The NME has a lot to answer for and I won’t for a minute justify their appalling hype-job on the mostly-unexceptional Gay Dad back in 1999. Judging by the number of second-hand copies of their album Leisure Noise lying around, it seems that a lot of people bought it on the back of some hyperbolic statement like “album of the year” or “hands down the only album you should care about in 1999” or even “this year’s OK Computer”. It’s equally apparent that hearing the damn thing didn’t live up to expectations.

I was lucky enough not to buy the album and instead went for the far cheaper option of the “Oh Jim” single. The song, like the album, is a fairly straight Brit-pop rip off – Supergrass for the kids who thought Be Here Now was better than Morning Glory. And yet nestled at the end of the disc is an outstanding 8 minute jam by the name of “Lieb ist für Immer”—surely a Neu! reference if ever there was one. And the kraut-rock comparisons don’t end there.

A wash of synths flows through the mix, followed by a minimalist, mechanical guitar riff; then some tinkly bell effects that put the Kraft back into the werk. At around the 1 minute mark, Cliff Jones starts to talk some crap about first love in a muted, treated monotone. The bass kicks in soon after, with a vague sense of menace, then a meaty drum-beat. After 3 minutes, things loosen up with another guitar riff, but this time it’s almost funky. Are we in Can territory now? The landscape sure looks familiar.

Over the course of the song, the gay dads add and subtract from these elements—a four-on-the-floor drum machine beat here, cutting back to a sinister synthesized bass line there. This was always the trick of kraut-rock and good repetitive music in general—keep things the same, but always different.

Someone wiser than me once said that kraut-rock is just German for “prog,” but it’s never showy like prog is. That’s not to say that they don’t have talent or musical chops—kraut-rock bands just never felt the need to flaunt their virtuosity. There are amazing musical gifts on display in “Lieb ist für Immer,” but it’s mostly the interaction of the various elements that makes this song great.

So forget that this song was recorded by a group of over-hyped youngsters in the seedy, dry-mouthed morning-after of Brit-pop. Picture instead a group of art students in Düsseldorf around about 1973, experimenting with synthesizers they don’t know how to use and sounds that they as yet only sit at the back of the consciousness. And let the trance begin.

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