Klaus Dinger RIP

A subscriber to the Kraftwerk mailing list reported yesterday that Klaus Dinger had died last month. He was Kraftwerk’s first drummer, but left before the group achieved any fame. He then went on to co-found NEU! with Michael Rother. After that group broke up, he was instigator and leader of the rather wonderful La Dusseldorf who achieved million plus sales in the late 70s but are now rather obscure I think. Wikipedia states that he led the brilliantly titled La?Neu! in the 90s, but I’m not familiar with any of their work.

I bought La Dusseldorf’s third and final album, Individuellos, a couple of years after its release in 1981. Its peculiar mixture of extended passages of resonant ambience, chocolate box melodies and driving, minimal drumming remains highly individual to this day. Puzzled, intrigued and charmed pretty much sums up my feelings about La Dusseldorf. Oh and I loved the album’s graphics – all hazy television distortion, scribbled typography and over-exposed Polaroids:

Individuellos was a message from a parallel, odder universe. This appropriately low quality YouTube clip goes a long way to conveying their beguiling oddness:

RIP.

Klaus Dinger’s personal website
Sound clips and profile at Last.fm