{"title":"Cluster","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCluster is a multi-instrumental and electronics duo formed in 1971 in Berlin. Originally part of the trio Kluster, their early recordings were experimental and on the edge of Krautrock. Collaborations with Michael Rother from Neu! led to a more musical direction for Cluster. They also worked with Brian Eno and explored various styles. Although they went on hiatus in 1981, Cluster has reformed multiple times. Both members have also been active with solo works and other projects.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"grosses-wasser-hi2jmf","title":"Grosses Wasser","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe best of the proper Cluster LPs recorded between their various Eno collaborations of the late '70s and early '80s, \u003ci\u003eGrosses Wasser\u003c\/i\u003e comprises six tracks of slowly building electronics. While the dark-sounding tracks \"Avanti\" and \"Prothese\" sound like a fusion of Tangerine Dream and disco, others including \"Isodea\" and \"Manchmal\" recall the early days of Cluster 71.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"Black LPx2","offer_id":50381781205323,"sku":"2222042","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50381780779339,"sku":"2222040","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/product_id._e2f0ca01_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726236786"},{"product_id":"curiosum","title":"Curiosum","description":"\u003cp\u003eoriginally recorded in 1980, cluster's 6th album re-issued. their landmark early electronic work was hugely influential on the english post-punk synthesizer bands of the late '70s. 'curiosum', released in 1981, just as some of these bands were moving from arty cult status to mainstream stardom, sounds like moebius and roedelius had started taking cues from the groups they'd initially inspired.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50381788283211,"sku":"318427","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50381788873035,"sku":"2222039","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Curiosum_801cc788_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726290696"},{"product_id":"sowiesoso","title":"Sowiesoso","description":"\u003cp\u003eOriginally released in 1976, Cluster's 4th album re-issued. the evocative toybox melodies (usually the Roedelius compositions) on 1974's \u003cem\u003eZuckerzeit\u003c\/em\u003e reached their peak with \u003cem\u003eSowiesoso\u003c\/em\u003e, courtesy of ambling pieces like 'Dem Wanderer,' the title track, and the vaguely oriental 'Halwa.' The drum programs are still irresistibly simplistic (not to say simple), but even when \u003cem\u003eSowiesoso\u003c\/em\u003e stretches out into primarily beatless terrain ('Es War Einmal,' 'Zum Wohl'), the album retains its power.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black \/ 50th Anniversary Edition","offer_id":57200231678283,"sku":"R1811-6362","price":31.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":50383562047819,"sku":"318424","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50383562211659,"sku":"318425","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/2000x2000bb_3cd8766a-da80-4ec2-acaa-b3676ac93549.jpg?v=1777810727"},{"product_id":"cluster-and-eno","title":"Cluster and Eno","description":"\u003cp\u003eOriginally released in 1977, \u003cstrong\u003eBrian Eno\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eCluster\u003c\/strong\u003e (Hans-Joachim Roedelius \/ Dieter Moebius) are credited with inventing ambient music. \u003cstrong\u003eBrian Eno\u003c\/strong\u003e's first collaboration with \u003cstrong\u003eCluster\u003c\/strong\u003e, the best of this album's instrumental pieces are too emotionally rich to waste as mere background music, evoking feelings of hesitancy and regret that rescue the music from mere vapid prettiness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThree tracks in particular indicate things to come. \"\u003cem\u003eWehrmut\u003c\/em\u003e\" is an ethereal synth piece with the pace slowed to a tantalizing crawl. \"\u003cem\u003eSteinsame\u003c\/em\u003e\" features a treated guitar playing a slow figure over a dark, almost funereal synth melody. \"\u003cem\u003eSchne Hnde\u003c\/em\u003e\" uses watery synth effects to highlight a shivery rhythm pattern.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOther pieces dispense with moody atmospherics altogether. Tracks like \"\u003cem\u003eHo Renomo\u003c\/em\u003e\" and \"\u003cem\u003eSelange\u003c\/em\u003e\" consist mainly of pounding rhythm patterns lightly embellished by piano or synthesizer, and \"\u003cem\u003eDie Bunge\u003c\/em\u003e\" sounds like an electronic goldfinch fluttering around a cartoon horse. \u003cstrong\u003eCluster\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eEno\u003c\/strong\u003e remains an important album. Along with \u003cstrong\u003eEno\u003c\/strong\u003e's 1978 \"\u003cem\u003eMusic for Films\u003c\/em\u003e\", these works helped define the depth and promise of ambient music.