Michael Rother:
Hearts on Fire
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As
a founding member of Kraftwerk, Neu and Harmonia,
multi-instrumentalist/composer Michael Rother is a central figure in the
story of the somewhat indefinable music of the 1970s which has come to be
known by that charming appellation Krautrock. Playing mostly an elegant,
spare guitar to the electronic machinations of KraftwerkÕs Ralf Hutter and
Florian Schneider, or alongside drummer Klaus Dinger in the coolly
propulsive Neu, and later joining ClusterÕs Hans-Joachim Roedelius and
Dieter Moebius for the daydreamy textural whims of Harmonia, Rother was a
chief architect for a sound that has grown hugely influential on later generations
of musicians. That sound ŠŠ in particular his sustained-note, pastoral
string work and extraordinarily tasteful leaving-out of notes ŠŠ was further
refined and defined on a series of superb solo albums in the mid-'70s done
in collaboration with the equally tersely tight Can poly-drummer Jaki
Liebezeit.
A
few months ago the Grnland label re-released HarmoniaÕs Tracks and
Traces, a
sort of remake/remodel-type collection of the last recordings that Rother,
Roedelius and Moebius did with their friend
Brian Eno in 1976. Long lost
and forgotten, the resurrected tapes of the original sessions
revealed upon close inspection to be a nicely free-flowing and unfussily
avant-garde set of soundscapes. The tapes had been recorded at RotherÕs
longtime farmhouse-studio in bucolic Forst, Germany (where he still
resides), in a low-key, friendly atmosphere of un-goal-oriented musical
exploration. Over the phone from his digs in Forst, Rother gives us a look
at the wherefores and whatsits of the albumÕs genesis and evolution, and
offers a bit of insight into why the music he made more than 30 years ago
sounds ever more relevant today.
BLUEFAT: Tracks and Traces has some
interesting history behind it; your colleague Roedelius had reworked these
pieces previously, it seems.
MICHAEL
ROTHER: Reworked is maybe not the right expression. The story was that Brian Eno
took those tapes with him when he left Forst in Õ76, and he took tapes full
of music when he went on to record with David Bowie. The idea was that he
should return to continue our collaboration, and from then on, many things
happened ŠŠ my first solo album came out shortly afterward, and I became
very busy, and he didnÕt return.
So
some years later I heard from Roedelius, who was in touch with Brian, that
the tapes somehow were missing. Brian couldnÕt find them, maybe he didnÕt
look hard enough, I donÕt know, but I was very busy, and the fact was that
I just had to accept that the tapes were gone. I was sad, but since we
originally didnÕt have in mind to release anything, it was just sad that
the documents were gone.
But
in 1997 Roedelius found one of those tapes when he visited Brian and asked
him if he could have a look. Because there was some trouble in the band at
the time, especially between Roedelius and Moebius, they werenÕt speaking,
and I wasnÕt on very good terms with Roedelius either, Roedelius just
decided on his own to transfer the four-tracks onto digital media and then
mix the recordings. He then sent a CD and said, ŅThis is what I found, and
how do you like it?Ó We werenÕt very happy about how that happened, because
obviously Dieter Moebius and I would have preferred to join Roedelius in
that project, but we couldnÕt really argue about the quality of what he had
transferred.
(continued)
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