Stereolab must be quietly fuming: the sweet repetition on the 11-minute opening track "Fur Immer" here defines the parameters of the bachelor-pad band's sound so accurately, it's uncanny. Until this long-overdue reissue, however, only a handful of famous and/or connected musicians--David Bowie, Kraftwerk, Add N to X, DAF, Blur--had heard this relatively obscure album, first released in 1973. Stereolab isn't the only group this experimental, minimalist, unsettlingly beautiful Germanic duo influenced, though; you can hear traces of Suicide's aggressive disco-punk and almost all present-day dance bands within Klaus Dinger's almost robotic, forceful drumming on "Spitzenqualitat" and the finale "Super." What strikes the listener most about Neu! 2, however, is the sheer enjoyment these aural visionaries were deriving from their conveyor-belt grooves: ecstatic yelps of ecstasy sometimes obliterating the percussive din, keyboardist Michael Rother thumping his guitar like he's the first child on a new motorway of sound which, indeed, he was. Tracks are sped up and then slowed down, almost at random. Indispensable listening. --Everett True
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