The Krautrock pioneer Michael Rother, one half of the remarkable Neu!, recently released a new single. The new track foreshadows Rother’s new album, to be released later this year, entitled Dreaming. The origins of the album’s material date all the way back to the mid to late 90s, when Rother collaborated with British musician Sophie Joiner on his Remember (The Great Adventure) solo album. Both Rother’s arrangements and Joiner’s vocal parts that had been amassed in these sessions exceeded what was necessary for the album, making these dormant but precious leftovers ripe for a new Rother solo album.; which he refined throughout lockdown.
Despite being primarily known for his guitar innovations, perhaps mistakenly, Rother also explored electronic music immensely. He has done so not only with the post-Neu! collaboration Harmonia, but also throughout his solo music. This is exhibited on Bitter Tang, where the hazy artifice of the electronics weaves among the soft and magnificent vocals from Joiner. These vocals are impossibly soothing, with the beautifully doleful lyrics of ‘Bitter tang of loneliness’. The track does, however, feature a typically Rother guitar line stretching throughout; harking back to early Neu! type brilliance, even.
Michael Rother’s new solo album Dreaming is released September 4th on Groenland Records, alongside his next compiled box-set of solo material, Solo II. Check out the video for Bitter Tang below, which uses photography from Rother’s personal archives for spectacularly melancholic visuals.
