Live 1974

Harmonia were formed from the crusts of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Cluster and make up something equally as tantalising as any of those three acts, inspired, according to Moebius, by 'Velvet Underground, Mozart, Coltrane, Brel, Arabic, Hindu ... the list goes on and on.' Over the years they've turned the heads of anyone who's heard them, such as Brian Eno - who once declared them the world's most important rock band - David Bowie, the Edge, Aphex Twin and, more recently, Secret Machines, who've been known to include a cover of '(Deluxe) Immer Wieder' in their sets. This is a dusted-down recording of hypnotic machine music from a gig on March 23rd 1974. It was recorded at the Penny Station Club (a former railway station in Griessem) 'in front of about fifty people,' according to Neu! mainman Rother, who played the same venue in 1971 when he was still a member of Kraftwerk. It still sounds as experimental as it must have done in that former railway station thirty-three years ago. It certainly shows the kids a thing or two about losing themselves in music. The album contains just one track under nine-minutes, featuring the wiggy, industrial chug (it was recorded in a former railway station) of 'Schaumburg'; the pulsing, seventeen-minute opus that is 'Veteranissimo'; the almost pop song-short 'Arabesque'; the dark and dubby, proto-trip hop of 'Holta Polta' and ambient template 'Ueber Ottenstein'. Full of twists, turns and hidden depths, these experiments-in-sound are what Roedelius calls artistic science: 'We were -still are- experimental. Science and art are really sisters in the way they approach reality, exploring what there is and trying to do something different with it.'