La! Neu?

La! Neu? were a German band founded by Klaus Dinger. After around 1985, Dinger had difficulty getting records released and distributed in Germany, but the Japanese record label Captain Trip Records signed him in 1994, setting up the Dingerland sub-label for Dinger's projects. La! Neu? is a loose collective of Dinger and (mostly) younger musicians, plus his mother Renate. Their records are recorded quite quickly and spontaneously, and the sleeve designs are usually by Dinger, with hastily handwritten liner notes and obvious glue drops.

La! Neu? is also used as an umbrella name for different projects from Dinger's friends; Rembrandt Lensink's solo album God Strikes Back, an album by the group Bluepoint Underground and the group Die With Dignity's album Kraut have all appeared under the La! Neu? name. The album Blue was originally meant as a follow-up to Dinger's solo album Neondian, but was rejected by the German record label (the rejection letter is reproduced on the back cover) and only issued a decade later.

Neu!

Neu! (trademarked NEU! in block capitals, German: New!, pronounced [ˈnɔʏ]) was a German krautrock band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s. Though Neu! had minimal commercial success during its existence, the band is retrospectively considered one of the founding fathers of krautrock and a significant influence on artists including David Bowie, Sonic Youth, Camera, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and the Banshees, PiL, Joy Division, Gary Numan, Porcupine Tree, Ultravox, Simple Minds, Negativland, Stereolab, Manic Street Preachers, Boredoms, Radiohead, the Horrors, Electrelane, Kasabian, DIIV and much of the current electronic music scene.

History

(1971–1975) Main career

Neu! was formed in 1971 in Düsseldorf as an offshoot from an early line-up of another seminal krautrock band, Kraftwerk, whose early works were also produced by Conny Plank. The name ("new!") was inspired by the prevalence of the advertising business in Düsseldorf at the time, according to Dinger, who described it as "the strongest word in advertising" and even owned a pro forma advertising agency himself for the purpose of booking studios.

Neu (disambiguation)

Neu! is a German krautrock band.

Neu or NEU may also refer to:

Neu! (album)

Neu! is the debut album by German krautrock band Neu!. It was recorded in December 1971 at Windrose-Dumont-Time Studios, Hamburg, Germany, mixed at Star-Musik Studio, Hamburg, Germany, and released in 1972 by Brain Records. It was reissued by Grönland on May 29, 2001 and then licensed to Astralwerks for US distribution. This was Rother and Dinger's first recording together after they left Kraftwerk in 1971. They continued to work with Konrad "Conny" Plank, who had been producing the Kraftwerk recording sessions.

History

Having broken off from Kraftwerk, Rother and Dinger quickly began the recording sessions for what would become Neu!. The band was christened by Dinger (Rother had been against the name, preferring a more "organic" title) and a pop-art style logo created, featuring italic capitals. Dinger recalled Neu!'s logo:

The pair recorded in Star Studios in Hamburg, with the up-and-coming Krautrock producer Plank, as Dinger had with Kraftwerk. Dinger noted that Plank served as a "mediator" between the often disagreeing factions within the band.