Klausi Sheißt Auf Hollywood

la-Duesseldorf.de - Mon Amour

Ripped from a compact disc re-released on Telefunken in 2006 (originally recorded in 1985) to high quality lossless FLAC audio. The second of three Neu! related reposts to cheer up your weekend.

The Dinger brothers split after Individuellos, Klaus planned to continue to record as La Düsseldorf but legal problems prevented this. So he recorded and released what was to be La-D.'s fourth album as Klaus Dinger + Rheinita Bella Düsseldorf and named the album Neondian (Klausi Sheißt Auf Hollywood). I'll leave you to form your own translations. It was quickly rushed out in 1985 on TELDEC and then pulled immediately.  

The album was to sneaked out in Japan as La Düsseldorf 4 ten years later on Captain Trip Records (the same label which also snuck out Neu! 4), Finally, Telefunken reissued it in 2006 as Mon Amour (with extra tracks) and naming it after the synth anthem which opens the album. A new band name adorned the sleeve La-Duesseldorf.de. I understand that the album has been discontinued again.

This is an album full of highlights and easily Dinger's best since Neu! (imho). Mon Amour and Neondian are Dinger classics, America is pure riffing punk genius (and likely to upset a few across the pond) which was to be expanded on greatly on his next album Blue (so I'll cover it more in depth then). Music making has changed dramatically since the earliest Kraftwerk and Neu! recordings and Dinger successfully incorporated modern synths and drum machines into his sound. Koksknödel is very much like a later Kraftwerk track in everything apart from name. A few tracks on the release were actually reworkings of older La-D. tracks including an updated synthpop take on Cha Cha 2000. I love this record and it is such a shame that it will likely never see a legitimate release again. Have you kept up? If you have, then I promise La! Neu? next....

1. Mon Amour
2. America
3. Jag Alskar Dig
4. Neondian
5. Pipi AA
6. Koksknödel
7. Cha Cha 2000/85
8. Ich Leibe Dich!
9. Geld 2006 (Internet Warm Up Version)

Sauerkraut with Noodles

La Düsseldorf - Japandorf

Ripped from a promotional compact disc released on Grönland Records (CDGRON 124) in 2003 to high quality lossless flac audio. Withdrawn as such, to be released as by Klaus Dinger & Japandorf, here's the final ever release by late Neu! drummer Klaus Dinger. Completely nütty as ever ...but totally wonderful!

1 Immermann Straße
2 Duomo Arigatou
3 Sketch No. 1-b
4 Udon
5 Kittelbach Symphony
6 Cha Cha 2008
7 Ai
8 Sketch No. 4
9 Spacemelo
10 Karnival
11 Osenbe
12 Andreaskirche

Neu! Tiger!

La! Neu? - Year Of The Tiger

The story goes that Klaus Dinger found an old Neu! demo tape from the early seventies and decided to re-record the tracks for a new release. Whilst you must bear with the worst ever Dinger sleeve design and album title, this is greatly offset by the music contained therein. Dinger gets back behind the drums for two thirty minute (plus) tub thumping Neu!-beat monsters. Autoportrait builds to an almighty crescendo of noise from a slow atmospheric start, Nortre Dame is a little more sedate with Victoria adding mellow vocals over Rembradt's squeeky synths. 

Ripped from a compact disc album released on Captain Trip Records (CTCD 124) in 1998 to high quality lossless FLAC audio.

1. Intro
2. Autoportrait (Rembrandt mit Viktoria + Apache)
3. Notre Dame

Take Out The Out-Takes

La! Neu? - Zeeland

Also marketed as Live'97, this La!Neu? album is often mistaken as a live gig, but it wasn't. Klaus Dinger and his ever-expanding group of musical collaborators recorded this live in the studio with each track completed in just one take. So, expect plenty of ambient studio noise, occasional chatter and the odd German swear word thrown in for good measure. 

The album starts well with the pleasant To Get You Real, then the plinkity-plonkity synthpop of Dank Se Janne and the Neu-beat of Champagne, though all of them are a tad lengthy .....the perils of letting a drummer play with a drum machine! Klaus Dinger takes back the vocals and kicks up the reverb on the stratocaster lullaby Satellite Of Mine, but then lets his mum loose on the awful title track. Insekt is just six minutes of high pitched drone, and a simple love song is dragged out for a whopping eleven minutes on the closing Silly Face.

Ripped from a compact disc album, released on Captain Trip Records (CTCD 086) in 1997 to high quality lossless FLAC audio.

1. To Get You Real
2. Dank Je Sanne (For Not Erasing The Tune Of Dank Je Sanne)
3. Champagne
4. Satellite Of Mine
5. Nippon Video Geisha
6. Zeeland
7. Insekt
8. Silly Face

Krautpünks

La! Neu? - Düsseldorf

As a musical concept, Düsseldorf is much more in the same vein as the original Neu! albums than the Mon Amour, Blue or Die Engel Des Herrn albums. Twenty years on, Dinger covers Neu! with an updated version of the classic Hero and digs deeper into his past with the thirty-plus minute Krautrock jam of  D.-11.12.95. Open live mikes in the recording studio add a live feel to the album, which I think works well. La!Neu? were to take this idea further with the Zeeland album.

Ripped from a compact disc album released on Captain Trip Records (CTCD 051) in 1996 to high quality FLAC audio.

1. Hero'96 (J'accuse)
2. Mayday'95
3. D.-11.12.95
4. Mayday'96

Too! Blue?

