October 14 - Hallogallo

I mentioned Porcupine Tree's version of Hallogallo yesterday, and it really showcases one of the key elements of the krautrock of the 70s, the drumming style/pattern known as motorik. The key was to keep a very basic drum pattern go with machine like precision, and this style of drumming was later adopted by seminal noise rock band Sonic Youth. Listen to the drums on the opening track of Neu!'s first album, simply called Neu! and the core elements of motorik drumming should be very, very apparent.

In 1971, Kraftwerk broke into two halves, with Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider maintaining Kraftwerk while drummer Klaus Dinger and guitarist Michael Rother started Neu! as a duo. The experimentation continued, but this time with a more traditional rock instrumentation, using drums, guitar, and bass. Hallogallo is a hypnotic track, very minimalistic, but well worth listening to in its entirety. You will be rewarded by the swirling guitars and layers of controlled feedback all on top of the very steady motorik drumming.