CLUSTER: I have fallen in love with this band, please help

but seriously, Sowiesoso is amazing, did these guys do anything else like it?

There are moments that echo Sowiesoso spread throughout Moebius' and Rodelius' respective discographies.
Like this tune has that vibe imo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKr2rfheAAM

Roedelius is playing at a small club here in town next month, very curious to see what that'll be like.

thats a sweet tune Trip

go Geeta

http://blog.frieze.com/interview-dieter-moebius/

i want to start a Zuckerzeit vs. Sowiesoso poll but i don't know if enough people here have heard those albums

lol @ this

tbf I think a lot of those posters left but yeah lets do it

36 votes: CLUSTER / Moebius & Roedelius solo & group recordings 1970-1986 poll

almost started Moebius solo poll. there is no Moebius solo thread.

Cluster II, the one with the stars on the cover, we made with Conny Plank. It was all very big improvisations, and we recorded it in Hamburg. We didn’t have a lot of time, because it was not our studio. I think we made it in one night, or something like that.

good interview

there is that 15 minute track 'Live In Der Fabrik' on Cluster II, so probably not quite all in one night. but yeah these guys had this music on tap, those early records are incredible

yes, sweet interview! I would love to participate in a Moebius solo thread or poll, I think I have almost all the albums. The other poll had way too many great albums so it was impossible to really get any worthwhile results IMO.

thanks for reading, guys! glad this is finally up, so i can focus on the next Big Frieze Piece, which also involves germany & the 1970s & electronic music

germany & the 1970s & electronic music

<3

(plz to link on ILX when up, thank you)

saw Moebius live a year ago and he seemed genuinely touched that people (and a pretty young crowd) came out and were into it - seemed like a super nice guy

(plz to link on ILX when up, thank you)

i will! if you liked the moebius piece you will love the next one - it incorporates some quotes from moebius & also new insights from eno & many other people i'm talking to for it - it's a real labor of love along the lines of the conrad schnitzler piece i did a few months back

geeta, are these pieces heading in the direction of a book? b/c that would be nice

ha!

from what i've heard, a book on krautrock is already in the works with a major publisher & it's not by me

but i wouldn't want to write a 'krautrock' book per se but something more specific

For those of you who might be interested, I have posted the entire Kluster / Cluster / Harmonia / Roedelius discography here - along with the album reviews here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stepheniliffe/sets/72157624709969408/

Best wishes, Stephen Iliffe (author of Painting with Sound - the life and music of Roedelius)

Qluster?

new lp sounds great on first listen

a fourth one already? yikes

being a return to analog synth sound design, these are some of the most casually listenable Roedelius CDs in a long time; they're pretty and floaty, like new age versions of the first three Kluster records. but as unedited improvs, with no tunes, there's not much to hang on to once they're over. I'd probably love this live.

wait, who is Qluster

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Qluster

Lauschen very synthy, yes. i had a quick listen to one of the others (Antworten) online and it was more acoustic piano.

The updated complete album reviews of Cluster/Harmonia/Roedelius albums is now available here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stepheniliffe/sets/72157624709969408/with/5209118924/

are you any relation to April Iliffe, formerly of the Legendary Pink Dots?

wow, can't wait to read these

I have to rep for the first two Selbsportrait volumes, extremely pretty pastoral stuff. Roedelius is a true genius.

Digging around spotify tonight thinking about Moebius led me to check in with Roedelius - did not realize Qluster just put out a new album a couple of weeks ago, Taten: http://open.spotify.com/album/3aJzfWhyzzkk8ixFTF6xlg

er, Tasten

What is this "Cluster" tour notice for an April show in MA I just got in my Songkick? Qluster?

He says on Facebook he will tour "all around the world!" in 2016, but the only April listing now is in Belgrade.
https://de-de.facebook.com/Roedelius/

Trivial query: Does anyone know why After the Heat is credited to Eno Moebius Roedelius, rather than to Cluster & Eno (as Cluster & Eno was?). Given the array of collaborative groupings in the Cluster/Harmonia/Neu! universe, it's as if there was deliberate effort to undermine any sense of group identity. I could see putting Eno's name first as a marketing decision, but on the other hand having his name be one of three might indicate his contribution was proportionately less, or that you were getting individual efforts from these three people (as the similarly-credited Begegnungen comps later were, in part; these did have less Eno, overall).

