I might have to put this at album #2 right behind New Age of Earth. Unfortunately, I don’t have an original pressing, but the 180g re-press sounds great.
Cluster (then Kluster) was formed by Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Conrad Schnitzler in 1969. Schnitzler had recorded Tangerine Dream’s debut Electronic Meditation just two months before Kluster’s debut Klopfzeichen.
After Schnitzler’s departure three albums later, Moebius and Roedelius renamed the group Cluster and continued recording starting with Cluster (aka Cluster ’71), and following that Cluster II.
A year before Zuckerzeit, Moebius and Roedelius joined up with Michael Rother of NEU! and released two albums under the name Harmonia (which I will be posting very soon). After Rother left Harmonia, Moebius and Roedelius went back in the studio to record Zuckerzeit, and if you listen to Cluster’s previous releases, you can hear Rother’s influence practically bleeding through the tracks. Mmm!
Zuckerzeit has a very interesting structure. Each track was written solely by either Moebius or Roedelius and, except one track, cycles between the two. It gives a very interesting mixture of light and fluffy to a much more experimental noise-centric sound. I tend to like Roedelius’s tracks much more, but “Caramel” is the exception.
[audio:cluster-hollywood.mp3]
those kulster and harmonia albums are great. boy howdy!
They sure are! Did you listen to Harmonia’s Deluxe? That’s what I’ll be posting soon.
i havent heard that one all the way through. very good though. music von harmonia is very good as well
You can hear Rother a lot more in Deluxe (probably why I like it more). The first track on Deluxe is all you really need.
Musik von Harmonia is really good – I found a repressing of it in a little record store in Brooklyn.
Does anyone else think the Z looks like an F. Just throwin that out there.
@Matt – haha, nice. Never noticed that – now I’ll never be able to look at the album the same way.
Thanks…
I saw Harmonia playing in Oslo, Norway the other day. It was like a couple of german grandpas playing progressive electronica/krautrock. It’s funny that the music still feels fresh. Ok show, give it a 6/10 for the concert, and a 9/10 for actually seeing them play at all.
ah, and zuckerzite is a great record!
@pow – Wow! That’s insane. You’ll always be able to say that you’ve seen them, and that’s awesome.
haha – true, Beamer!
does anyone have an mp3 they could send to hershmack@hotmail.com? thanks in advance. great tune.
theres an interview with cluster on the red bull music academy site, and 2 live recordings on red bull music radio web site.
Cult, very rara sound.