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50411572199755,"sku":"315411","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50411573313867,"sku":"315412","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/ceaaaa96-f81f-4928-874d-1bb10ef17211_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726660146"},{"product_id":"ii-50th-anniversary","title":"II (50th Anniversary)","description":"\u003cp\u003eCluster can be counted among the most important international protagonists of the electronic avant-garde. Some credit them with having invented ambient music, others as pioneers of synthesizer pop, whilst to some they are firmly embedded in the krautrock universe. There is some truth in all of these notions. Cluster (or Kluster as they were in the beginning) were founded in 1970 in Berlin by Conrad Schnitzler, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. A change in direction and musical differences moved Moebius and Roedelius to split from Schnitzler after which the duo recorded 10 regular studio albums between 1971 and 2009. Their debut album (\u003ci\u003eCluster 71\u003c\/i\u003e) was in Wire Magazine's \"One Hundred Records That Set The World On Fire\" list. Follow up, \u003ci\u003eCluster II,\u003c\/i\u003e has now reached it's 50th anniversary and to celebrate Bureau B release a limited anniversary edition, vinyl only, gatefold sleeve limited to a 1000 copies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50417414537547,"sku":"2001818","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/image003_89c6fa6a_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726729227"},{"product_id":"zuckerzeit-4","title":"Zuckerzeit","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1974, \u003cstrong\u003eCluster\u003c\/strong\u003e entered the sugar era. This doesn’t mean that they had finally arrived in their promised land, but they had simply moved from Berlin to the country, to a small place called Forst on the river Weser.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMany a thing had changed for band members Moebius and Roedelius since \u003cem\u003eCluster II\u003c\/em\u003e: They had moved from boisterous Berlin to this calm rural village, they had founded the band Harmonia, had set up their own studio, and had bought new equipment. As a result of this and many other things, new impulses were noticeably spurring the evolution of their music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe album \u003cem\u003eZuckerzeit\u003c\/em\u003e (“sugar era”) launched a revolution for Cluster. Strictly speaking, \u003cem\u003eZuckerzeit\u003c\/em\u003e is not really an album by Cluster. More precisely, the LP contains two mini solo albums by Moebius and Roedelius. Those who were familiar with the stylistic peculiarities of the two musicians could easily relate the solo pieces to either one of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOne thing they did have in common was the consistent use of the analogue rhythm machine. \u003cem\u003eZuckerzeit\u003c\/em\u003e, on the contrary, is designed in a clearly rhythmical way: a rhythm machine, triggered synths, and harmonic patterns played by hand inspired life and imagination on the melody lines. This was different as well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOnce again, Roedelius and Moebius took on work in such a remarkably lighthearted and down-to-earth manner as was typical of Cluster. The friendliness of the music is clearly due to the two personalities of Roedelius and Moebius; its down-to-earth character possibly comes from Michael Rother, the album’s co-producer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen comparing \u003cem\u003eZuckerzeit\u003c\/em\u003e to the works of other electronic combos produced at the same time, it is first of all the shortness of the tracks that seems most striking (2’20” to 6’10”). Listeners who were expecting long and booming pieces were badly advised with this album—what kind of trip is this that lasts for six minutes only?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe fact that Cluster worked in such a calm and collected way, that they concentrated on their musical ideas instead of losing themselves in long-windedness, that they took their time working on the album and not least that they could rely on the ideas of their co-producer Michael Rother—all this taken together gave way to the creation of electronic miniatures that sounded as extraordinary in the 1970s as they still do today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNothing reminds us of psychedelic music that was common at the time. Instead, we find transparency, a hint of utopia, and above all new sounds and noises, something which was unheard of in popular music until then.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black (Ltd Numbered Version)","offer_id":50427501805899,"sku":"2194205","price":31.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":57550441185611,"sku":"R8513-8844","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":57550441218379,"sku":"R8513-0477","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_f6f26e6e_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726825508"},{"product_id":"cluster-ll","title":"Cluster II","description":"\u003cp\u003eCluster's second album finds them still in their Berlin phase, that of the amorphous analogue 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. \"Imsüden\" 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 \"Für 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Lilith","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50432654967115,"sku":"348560","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/image003_ca1cf9c0_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726871697"},{"product_id":"cluster-ii","title":"Cluster II","description":"\u003cp\u003eEsoteric Recordings release of a newly remastered edition of \u003cem\u003eCluster II\u003c\/em\u003e, a classic 1972 album by \u003cstrong\u003eCluster\u003c\/strong\u003e. Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius had been making experimental electronic music since meeting at Berlin's famed Zodiak Arts Lab in the late 1960s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCluster II\u003c\/em\u003e was their second work for a major label and was released in Germany on the Brain label in 1972. The sessions saw producer (and contributor to Cluster's first album) Conny Plank oversee the proceedings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLess 'industrial' in feel compared to Cluster's debut work, \u003cem\u003eCluster II\u003c\/em\u003e is nevertheless a classic and hailed by aficionado Julian Cope as a major album in his book Krautrocksampler.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":51857400987979,"sku":"R8949-0677","price":30.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50436036985163,"sku":"352287","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/2000x2000bb_c4eeeb08-0db3-4005-9f86-51895e9fe148.jpg?v=1747840731"},{"product_id":"zuckerzeit","title":"Zuckerzeit","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eZuckerzeit\u003c\/i\u003e is the third full-length album by German band Cluster, released in 1974 on Brain Records. It was co-produced by Michael Rother, their bandmate in side-project Harmonia. The music on \u003ci\u003eZuckerzeit\u003c\/i\u003e marks a shift from Cluster's abrasive early work toward a more rhythmic, pop-oriented sound. \u003ci\u003eZuckerzeit\u003c\/i\u003e was recorded following Cluster's move from Berlin to the countryside of Forst, and came after their collaboration with Neu! guitarist Michael Rother on the 1973 Harmonia album Musik von Harmonia. Each track is a solo composition, with the two members recording separately on different days; The Quietus noted that \"it is in reality two solo EPs masquerading as a joint release.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album's short instrumental tracks marked the group's shift toward a pop-oriented style which utilized cheap drum machines and synthesizers. Rother is credited as co-producer, but his primary role was to leave the group some of his equipment, including Farfisa instruments, a four-track recorder, a stereo mixer, and an Elka Drummer One drum machine. With the latter, the group experimented with mixing up multiple preset rhythms at once, as well as running the drum machine through echo, vibrato, and wah pedals, and cutting parts of the rhythm entirely\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Lilith","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50467614490955,"sku":"348559","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50467617734987,"sku":"2010584","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/95da7bc0-f71d-4bdb-b921-d425d5819e5f_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727339976"},{"product_id":"apropos-cluster","title":"Apropos Cluster","description":"\u003cp\u003eCluster (Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius) are pioneers of electronic music and key Krautrock protagonists. In the late 1960s, together with Konrad Schnitzler as the trio Kluster, they changed the world of music for ever with their radical improvisations.Having split from Schnitzler, Moebius and Roedelius continued as Cluster, releasing eight further milestones of electronic and ambient music up until 1981, two of them with Brian Eno. A hiatus lasting almost a decade was brought to an end in 1990 when Cluster made a surprise comeback with 'Apropos Cluster' .Liner notes by Asmus Tietchens.180g vinyl LP+CD version.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50470809305419,"sku":"375665","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/fddc6db5-20ef-4f2c-9db6-8c771945d213_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727383433"},{"product_id":"one-hour","title":"One Hour","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1994 the seminal electronic duo Cluster (Dieter Moebius \u0026amp; Hans-Joachim Roedelius) continued what they had begun in 1990 with 'Apropos Cluster', their comeback album. The more mature 'One Hour' condenses essential passages from two lengthy sessions into 60 minutes. We hear sprawling soundscapes, clear acoustic sketches, musical extravaganzas, in short: highly impressionistic electronica. Liner notes by Asmus Tietchens. Originally released 1994 on Prudence Records.Vinyl is 180g version.