Neu! 4

Neu! 4 is the fourth and final studio album by krautrock band Neu!. It was revised and re-released as Neu '86 in 2010.

Recording

Neu! 4 was recorded and mixed between October 1985 and April 1986 at Grundfunk Studio and Dinerland-Lilienthal Studio in Düsseldorf, Germany, and Michael Rother Studio in Forst, Germany. This was the first time Rother and Klaus Dinger had entered a studio together since 1975. However, the sessions were not completed and the planned album was abandoned.

Release

During the 1990s, the first three Neu! albums were available on CD on Germanofon Records, a dubious label allegedly based in Luxembourg who specialized in unauthorized and illegal reissues (bootlegs) of otherwise unavailable krautrock albums. Germanofon managed to get a number of their releases, including the three Neu! albums, into mainstream distribution. According to Rother's account, Dinger released Neu! 4 "in an act of despair, so he says" in late 1995 as a response to the bootlegs, which Dinger railed against in the liner notes. Neu! 4 was issued by the Japanese label Captain Trip Records, without Rother's input, knowledge or consent. He only learned what had happened in a telegram congratulating him on the release of the album. Rother, writing in March 2007, described this experience as "a rather painful disaster between Klaus Dinger and myself".