I probably had no idea that Cluster consisted of Moebius and Roedelius when I first saw the albums (not that it's that tough to figure out). Visually, Cluster & Eno (with the microphone in the clouds) had a stronger identity than the three names in a row against a landscape; the first looks more like a progressive rock record and the latter more a jazz/new age/avant garde document.

I think that's exactly right - the songs on Cluster & Eno have more of a Cluster-vibe and the other tracks show more of a dominant Eno-vibe, so they labeled the albums thusly.

It's all some of the most magical music I've ever heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tE32JKmzDA

fun little demo of the Elka Drummer One, which Cluster & Harmonia used quite a bit. I recall some interview with Moebius where he said some of the weirdo rhythms on Zuckerzeit were made by pushing the tango & cha cha buttons at the same time? or something like that? idk I find that super cool, because that album has some rhythms on it which strike me as very "undefined", plus I think this is the exact approach that modern IDM groups use. like I think of Cluster as less the peers of Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze and more as a proto-Autechre/Mouse on Mars.

cool! I've always loved the drums on the first track of Zuckerzeit, the way they sound as if they are turning inside out is very trippy

Sly Stone did the same thing recording There's a Riot Goin' On, pressing multiple buttons on his rhythm boxes to get something less square than any of the individual beats.

Hollywood's rhythm track sounds like it's rotating between 2 or 3 different settings at various intervals. I don't know if there's a steady pattern to it. If there is it's probably in some time signature like 29/24 or whatever. I love it too because it's not unlike what I used to do as a kid when my keyboard would generate little rhythms like that

God I love those primitive drum machines so much. I have a Realistic Concertmate Electronic Accompanist, which is a cheap scaled down version of that type of rhythm box sold at Radio Shack in the 80s. Run it through a delay pedal and hit the Rock and Foxtrot buttons, you've got hours of knob-twiddling fun!

I love the fact that one of their frequent collaborators is a guy named Tim Story, always makes me think of On Cinema

husband of semi-famous Windham Hill artist Liz Story!

Curiosum is such a baffling record. I've listened to it 4 times in the last 24 hours and can't figure out if it's a load of wank or a portal to some primitive form of consciousness. "Oh Odessa" has been in my head constantly. "Tristian in der Bar" makes me laugh. "Seltsame Gegend" makes me wanna play QWOP. "Ufer" makes me crank the volume up and then I'm so calm I forget to turn it back down again. This is what they did after Grosses Wasser?? What other albums sound like this?

I'm obsessed with Oh Odessa, it's got this childlike primitive quality that I can't get enough of.

(xp) Maybe some Moebius albums? Though the childlike quality is more Roedelius' thing.

Haha yeah, it's a deeply weird and addictive record. "Portal to some primitive form of consciousness" is OTM. A couple tracks have a kind of "demented clown" vibe, which I'm not that into (e.g. "Oh Odessa", "Seltsame Gegend"). The queasy major-key waltz duo of "Tristan In Der Bar" -> "Charlic" is probably my favorite part of the record.

I haven't heard anything else that sounds exactly like Curiosum, but parts of Moebius and Beerbohm's Double Cut sound like a slightly less primitive version of its more menacing moments, like "Proantipro" with a hardware update.

I heard "Oh Odessa" on a Cluster compilation, sounds to me like a theme song from a public television educational kids' show from the era.

yeah, also get a little bit of a hardcore devo vibe from "oh odessa"

love this record

great 420 record too, close your eyes and put on "Tristan In Der Bar" and you will see a man tumbling around in a laundromat dryer

lol YES

Tristan in Der Dryer

listening to Sowiesoso yet again now and something that comes to mind is that a lot of this sounds like you're hearing the most incredible, cool, and joyous music ever but it's somewhere in the distance. so your mind fills in the blanks. like you know how some people say books are more intense than movies because your mind fills in images that will match the emotion? that it kind of what happens here. I think this is what James Ferraro was trying to do with all those lo-fi "Summer Headrush" albums.

yeah for sure it’s this sorta pointillist quality that it shares with the vibiest lofi stuff eg older James Ferraro and that amazing KWJAZ album. Walking through benevolent fog on a starlit night..