La Düsseldorf

Gatefold cover, blue vinyl. Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf. The mantra repeats for thirteen minutes, hypnotic as a highway journey, ecstatic as a stadium anthem. It's 1976 and Klaus Dinger - the drummer who invented the motorik beat, the man who alongside Michael Rother created Neu! and redefined the very concept of rhythm in rock - has a new machine to drive. He's christened it with the name of his hometown on the Rhine. And the first record he makes with this new formation is called, of course, La Düsseldorf. The first two tracks? Düsseldorf and La Düsseldorf. The lyrics? Düsseldorf, repeated ad infinitum, printed in full on the lyric sheet. An act of civic pride that would make any tourism board blush.

After Neu! split in 1975, Dinger recruited his brother Thomas Dinger on percussion and Hans Lampe - already present on Neu! '75 - on electronics. With Conny Plank at the production helm, the trio built something that didn't yet exist: a luminous, euphoric krautrock that aimed straight for the heart instead of the head. Where Neu! was austere and minimal, La Düsseldorf is exuberant and generous. Where Kraftwerk - Dinger's former bandmates - were becoming machines, La Düsseldorf remains stubbornly human.

Silver Cloud is the single nobody expected: an instrumental that reached number 2 on the German charts, eight minutes of pure motorik bliss floating exactly as the title promises. Zeit closes the album in a crescendo that moves through three languages - German, English, French - while Dinger whispers and wails over rhythms that multiply like the gears of a cosmic clock.

The influence is incalculable. David Bowie would bring this sound to Berlin for his most celebrated trilogy. Brian Eno would absorb its lessons in repetition and transcendence. British post-punk - from Joy Division to Simple Minds - would be born partly from these frequencies. But in 1976, while the Ramones were debuting in New York and the Sex Pistols were preparing their assault on London, La Düsseldorf had already intuited that the future of rock lay in reduction to the essential: beat, movement, ecstasy. Listening to this album is like driving at night on a deserted autobahn. The destination doesn't matter. Only the journey matters.