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Before they were Cluster, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius were Kluster, a German experimental band that churned out three albums of noisy, metallic, experimental music full of tape loops and cacophony before the name change. C is inherently more gentle than K, and the new Cluster reflected that, although their first album was still mostly spacey drones and electronic swoops with little resemblance to what most people consider music (they didn't even bother with song titles, simple using the track lengths as identifiers).
By the time they got around to Zuckerzeit, which translates as "Sugar Time", the duo had started leaning more towards traditional song structures and actual melodies. They ditched Krautrock legend Conny Plank as producer and brought on board Michael Rother, another Krautrock legend famous for his work with Neu!, and the difference is immediately apparent.
None of this is to say that Zuckerzeit is in any way normal. The music is still wildly experimental and sounds distinctly homemade, constructed as it is from clunky analogue synthesizers that are charming in their own way, but not exactly built for slick, highly produced pop singles. Still, the gang gives it their best attempt.
The songwriting duties are split evenly here between Moebius and Roedelius, and there is an immediately evident difference in their styles. Roedelius has a gift for melody, and embraces the chugging Motorik rythms Michael Rother is known for. His compositions like Hollywood, Marzipan, and Heisse Lippen sound almost radio-friendly.
By contrast, Moebius is obviously the more experimental of the two. His tracks seem to focus on playing around with loops and rhythms. This makes them less immediately accessible to modern listeners, but I find them a fascinating counterpart to the honey-sweet electro-pop of Roedlius. Although Zuckerzeit is a distinctly electronic record, the Moebius track James is mainly built from guitar loops.
The albums longest track, Rota Riki, is a Moebius composition that I find particularly interesting. It sounds an awful lot like the early sequencer experiments done by Raymond Scott in the 1950s. It's an abstract study in synthesized rhythms and changes in tape speed, and while Scott's work was used for sound effects in advertisements, here the same style of music is presented for active listening.
Zuckerzeit is undeniably crude by today's standards, but that doesn't make it any less fun or charming. Additionally, its influence on later electronic music is pretty clearly felt. I would be hard to imagine modern IDM or ambient electronica without pioneers like Cluster.
Ah, Krautrock. That weird, wonderful, and ephemeral genre of experimental rock music from Germany that was big in the 80s, and then suddenly seemed to go away. It takes a certain kind of mindset to appreciate it, but when it's good, it's really really good.
Faust were one of the three major bands of the genre, sharing the limelight with their monosyllabic brethren Can and Neu!. Actually, there were hundreds of Krautrock bands kicking around back then, and lots of good ones, but these are the three that got the most airplay and recognition for being innovative and unique.
With their debut a couple of years earlier, Faust had put together a dense slab of Teutonic sound collage and rock pastiche, focusing on lengthy pieces and abstract structures. Here, on their fourth record, they've mellowed out a bit, and have started writing actual songs, albeit not without the same penchant for experimentalism and a wacky sense of humor. In fact, it's hard to know whether the first track is meant to be a joke.
Simply titled "Krautrock", the album's opener could well be a sarcastic comment on the British perception of the band and its contemporaries. The song is eleven minutes of chugging, droning, rock groove that sounds more like Neu! than anything Faust has done previously. It's repetitive in the extreme, and could be a gentle jibe at the style of their contemporaries. Regardless, it's a fun listen.
"Krautrock" leads abruptly into The Sad Skinhead, which is a bizarre (and not entirely successful) attempt at reggae, for some reason. Far better as an example of the band's songwriting abilities is Jennifer, which is pretty and dreamy, and would later inspire a similar track by the Eurythmics. (I can't confirm that the two songs are related, but they both have the same name, refer to refer to red hair, and share a slow, hypnotic quality, so I choose to believe it.)
The second half of the album is more abstract, featuring studio experiments, instrumentals, and callbacks to the band's second album. The last track, It's a Bit of a Pain, intentionally interrupts a lovely acoustic melody with an annoying squeak sound, once more showcasing the band's warped sense of humor.
I'll be honest: although I love Krautrock, Faust IV is far from my favorite album in the genre. I like their first two better, as well as many works by Can, Neu!, Ash Ra Tempel, Floh De Cologne, Cluster, Harmonia, La Dusseldorf, Popol Vuh, early Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk and... well, you get the idea. Faust IV is a fine record, but not what I would have chosen to represent the genre at #69. But never fear! There's still several Krautrock albums that appear later on this list, so stay tuned!
