...here we have a compilation of artists that maybe seen on the periphery in some cases, but were equally as important to shaping the sounds of the era, and some even having a greater influence on the German underground music that followed than the bigger bands.
Dieter Moebius
9 posts
Bureau B Back in 2012, Dieter Moebius was asked to score Fritz Lang‘s Metropolis and for that purpose produced some pre-arranged tracks to be played during the film which along with some live improvisation would suit the film as he saw it. One imagines that this would have been a roaring success, and therefore he had intended to prepare a recorded album of the results.
More Than Human This latest transmission from Moebius finds him pushing further at the boundaries of an idiosyncratic take on electronic rhythm-based music which have often characterised his solo recordings and rummaging deeper into the swirling vortices of synthesized experimentalism that he helped pioneer in the ’70s as part of Cluster. “Inmedin” is the piece most resembling the former output, all twinkling electronic bells and chimes over a […]
Bureau B Negativland still keep me chortling to myself whenever they pop up on random play. In fact random play seems designed for Negativland, has given them a place in the canon that might otherwise have excluded them – I don’t remember playing their records that much before MP3, though I liked having them and was eternally glad that they were there, in the background, chipping away at […]
Bureau B This baby’s got kinetic candy aplenty, tearing up that flat ’80s graph paper, banishing machine rigidity in a blur of angles. Any inkling of metronomic dead flesh is given a dust kicking of sampledelics bolstered by live trumpets and fret slipping guitar, the momentum throwing your head in pleasing multiples, keeping the adrenaline churned up. “Automatic” is a great start, a Rubik’s cube of flashing colour, […]
Bureau B Those good people over at Bureau B have been delving into the archives to bring us two classic slices of pre-Cluster goodness. Well before ‘71 and Zuckerzeit, these two albums, originally released in micro editions of 300 copies, demonstrate an avant-garde spirit that was and still is, a pleasure to absorb. Very much a ‘kicking k’ before the soothing ‘c’, these recordings still rival many of […]
Bureau B Over the past few years, Hamburg’s Bureau B label has released an astonishing treasure trove of music. Reissues of long out of print kraut classics, including much of the enormous [post=cluster-roundup text=”back catalogue of the Cluster family”], now sit alongside brand new work by many of the people from the German scene, old and new, including recent releases from [post=faust-something-dirty text=”Faust”] and [post=kreidler-tank text=”Kreidler”]. The label […]
The Third Millennium Festival Union Chapel, London 14th October 2000 Generally I would say that if you want to see a gig in London, there are not many more beautiful places than Union Chapel. I would also add to try for summer. This cavernous gothic spired chapel all of stone and wood and beautiful doorways into maze-like passages provides an atmosphere of spooky tranquility and usually gorgeous acoustic […]
The Underworld, London 28th January 2000 Dead Voices On Air are conducting a bit of an experiment on the London leg of their tour, starting off loud, noisy and danceable and trailing down into ambient passages of extended mood workouts. Mark Spybey and Darren Phillips man the keyboards, sequencers, samplers, digital technology; Darryl Neudorf is behind a bare drumkit (complete with fluffy liner on one drum). So they […]