The Heart Is a Drum

It all starts with an audio snippet from 1971. We hear the quiet bobbing of a rowboat on calm waters. Musician Kim Gordon’s voiceover reveals that a man and woman had occupied it. A short while later the woman would move to Norway for good, while the man returned to Germany to become a musician in influential bands including Kraftwerk, Neu! and La Düsseldorf.

This documentary on unusual artist Klaus Dinger (1946-2008) chooses equally unusual perspectives: an audio artefact from 1971, a telephone interview from 1998 and interviews with drummers from famous bands. Swedish director Jacob Frössén attempts to unravel the sentimental secret behind the man who created the ‘Motorik Beat’, the repetitive drumbeat with an almost ritualistic effect. Dinger preferred to call it endlose gerade (‘the endless straight on’) – for Frössén, an excellent metaphor for cataloguing the romantic and creative life of an iconic, if heartbroken, German musician.

Also see Scopitone@WORM.

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