【搬运译】Pitchfork评Neu！1972年专辑Neu!
搬运自：网易云音乐专栏【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）
翻译：豆目豆科
As far back as I can remember, the first three Neu albums languished in the Import-only Impossible; the Japanese letters on the sleeves were incomprehensible, but also painfully explicit: prohibitively expensive, they screamed. And now, their stateside release has opened up unimagined worlds to the ears, cheap!
在我的记忆深处，NEU!前三张专辑将要引进的消息未曾断绝，却总被搁置；封套上的日文虽然看不懂，但依旧能让人不禁发疯尖叫：这特么贵的离谱。如今，它们得以在美国重新发行，再次为人们开启一个令人难以想象的奇幻世界，而且价格良心！
And like the band's moniker promises, this music is new. Strange and visionary, but so incredibly familiar. Why? Because a record originally cut in 1972 by a splinter off the indomitable Kraftwerk has seeped into the musical consciousness of a generation; its influence is everywhere. Listening to Neu recalls that giddy, pointless thrill of standing at the Four Corners in the southwestern United States. What's the big deal? Well, nothing, really, except maybe the sense of being in many places at once. That's Neu: standing with cocked German eyebrows at the nexus of shimmering space rock, processed psychedelia, mechanical kraut, and wonderfully libidinal disco.
正如乐队名字所承诺的那样，他们的音乐是完全新颖的存在。怪异却又极具远见，同时也甚是亲切熟悉。为何如此？只因由这张最初在1972年由克拉夫特威克乐队创作的专辑在这些年里已分裂诞生了无数的后续作品，逐步渗入一代又一代人的音乐意识，经久不衰；其影响无处不在。听NEU!会让我想起了站在美国西南四角时的那种令人眼花缭乱、毫无缘由的快感。“这有什么大不了的？”嗯，的确没什么，真的，也就是同时身处世界各地的感觉。什么是NEU!？它立于站在明星之中的太空摇滚、精雕细琢的迷幻摇滚、机械般的Krautpunk和奇妙而引人“性”奋的迪斯科舞曲的交汇点。
Upon hearing "Hallo Gallo," the first track on Neu, a friend of mine started inadvertently humming an organ line from Tortoise's "Djed." That quiet gesture summed up the album for me: listening to the past and hearing so much of the future. But Neu is no mere missing link. "Hallo Gallo" is a masterpiece of rhythm: tight drums, funky guitar scratch, a coolly insistent bassline, futuro synths, and effects-laden guitar slinging wide acid-fried launches into deep space. Neu is remarkably economical where its influences cultivate excess: the exploratory guitar and keyboards discover new aural landscapes where the pioneers of prog would remain hours blissfully adrift. "Hallo Gallo" is intelligent dance music in every sense of the term: it's the ass inviting the mind out onto the floor. Nobody leads; both are simply in motion.
一听到“Hallo Gallo”，我有一个朋友就会无意中哼起Tortoise“Djed”中的管风琴旋律。对我而言，这一颇为祥和的姿态囊括了这整张专辑的聆听体验：聆听过去，聆听无穷多的未来。但是《NEU!》绝不仅仅填补了我们所缺少的。“Hallo Gallo”是节奏的杰作：紧凑的鼓点、时髦的扫弦、冷静一贯的bassline、未来感的合成器，以及充满炫技成分的吉他一齐向外太空开炮。《NEU!》中孕育出的“过度之处”仍是非常经济实惠的：用探索性的吉他和键盘开拓新的听觉景观，先驱们能在那里幸福地漂泊数个小时都不会乏味。“Hallo Gallo”无论从何种角度来看都是一个讨巧的舞蹈音乐：你的屁股会不自主开始扭动，被诱惑，会只想着来到舞池地板中央。没有任何人引导；一切都是自然而然的。
"Sonderangebot" is a murky soup of noise and silence: an interlude of clanging cymbals, and ambient fuzz, a kind of breathing nebula. The song bleeds darkly into "Weißensee," a droning parade of dirty, cone-filtered guitar that anticipates the pastoral psychedelia of Flying Saucer Attack and Hochenkeit. "Negativland" opens in jackhammer drills and coalesces into a lock-tight, bass-driven martial progression of stabbing guitar and industrial noise: it's dark but strangely danceable. Something like krautpunk: syncopation, cerebral and serrated.
“Sonderangebot”是归于噪音与寂静的混沌佳肴：铿锵的铙钹和环境中模糊的间奏，像一团富有生机的星云。而这些随即暗暗地渗入“Weißensee”之中，这是一首由发自肮脏破旧的锥体过滤吉他的嗡鸣构成的歌曲，隐约有Flying Saucer Attack和Hochenkeit田园迷幻的味道。“Negativland”以手提钻的噪音开场，并凝聚成一个闭塞、由低音驱动的刺耳吉他和工业噪音建起的军事工程：它黑暗至极，但奇怪的是依旧可以随之起舞。就像Krautpunk一样：切分音、卷舌音和锯齿般的噪音占据了你的听觉。
Neu is music with the proper documentation: it passes from one musical realm to another without the jackbooted border patrol so much as blinking an eye: this is sound with the highest level security clearance. And when it shifts from one sound to the next, it never winks at you with postmodern irony, never elbows you in the ribs to let you in on the joke. Neu is truly a citizen of the musical universe, at home everywhere and everywhere at once. And Astralwerks' re-release of this phenomenal debut could only serve as a long overdue recognition of this fact. For perhaps without Neu, there would have been no Astralwerks; worse, without Neu there may have been no Pitchfork. Neu anticipates us all. Now who's your daddy? Come on, say it!
《NEU!》是应被记载阐明的音乐：它跨越一个音乐领域到另一个音乐领域，没有任何一个武装边境巡逻队会妨碍其脚步，甚至连眼睛都不眨一下：这是具有最高级别安全许可的声音。当它从一种声音变作另一种声音，它从来不会用后现代暗讽向你示意，更不会用手肘肘击你的肋骨以作寒暄，让你加入这个玩笑。NEU!是真正的音乐宇宙公民，四处为家，也遍及四处。Astralwerks重新发行这一惊人的处女作，只能视作其早应兑现的承诺。因为若是没有NEU!，就不会有Astralwerks；更糟糕的是，若是没有NEU!，可能都不会有Pitchfork。NEU!的出现预言了我们所有人。现在你该任谁做爹？来，叫个好听的！
