Cluster II (50th anniversary edition)

ジャーマン・エレクトロ系を代表するアーティストの一つ、ドイツ:Brainに移籍し発表された'72年作が発表50周年記念を記念してドイツ:Bureau Bより1000枚数量限定アナログ盤にて'22年復刻再発!

Conrad Schnitzlerが脱退、Diter Moebius、Hasn-Joachim Roedeliusの二名体制で発表された一作。各種デバイス/テープ等を駆使し"音"のみを媒体とし展開される浮遊感溢れるミニマルな電子音は今聴いてもなお鮮烈な内容。ギターやエレピといった楽器も使用する等、技術的にもサウンドも原始的/牧歌的ながら現在のエレクトロ・ミュージックにも劣らぬ刺激的なサウンドが堪能できる逸品です!

Cluster's second album finds them still in their Berlin phase, that of the amorphous analog electronic passages without the reference points of any actual rhythms. The tracks move along based on circular synth sequences that provide structure without the addition of overt tangible beats, such as what they would explore on subsequent albums after moving to the German countryside and collaborating with Michael Rother from Neu!, who would also join them in Harmonia and provide his trademark motorik rhythms for both bands. "Plas" starts out like churning machinery, then lifts off dramatically into expansiveness, evoking the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where the astronauts circle the moon in slow rotation to slowly reveal the sun in an ominous deep space daybreak; its analog shimmerings and pulsations are the obvious precursors to the ambient passages in Orb and Aphex Twin songs before the depth-charge bass and breakbeats drop in. "Imsuden" is monotonously repetitive, with a woozy spy flick guitar figure inducing vertigo over a swelling and ebbing synth motif and panning helicopter sound effects for over 12 minutes. The aptly named "Fur die Katz'" is a brief playful interlude that is the aural equivalent of making a cat jump and chase after a laser pointer. The 15-minute centerpiece "Live in der Fabrik" comes closest to the UFOs-piloted-by-aliens-on-acid themes of their contemporaries Tangerine Dream, and manages to be space rock without the rock. Whether seen as frustratingly nebulous or trance-inducingly hypnotic, Cluster are nevertheless one of Krautrock's true electronic pioneers, and this is headphone candy at its finest. ~ Brian Way