OFF: Neu! - '72 Live and Marble Sheep - Stone Marby

[Stephan Forstner]

Thanks to the heads-up from Keith H, I picked up these Captain Trip releases
for 10$ apiece and listened to them over the weekend.

First up, Neu! '72 Live, and boy am I glad I got this. DougP is right,
anyone who has Neu!, Neu! 2, and Neu! 75, and who doesn't mind less than
stellar sound quality really should get this. Not only is this historically
important material, but it also contains some truly fantastic music. An
important part of Neu!'s albums was always the use of the studio, as well as
the input of their studio producer, Conny Plank, but this proves, if proof
was necessary, that it was in no way a crutch. The sound is a bit lo-fi, but
I think its actually better than the sound on 'Text of Festival', and now
that I mention it, I think that even if you don't have any Neu! albums, but
if you like the long jams on the second half of Text, you might want to give
this a listen as well. There are several driving space-rock/motorik pieces,
some 'Paranoia'-like moments, a beautiful 10 minute intro, and a few parts
where the band members mutter among themselves amidst a sea of hiss and
undefinable noises, which, with some strectch of the imagination, might be
interpreted as some of Michael Rothers's proto-ambient pieces. OK, that last
one is a bit of a stretch. Even so, this is great stuff. While on the
subject of Neu!, I'll also recommend the la!Neu? release titled Duesseldorf,
also on Captain Trip (CTCD-051). la!Neu? is one of Klaus Dinger's numerous
later projects, and this disc contains a 20+ minute update of Hero, another
30+ minute driving jam, and 2 versions of a shorter mellow little piece.
This is actually the only full-length post-Neu! release (other than
Harmonia) from either Dinger or Rother that I've heard that I would
recommend (not that I have heard anything close to their entire output) - if
anyone can contradict this, let me know.

As for Marble Sheep's new release, Stone Marby, well, this is really weird.
The weirdness starts with the current lineup depicted in the booklet photos
- as well as now having several female members, the band also features a big
fuzzy sheep playing guitar and an equally big and fuzzy but apparently
ailing rabbit with attendant nurse. It looks like Nik has competition in the
bizarrely costumed stage presence sweepstakes. This looks like some kind of
attempt to appeal to Japanese kid culture, an impression reinforced by the
music, which tends toward pop-metal and a very commercial sound in the
production, with distinct vocals sitting on top of the music and choruses
including sometimes shrill female yelling in the background. What compounds
the oddity is the fact that many of these songs are re-workings of Marble
Sheep Mk. I classics. 'Inside Out' is 'Hawks Out' with (probably) new
lyrics, but where the original was a 15-minute fuzzed-out brain-melting
piece of blanga, here it's a 5 minute piece of pop-metal. It's not at all
bad, but its a bit disorienting. Similar reworkings of old classics include
Horizon, the signature tune Cement Woman (again cut from a 20-minute piece
of mayhem to 5 minutes of pop-metal), and Ultraman. 2 tracks, UFO and
Ancient Wind, don't seem to have much connection with the older pieces of
the same name. The remaining tracks (Oracle from Outside/Inside, Mirror
Game, Calling Back to Ancient Gods) may well be from the Grateful-Dead-like
period in the 90's but I'm not familiar with that era so I don't know. I
certainly can't recommend this to MS Mk. I fans, at least not as a
continuation of that lineup's sound and approach, and this new sound isn't
really the kind of thing I like personally, but it isn't really bad either,
so I won't trash this - I'll just say that I think it will appeal to a
different kind of audience.

Stephan