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50470955155787,"sku":"377611","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50470957089099,"sku":"377609","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/091e962a-d2fc-4bbe-9c57-5f7dd2b1cd9b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727386178"},{"product_id":"cluster-and-farnbauer-live-in-vienna-1980","title":"Cluster and Farnbauer Live in Vienna 1980","description":"\u003cp\u003eOriginally released on cassette in 1980, the first live recording by \u003cstrong\u003eDieter Moebius\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eHans-Joachim Roedelius\u003c\/strong\u003e was recorded in 1980 in Vienna. The only collaboration with the Austrian musician \u003cstrong\u003eJoshi Farnbauer\u003c\/strong\u003e, who played drums and percussion, this album is a sonic throwback to their early years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePresented with two separate stacks of Cluster recordings – one comprised of their studio work, the other of live performances – an innocent listener might conclude they are the efforts of two completely different artists. This would understandably have been the case in 1980, when the structured, tuneful miniatures of 1979’s \u003cem\u003eGrosses Wasser\u003c\/em\u003e and 1981’s \u003cem\u003eCuriosum\u003c\/em\u003e were unlikely bookends to the sprawling electro-acoustic abstractions of \u003cem\u003eLive in Vienna\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut as fans of the idiosyncratic duo already knew, Cluster’s trajectory was always a restless one – more about disruption than gentle evolution. \u003cstrong\u003eLive in Vienna\u003c\/strong\u003e’s sound engineer, Eric Spitzer-Marlyn, remembers Cluster’s 1980 performance at the Wiener Festwochen Alternativ would have been called a “happening” in prior years. Growing out of the Actionism movement of the 60’s, the festival was more performance art than music concert.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDisdaining the tired, commodified art of the establishment, it was a sound marked by brash, improvised, avant-garde techniques. Eric also remembers it was loud. For those who had grown up with Cluster’s accessible 70’s work with Eno and Plank, and their collaboration with Michael Rother in Harmonia, \u003cem\u003eLive in Vienna\u003c\/em\u003e’s slow-growing swaths of electronics and noise must have represented a bit of a shock.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut it was really more a throwback to Cluster’s earliest years, when they performed dense electronic ‘jams’ with Conrad Schnitzler as Kluster. The addition in Vienna of Joshi Farnbauer, a friend and fellow artist who played percussion and explored the sound possibilities of his own sculptures, also mirrored the fluid and spontaneous configurations that characterized those times. As chance would have it, they never met up with Joshi again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e2LP - First time on vinyl!\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50471343522123,"sku":"1016925","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50471343751499,"sku":"1016926","price":35.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/0b2b3269-966c-43f7-9851-a5590492b125_thumbnail_4096.png?v=1727399131"},{"product_id":"qua-1","title":"Qua","description":"\u003cp\u003eReissue of the last studio album by the legendary krautronic duo (Dieter Moebius\/Hans-Joachim Roedelius), recorded 2009 in Ohio by Tim Story. every piece on 'qua', however concrete it might be in its production, remains ambiguous and open. but are we even speaking here about pieces, or works, or tracks? according to the old fashioned definition of a work, a composed piece of music is defined among other things by its duration. for this reason alone the term doesn't apply to cluster's music. for their pieces, or let's call them 'musical units', start and at some point end again. what happens between the start and the end is infinite. each of these units could easily have been longer. each piece wants to and should never end. this is the magic in cluster's music. how many bands have been set on their way since the release of cluster's first album in 1971, doing somehow repetitive, loop-based music. none have quite reached the sometimes friendly, sometimes disconcerting stoicism of their role-models. for all its eventfulness and sonic richness, cluster never sound staged. the events and changes in sound don't want to force a new direction on the pieces, sorry, musical units. they just happen, almost unintentionally and as if by their own accord. and so cluster lead us through their new, utterly timeless album as though through a garden full of strange plants. we stand amazed in front of each of these plants. some have wildly rampant lives of their own, others almost leafless, with barren branches. the source of rhythm on 'qua' is often one solitary pulse of undisclosed origin; bass-drum, snare and hi-hat are rarely used. on 'na ernel' they generate a beat that stumbles along as if the cd were jumping. but gradually a groove emerges out of the piece and the endlessness has us again. cluster have been making music for nearly 40 years. they have long since earned legendary status. if this bands music had lost any of its currentness, one would honor it as a gesamtkunstwerk. but it's far too early for that, as cluster are as productive, wide awake and important as ever before.