La Dusseldorf

La Dusseldorf eh? Formed by Klaus Dinger (the punkier side of Neu!) this being their first album and rather good it is too!

It’s one I come back to every month or two, and when I do, I put it on repeat and listen to it loads and loads because I don’t get tired of it! It’s so stupidly weak and un-punk like that in it’s own way its very punk. The seemingly endless sugary drum lead pop-ur-punk mantras get me every time and put a silly grin on my face of sheer delite.

I could go into the history of how this album came into being after the demise of Dinger’s and Rother’s classic band “Neu!” but I don’t feel that it matters (though I would suggest reading Cope’s brilliant book Krautrocksampler which, unfortunately is a pain in the ass to get hold of now).

The album starts off with the imaginatively titled “Dusseldorf” where you are thrown straight into a utopian city of the future with the sound of a plane overhead. Straight off you’re pushed along by the thumping motorik drumming (here supplied by Dinger’s brother Thomas, though who could possibly tell the difference?) accompanied with the spindley spider like guitar playing by Klaus. Some of the hookiest and sweetest synthesizer playing pops up all over the place, with the one all-important word “Dusseldorf” being sung in a dumb endearing mantric manner. Im not very good with words so I cant quite convey the sheer feeling of joy I get listening to this. 

The name of the next track is even more incredibly surprising. “La Dusseldorf” it is and this time it starts with the sound of football fans (I think) chanting and cheering, before them drums come in again and this time it’s even more uptempo and the seemingly 1–2 chord guitar riff a little harder. “Dusseldorf!!!!” indeedy. Next are some fuzzy guitar leads over some very unintelligible german/anglo sillyness, where it’s possible to make out phrases such as “so many gangsters!” which may not sound like much in writing, but the delivery makes it all worth while.

The third track unbelievably has nothing to do with the city of Dusseldorf and is instead called “Silver Cloud” which is purely instrumental, and was supposedly quite a hit for them in Germany (I think). The rhythm hear chugs along with a lot less urgency than before, bringing to mind some of the Michael Rother lead Neu! Tracks (Weissensee? Im Gluck?). The overall feel is quite blissed out, with the drums sometimes even dropping away altogether for some cosmic, twinkly almost toy box sounding synths to set the scene.

Fourth and final track is called “Time” and it starts out rather quiet, with piano tinklings before a big cymbal noise comes in and you hear the word “Time!”, it goes on like this for a few minutes before the whole sonic soundscape starts to resemble the previous tracks again whilst filling you with the same feelings of joy as before.

As I say, words don’t come easy trying to sum this one up, but I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who’s even slightly interested in the whole Krautrock genre, or even anybody who’s into Bowies Berlin trilogy, just to see where he got a lot of his influence!