Berlin Trilogy There's New Wave. And there's David Bowie ..." After releasing ""Heroes"" in 1977, Bowie spent much of 1978 on the Isolar II world tour, bringing the music of the first two Berlin Trilogy albums to almost a million people during 70 concerts in 12 countries. By now he had broken his drug addiction; biographer David Buckley writes that Isolar II was "Bowie's first tour for five years in which he had probably not anaesthetised himself with copious quantities of cocaine before taking the stage. ... Without the oblivion that drugs had brought, he was now in a healthy enough mental
Berlin Trilogy was in Paris attending court hearings against his former manager. Partly influenced by the Krautrock sound of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Neu!, "Low" evinced a move away from narration in Bowie's songwriting to a more abstract musical form in which lyrics were sporadic and optional. "Low" and "The Idiot" were mostly recorded in France, and of Bowie's trilogy only "Low" and ""Heroes"" were recorded at Hansa Studios in Berlin, nicknamed "Hansa by the Wall" for its proximity to the imposing structure that divided West from East Berlin. Although he completed the album in November 1976, it took his unsettled record