would have absorbed this hungrily then assuming that i had the emotional intelligence to understand it, and it has managed to overwhelm me now. Some things appear at their place in time and have no link to anything other than itself. Contained and free flowing, it steps out of time as a constant. It is the answer to a question that has hung in the air. Things that you thought you knew the answer to. What does warmth feel like? What is a chemical high? Questions that are answered within.
Imagine a film student looking for utopian music that aptly befits their vision of a spotless technological future. Trying to capture the distance we have moved from an organic world so that their gleaming images of future hygiene can be perfectly accompanied. Then realising that the only truth in their final year project was that they got the soundtrack just right. That's Neu! then... Partly.
There is dissonance and absolute beauty in this music. Hallogallo is incredible. Ten minutes of sunbeams. Superman before he hooked up with John Williams, having a little morning fly over New Zealand's South Island on a sunny day, just because he can. Maybe stopping for a roll up. He may have seen the harm that cigarettes do to your health, but he knew of their delicate delights. What Alfred Dunhill would have called, "the gentle art of smoking."
Tit.
Anyway. We do have to come down a bit, and a brief moment of experiment with sound reminds us that we are earthbound. Not for long though, as the gorgeous White Sea (or is that lake?) washes your feet. Lapping at your toes as sparks of reflected light blind you gently. On your own or sharing a moment with a close friend. A brief and lasting connection. I felt real love today. I felt accepted. And then you're at sea. Gulls overhead. More light. The sound of your skin turning to honey.
Pneumatic drills. On the outskirts of the City. Negativland. All still Neu! but angry droney, not at all spaced out. Neu! aren't freaked out by this. They quite happily describe it with repetition and muted rage. And yet they remain strangely relaxed. Possibly in a queue of traffic. Turn the engine over, motor for a bit. Watch as enormous iron feet block your path. A robot pounds along the white lines in the road, clearing the way. You at a safe distance behind. Now drive! DRIVE!
But once they leave this behind, or perhaps as they go to bed, a quiet, whispered voice talks you through to the end. Oars hitting water. Remorse. It was nice but now it's gone.
I'm a little older than I once was. A statement which is possibly profound, possibly stupid. Neu! is at my 40th birthday party. The picture and person of Dorian Gray. And only three years younger.
Neu! doesn't do what other albums would. Keep the vibe. Let you drift. This must be the point. It's not about you. It's about what Neu! want to say. For people who want to try this for the first time, it is deeply rewarding. Be prepared to be confounded. It has the ability to be the background and the focal point at the same time.
There are plenty of places to find out more about Neu! Only in the music itself can you find the future so brilliantly articulated by modern machines and ancient intruments. Guitars speaking animal tongues. Birds with metal beaks. This really is very special and features pieces of music that you've always known you should have in your life.
Beauty and the Beast.
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