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"LP | x2","offer_id":50471427178827,"sku":"1023190","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50471426982219,"sku":"1023188","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6de33729-04dd-45df-b408-d9d2eed2cfd2_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727402482"},{"product_id":"konzerte-1972-1977","title":"Konzerte 1972 \/ 1977","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe two authorized recordings presented here vividly conjure up the atmosphere, perhaps even the magic, of a Cluster performance back in the day. One took place in 1977 during a science fiction festival in Metz (France). The other dates back to an earlier show in Hamburg's Fabrik venue. Cluster played three gigs in the city in 1971\/1972, including the one partially included on \u003ci\u003eCluster II\u003c\/i\u003e. Cluster shows routinely lasted six hours or more, luring both the band and the audience into a state of intoxication, no doubt acutely enhanced by the intake of certain substances. The buzzwords of the moment were: psychedelic, magical, ritualistic, corresponding more or less to the Dionysian hedonism which pervades certain styles of contemporary music culture today. It is worth noting this context as useful background when listening to the live recordings presented here. In the beginning, Cluster's music was rough, brutal and spontaneous, created with the most rudimentary tools. Unlike many of their colleagues in this pioneering age, Cluster did not use any synthesizers, sequencers or highend amps. But this proved to be their strength, rather than a disadvantage. Roedelius and Moebius played in the truest sense of the word, untroubled by mechanical processes. They used their machines but were not dependent on them. Intuition was the dominant force, the risk of potential failure was readily understood to be as much a part of their vibrant art as success. Perfection had become a concept associated with convention. Indeed, anyone who was lucky enough to witness Cluster play in the 1970s will testify that things sometimes went badly wrong. But mostly they did not, and then the real magic was tangible. A utopian, previously undiscovered world of sound was created in the presence of the beholder. The sound quality of these two documents is average. A successful performance was considered more important than a perfect recording thereof. We as listeners should accept that today. Our reward is a short journey into the nascent heart of Cluster's creative universe, just after the big bang. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - Vinyl with CD Version.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50480782475595,"sku":"1008083","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/43049f75-b459-4afc-9615-c6d7dca9d6f9_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727527241"},{"product_id":"cluster-71-6gd3xv","title":"Cluster 71","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCluster 71\u003c\/i\u003e is Cluster's debut album -- after Conrad Schnitzler left the trio known as Kluster to go solo -- and it's a strange and mercurial wonder. Issued by Philips, it is a krautrock record with no rock. There is precious little to hold onto here. Using a pair of organs with a boatload of effects pedals, audio-generators (the kind used by electricians), an electronically treated cello, a Hawaiian guitar, and some other sundry items, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius (along with producer Conny Planck, who functioned, in essence, as a third member) created a dislocating, disorienting meld of random space music, industrial noise, proto-ambient atmospherics, feedback, and soundwash that walked some crooked line between musique concrete, improvisation, and raw unmusical terrorism. There is no regular beat, though there is, at times, a very pronounced rhythm. The terrifying ending in the final third of \"15:33\" is one of many examples; so too, with the quiet yet creepy commencement of \"7:38,\" with its hushed approximation of a heartbeat that escalates into a wall of clash and clang rather quickly, with the pulse of an organ emanating deliriously from the background before it slows to the point of silence -- not fadeout, but collapse. The final work here, \"21:17,\" also oozes an irregular rhythmic pulse at the beginning, courtesy of a lone guitar chord played with a wah wah pedal and looped on a tape recorder. But it is displaced by random whirrs and whizzes from the generators in tandem. So many of the sounds here cannot be readily identified, and that lends this recording its sense of timelessness. Of all the pieces here, this last one, with its varying dynamics and textures -- all of them rather sparse but multi-dimensional nonetheless -- is at once utterly magical and nearly completely forbidding. Cluster 71 is a masterwork, not because it set out to be, but in spite of itself. It's one of those moments in music history where all bets were off and everyone involved -- except perhaps the record label -- found it liberating. AllMusic\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bureau B","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50868285243723,"sku":"2227263","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/product_id._a790d019_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1732127427"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_579957e2_thumbnail_4096_3127b0f8-ad94-49a4-bc85-b00ac09c5ea5.jpg?v=1726236759","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/cluster.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}