Review: Michael Rother and Friends at The Rechabite

Michael Rother and Friends at The Rechabite
w/ Pale Ribbons Tossed into the Dark
Friday, February 23, 2024

Perth Festival’s stellar 2024 Contemporary Music program continued on Friday as Michael Rother and Friends delivered an out-of-this-world performance at Rechabite Hall. The event, billed as both a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of pioneering Krautrock group Neu!, of which Rother was a co-founder, as well as a tribute to the duo's other half, the late Klaus Dinger, saw Rother and Friends play selections from the group's groundbreaking cannon to a rapturous audience. 

Rother and Dinger were key players in the underground rock and early electronic sound that emerged from Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. While both would have roles in early incarnations of Kraftwerk, the two's legacy was consolidated when they joined forces and formed Neu! in 1971. The duo went on to release three of the most influential albums for not only their peers but a calvacade of artists right up until today in both the rock and electronic music worlds.

Opening for Rother was local ambient experimentalist trio Pale Ribbons Tossed into the Dark. The trio could be considered a sort of supergroup, as each of the group’s members are prominent members of the exciting and vibrant local Perth exploratory music scene. Sonically underpinned by the adventurous Djuna Lee on double bass, the group’s improvised pieces flourished throughout the traditional ballroom environs of the hall. Michael Terren on keys and synths provided a dynamic body to the esoteric soundscapes, while Jameson Feakes skillfully restrained guitar work added a uniquely minimalist texture. The group's output sat sonically somewhere between Eno’s classic Music for Airports and the instrumental synth lines of The Cure's Disintegration and was warmly received by the growing crowd.

It was now time for the main event, and the crowd pressed in closer as Michael Rother and Friends entered the stage. Rother was joined by fellow long-time collaborators Hans Lampe on drums, guitarist Franz Bargmann, and multi-instrumentalist Vittoria Maccabruni.

The quartet, while recognisable from their recorded originals, created unique variations on classic Neu! tracks, with Lampe's drumming in particular a standout of the performance. With little brisk motions and holding his sticks relatively high up compared to most others, the veteran drummer's work featured an intensity and consistency that kept the music motoring along like the VW Beetles on the autobahns depicted in the artfully grainy Super 8 videos projected on the screen above the band.

Elsewhere on stage, Maccabruni perfectly aided each track by providing a variety of instrumentation, sequencer work, and vocals, while Bargmann was magnaminous, serving the roles of both bass and lead on his Fender. Swapping between sequencer and guitar on stage, Rother was inadvertently symbolically signalling his exploratory approach to music, leading the talented band through the psychedelic valleys such as the giddy Mario Kart bonus lap drive of ISI, the ten-minute plus proto-techno stomp of Hallogallo, and the angular post-punk and industrial-electronic highway of Negativland.

Michael Rother and Friends was a glorious night out with friends, many of whom we have listened to repeatedly over the years but were meeting for the first time in person.

MICHAEL HOLLICK

Photos by Adrian Thomson