A nice overview
DAC Crowell | 08/12/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Michael Rother's work spans some critical history in 'Krautrock'. Originally an early member of Kraftwerk, Rother teamed first with Klaus Dinger in NEU!, and then with Dieter Moebius and H-J. Roedelius of Cluster to form Harmonia. But after the final NEU! album, Rother went on to begin a series of very satisfying solo albums. This CD compiles a collection of edited tracks from the majority of these, throwing in some remixes and new tracks for extra measure.Rother's work might be termed 'easy listening', in a sense...not because it's some bland Muzaky mess, but because it literally fits that description. Nice, modern, rather minimalist guitar and synth work dominate to create some really enjoyable music that makes for a fine soundtrack to many things...driving comes to mind. And by and large, it doesn't have that typical 70s Teutonic 'darkness'; everything's light, bright, and upbeat in most cases, with a few tranquil bits of ambience thrown in to break things up. Overall, although these are all 'chops' of Rother's usually-longer and more repetitive tracks, "Radio" is a great intro to his work, better and more comprehensive than the more recent "Chronicles 1"."