Hallogallo 2010 @ HMV Picture House, 17 Aug

Tonight I figure out what's so special about the Neu! beat: it's the one groove that bypasses the hips altogether. Go to any club night and you'll shake your ass, go see Motorhead and you shall headbang. But the only body parts getting a workout at Michael Rother's celebration of his 70's body of work is the solar plexus, and maybe the back neck hairs as he teases out a familiar theme (eg Harmonia's Deluxe or a severly twisted Dino) on his treated guitar.

Was the Neu! project to remove all tinges of soul or rhythm and blues from dance-based music? Why care when you can let That Beat lift you away from all quotidian concerns, wrap you up and elevate your being. Because you don't dance to Neu! music, you levitate. Rother, pushing 60 and still one of the coolest men in music, carves skyscraping sounds from his instrument while bassist Aaron Mullan (Tall Firs) holds down his lines, freeing Steve Shelly (Sonic Youth) to lay down the most propulsive sound ever to be non-machine driven. At once primal and modern, it's the sound of NYC punk if the Indians had never sold Manhattan to the white man. [David McNally]