CLUSTER

I've always wondered why this and a few subsequent Cluster albums have been referred to as Krautrock because there's no rock to be found here. This immaginative and sometimes horrifying sound exploration contains just about every electronic device known to mankind. The only two conventional instruments I could identify when I first heard the work back in the seventies was an over-driven wah wahed out guitar and an electric cello, besides that there was just a conflagration of freak knows what, audio generators, tape loops amplifier feedback and whatever Hans Joachim Roedelious and Dieter Moebius, two left-over members from a previous electronic experimental trio, could think of.

The largely improvised work ( don't look for any sheet music for this one ) doesn't rock swing or groove and is devoid any melody, harmony or rhythm and doesn't approach anything that is remotely musically redeemable and seems to drone on and on directionlessly. This is what Oscar Peterson's nightmares were made of, yet many critics managed to extrapolate depth and read deep meanings into it's extreme abstractness. It's easy to percieve this audio experiment as two guys going nuts in the studio creating a bunch of strange noises and impressions but this is not the case at all once one gives the three extended untitled sections a few listens. These guys were obviously musically literate at the time this frankenstein was recorded in 1971. I don't think that below par musicians could have created a work of this calibre bearing mind that they do use conventional instruments as a sort of foundation. Both play some sort of organ as well as the aforementioned guitar and cello. The work does have certain dynamic approach and each effect is introduced unexpectedly. Cluster would expand on this formula somewhat on their second album gradually streamlining their music thereafter.

An open mind is certainly required for this sonic masterpiece. It can mean anything or it can mean nothing depending on how the listener approaches it. So, put the cat out strap yourself into the ejection seat and crank this baby to eleven and blast off to another dimensional plane.