Libro

When I listen to a Neu!'s song that basically repeats in a sort of mechanical tone the word: "Neu! Neu! Neu! Neu! Neu Neu!" and then goes on in a sea of fuzzes and distortions and hammering Moe-Tucker-ian drum beats, well, in that moment, in that precise moment, I understand that this is the highest point and everything else ain't worth anything compared to it. This is my relationship with Krautrock, a relationship that I would call "love++", so I approached this book with both curiosity and concern, mainly because the author is a provocative and austere authority such as Julian Cope. Yes, Julian Cope, a man that never managed to successfully achieve his musical ideas in a concrete way. Three of his albums (the first two of his solo career and Peggy Suicide) are formally perfect but, except for some songs here and there, they lack of emotions. He tries to be ironic but is only waggish, he tries to be poignant but is way too tragic, he tries to be intense and ends up being boring. But a man that starts a book by saying "I was a teenage Krautrocker" cannot possibly fail. As a matter of fact, what he had never been able to do with music, he did writing this little but brilliant volume. There's nothing really new in it if you are already a Krautrock listener, but the precision of the discourse, his ability in pulling the strings and his shocking prose make this essay a must-have for all those who love experimental rock music. And the descriptions, musical descriptions (namely abominations), here are simply perfect. I never had the chance before to find the words to describe Tangerine Dream's masterpiece Zeit. Here they are: "With great expectations from the German underground, the 1972 follow-up was Zeit; a huge sprawling double-album. Zeit means 'time' and that is precisely what this unexpected 80 minute monster was missing. I have listened to Zeit well over a thousand times, and still it hangs out any formal time-zone." Yes, simple and perfect. The whole book is perfect, and this time is not only a mere formal perfection. And at the end realize that nobody knows if it really happened.