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Michael Rother

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Michael Rother is a German guitarist and keyboard player, born in 1950 in Hamburg. He went to school in, among other places, England, Karachi and Düsseldorf; the Pakistani music he heard in Karachi later worked its way into his own work. In 1971 he played briefly with the drummer Klaus Dinger in a line-up of Kraftwerk, when Ralf Hütter was temporarily away. That same year the two started their own group in Düsseldorf, Neu!.

Music and breakthrough

Neu! made the albums Neu! (1972), Neu! 2 (1973) and Neu! '75 (1975), each time with the producer Conny Plank, who is often called the hidden band member. The group is known for the motorik: a simple, driving 4/4 beat with a lot of bass drum, which always seems to be moving forwards. Dinger developed that rhythm together with Jaki Liebezeit of Can. Above it Rother laid his guitar and keyboard parts. Musicians such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Thom Yorke and the drummer Stephen Morris of Joy Division later cited Neu! as an influence.

Influence

With Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster, Rother then formed the group Harmonia, which released two albums in 1974 and 1975. Recordings with Brian Eno from 1976 went missing and were not released until 1997. From 1977 Rother made solo albums, beginning with Flammende Herzen, followed by Sterntaler (1978) and Katzenmusik (1979); Jaki Liebezeit played drums on all three. In 2022 he celebrated fifty years of Neu! with concerts in Berlin and London.

Listening

Listening tip. In Hallogallo, the opening track of the first Neu! album (1972), listen to Klaus Dinger's beat: the same straight, driving rhythm for minutes on end. Notice how Rother lets layers of guitar come and go above it, so that the track changes while the rhythm stays the same.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: ArtistsKrautrock