Most people who have heard the term "Krautrock" are familiar with one of that genre's most celebrated bands "Neu!" What those people don't know is that when Neu! dissolved after three incredible albums, drummer Klaus Dinger started a new band called "La Dusseldorf." This is their first effort, and it's a mighty impressive one.From the first few seconds, the Neu! influence is obvious, but here the sound is a little more polished. There is a substantial keyboard presence that gives the production a shiny gloss that sometimes borders on psychedelic, but the chugging drum and guitar parts maintain the same rhythmic feel of the band's predecessor. The album cosists of four rather lengthy tracks, but the first two are really seperate parts of the same idea, a title suite ode to the band's namesake city.The music is minimal, repetitive and hypnotic, invoking feelings of driving along very long, very straight roads. The vocals arelargely limited to the chanting of song titles, although the last track "Time" contains a large numbers of somewhat clever German puns, a treat for the bilingual listener.Whereas Dinger had been primarily a drummer, here he switches to guitar, feeling that he had accomplished all he could from behind the drum kit. To be honest, this switch isn't terribly obvious, as the drumming retains a very "Dingeresque" feel.La Dusseldorf is an excellent Krautrock record, and while it lacks the adventurous experimentation of Neu!, it makes up for it in polish and accessibility. This is certainly a must have for those who heard the first Neu! album and liked "Hallogallo" better than "Negitivland."
Organisation was the name of Kraftwerk before they were Kraftwerk. My oh my how things change. Here you will find no catchy tunes or lyrics about pocket calculators, no dance anthems about robots or mannequins, indeed not even a single synthesizer!In contrast to their later all consuming fascination with the future, Tone Float is a downright primordial record. This is bona fide, old school Krautrock; raw, visceral and mostly improvised. The title track is a side long psychedelic trip centered around bells, drums and organ. It starts off very quietly and builds wonderfully into a shrieking Hammond-drenched nightmare. It is a remarkably well composed example of the twenty minute jam, all too common on these early seventies releases,with very focused playing by all involved.The second half is a bit less organized, consisting of a series of shorter works, still probably improvisations. There's a weird, almost dance-like flute number called Milk Rock and some rather sloppy percussion experiments. We conclude with a nearly eight minute groove that is similar to the first side in its instrumentation and structure, although with strange, jittery amplified violin dominating.Overall, this record has far more in common with early Amon Düül and Ash Ra Tempel than with the sound Kraftwerk would make famous later in the decade. Nevertheless, it's a charmingly idiosyncratic example of the genre and worth checking out.
If Jimi Hendrix had been a member of Tangerine Dream, the result would probably have sounded a lot like this. Ash Ra Tempel was one of the first and best bands to fall under the Krautrock label, and this album really shows what a powerhouse they were. Comprised of members Manuel Göttsching, Hartmut Enke and legendary synth pioneer Klaus Schulze, the band blasts through two side-long psychedelic juggernauts.The first track, Amboss, is a high energy mind trip, with tons of absolutely face melting guitar from Göttsching. Schulze,interestingly enough considering his later career, started out as a drummer, and predominantly occupies that role here,although he does dabble with electronics a bit as well.. His drumming is, however, extremely energetic and effective.The second half of the record, aptly titled Traummaschine (German for Dream Machine,) has a much different vibe. Here we are treated to twenty-five minutes of subdued, trippy synthesizers that float gently around the occasional splashes of guitar and drums, all very tastefully done. The track does eventually pick up some steam towards the end and the album finishes on a high note.As a whole the album does a terrific job of maintaining a good balance between its frantic and mellow moods, never relying too heavily on one or the other. Göttsching is a greatly under appreciated rock guitarist with far more chops than most "normal" rock bands could claim. Schulze is just as good on drums as he is behind a stack of synthesizers and the electronics (played by both Göttsching and Schulze) lend the perfect amount of atmospherics to this thoroughly psychedelic romp.
A collaboration thirty years in the making between two of the wildest and most influential acts to come out of the Krautrock scene. We all know and love Faust from their pioneering work in the 70's, experimenting with repetitive rhythms, electronic fuzz and warped pop music. Similarly, Steven Stapleton, the man behind Nurse With Wound, digested all the strangest music he could find and spat out a vast quantity of incomparable audio surrealism.This release finds the two experimental juggernauts finally joining forces to create something that bridges the gap between their two respective styles. It's common on such joint ventures for one group to overpower the other and remain dominant throughout, while the other lurks passively in the background. Not so on Disconnected, which displays an equal measure of both Faust and Nurse With Wound's distinctive sounds. From the former, we hear the hypnotic repetition and off kilter guitar motifs that made their early records so memorable. From Stapleton, the electronic processing and incorporation of a wide variety of found sounds common to his releases.The overall mood of the album is somewhat laid back and druggy, with a bit of a sinister vibe lurking beneath the surface. Nothing sounds tired or clichéd, despite the lengthy catalogue of both bands they manage to remain fresh. Nor does anything sound as shocking or revolutionary as one might expect from such an epic meeting of minds, but then again, what could?A release with such high built-in expectations is practically bound to disappoint. The fact that this one doesn't says a great deal for the amount of talent involved.