La! Neu? - Blue (La Düsseldorf 5)

Before we continue here is a quick re-cap. La Dusseldorf had split after their third album in 1981, but  Klaus Dinger tried to rejuvenate the name with Neondian (aka La Düsseldorf 4 or Mon Amour as we know it here) in 1985. Neu! had attempted a fourth album, Neu! 4 in 1986, but it was never finished. Neu! 4 was eventually released in 1994 in an unfinished state, then finally polished up and officially reissued as Neu! 86 in 2010.

Blue (aka La Düsseldorf 5) was recorded by Dinger around 1987 with a new band under the name La!Neu? There were four  La!Neu? "studio" albums and four live albums. I will try to cover some of them over the coming weeks. The first was Blue which was eventually to be released only in Japan in 1999.

Arms Control Blues is a lushly produced narrative by Dinger with some delightful guitar work, the title track Blue is a ridiculously catchy pop song and very likely Dinger's most commercial work. I love it, some may not. Lilienthal is a dreamy sequencer atmospheric much in the vein of mid-period Durutti Column. Touch You Tonight could have been a great track but here it sounds just like an unfinished Iggy Pop song.

The mainstay of the album is the eighteen minute punk masterpiece America. A shorter studio version appeared on Mon Amour but here it is in its full glory. Live "in the studio" was to become a feature of later La!Neu? albums.

Ripped from a compact disc album eventually released on Captain Trip Records (CTCD 178) in 1999 to high quality lossless FLAC audio.

1. Arms Control Blues
2. Blue
3. Lilienthal
4. Touch You Tonight
5. Für Omni (For Granny)
6. America

Now we get complicated, you need to pay attention.

la-Duesseldorf.de - Mon Amour

The Dinger brothers split after Individuellos, Klaus planned to continue to record as La Düsseldorf but legal problems prevented this. So he recorded and released what was to be La-D.'s fourth album as Klaus Dinger + Rheinita Bella Düsseldorf and named the album Neondian (Klausi Sheißt Auf Hollywood). I'll leave you to form your own translations. It was quickly rushed out in 1985 on TELDEC and then pulled immediately.  The album was to sneaked out in Japan as La Düsseldorf 4 ten years later on Captain Trip Records (the same label which also snuck out Neu! 4), Finally, Telefunken reissued it in 2006 as Mon Amour (with extra tracks) and naming it after the synth anthem which opens the album. A new band name adorned the sleeve La-Duesseldorf.de. I understand that the album has been discontinued again.

This is an album full of highlights and easily Dinger's best since Neu! (imho). Mon Amour and Neondian are Dinger classics, America is pure riffing punk genius (and likely to upset a few across the pond) which was to be expanded on greatly on his next album Blue (so I'll cover it more in depth then). Music making has changed dramtically since the earliest Kraftwerk and Neu! recordings and Dinger successfully incorporated modern synths and drum machines into his sound. Koksknödel is very much like a later Kraftwerk track in everything apart from name. A few tracks on the release were actually reworkings of older La-D. tracks including an updated synthpop take on Cha Cha 2000. I love this record and it is such a shame that it will likely never see a legitimate release again. Have you kept up? If you have, then I promise La! Neu? next.

Ripped from a compact disc re-released on Telefunken in 2006 (originally recorded in 1985) to high quality lossless FLAC audio.

1. Mon Amour
2. America
3. Jag Alskar Dig
4. Neondian
5. Pipi AA
6. Koksknödel
7. Cha Cha 2000/85
8. Ich Leibe Dich!
9. Geld 2006 (Internet Warm Up Version)

Dinger Dangle

La Düsseldorf - Individuellos

When you find a formula which works, stick at it. The third La-D. album continues where the first two left off with more manic beats, catchy hooks and gibberish vox. We were now in the new wave era (this album was first released in 1980) and a euro-kitsch influence is creeping in, think Plastic Bertrand on speed and you'll get where I am coming from.  Think mullets, shiny shell suits and slip on shoes, and you'll understand that the Dinger sense of style was very much home grown. The overall idea on their final combined effort is very much in the La-D./Neu! vein -  clearly Klaus Dinger is a genius and there is more and better things to come.

Ripped from a compact disc reissue of an album originally released in 1980 on TELDEC to high quality lossless FLAC audio.

1. Menschen 1
2. Individuellos
3. Menschen 2
4. Sentimental
5. Lieber Honig 1981
6. Dampfrieman
7. Tintarella Di ...
8. Flashback
9. Das Yvönnchen

From Dingerland to Telefunken

la Düsseldorf - la Düsseldorf

More clever music from former Neu!'s Klaus Dinger (this time with his brother Thomas) and Connie Plank behind the mixing desk again.  Dinger's use of simple repetitive melody and simple rhythms is superb. The title track is superb, but it is Silver Cloud which has this listener's total admiration.

Ripped from compact disc reissue of a classic 1976 album, originally released on Nova Records.

1. Düsseldorf

2. la Düsseldorf

3. Silver Cloud

4. Time

la Düsseldorf - Viva

Most will know Rheinita as the tune which inspired the occasional British synthpop act, especially O.M.D. Reading up on it these days, Andy McCluskey readily admits plagiarising the track for Maid Of Orleans. I love Cha Cha 2000, though a good few will object to it's full twenty minutes.

Ripped from a compact disc reissue of a classic 1978 album, originally released on Radar Records.

1. Viva

2. White Overalls

3. Rheinita

4. Vögel

5. Geld

6. Cha Cha 2000