La Düsseldorf
Individuellos

Individuellos is the latest chapter in the Dinger&Co trilogy, ordered more qualitatively than chronologically: the first one is an undisputed masterpiece, among the most important in its genre, the second, more lively and ambitious, falls just short of the first, yet remains among the greatest Krautrock albums. Unfortunately, Individuellos merits a different discussion. Yes, unfortunately, because I love the genre, I adore Dinger and his La, I admire his musical vision, and I am moved at the end of Cha Cha 2000, right now as I was the first time I heard it, but this album really falls below expectations. The trend is increasingly to strip down that rock-classic orthodoxy in favor of synths and glittery effects which, if in Viva they could still fit because they did not disrupt the whole—in fact—here everything gets killed and suppressed behind this heap of hippie ambiguity that does nothing but ruin an album, and close ingloriously a wonderfully short but intense career like those in Düsseldorf. I don't want to talk of a total flop because that would be an exaggeration and they don't deserve it, but "Menschen" 1 and 2 dangerously resemble "Rheinita" (but there is only one Rheinita) resulting in a banal and predictable attempt. The Title Track laden with electronic effects seems to save itself or simply not to relate explicitly to anything already expressed by them. Church bells open "Sentimental", and close it, with something unclear in between. "Lieber Hoing 1981" recalls the adventure of Neu! both in the name of the track (previously recorded by the same Neu!) and in the motorik and claustrophobic rhythm it has. Another waltz of keyboards and semi-irritating rhythms in "Dampfriemen" with some Bavarian tavern background choirs that certainly fail to lift the album's fate, which, beware, reaches the penultimate track "Flashback" that somewhat recalls the fluidity of "Im Gluck" so dear to the Krukki, but without having anything to add. The album closes with "Das Yvonnchen", which turns out to be the most enjoyable track on the album, perhaps because it is based on piano and without too many effects or glitters, it is a simple piano melody that freezes La’s project.

I have tried to limit my disappointment that I have, that I had, and that I will have for this album which suffers too much from the time in which it was composed, but no matter how hard I try I think it is evident. Because there were great expectations on them that perhaps they got too much involved in the alluring trends of '80s music, perhaps no longer having the strength to row against the tide, as they had done so far.