LUSTWANDEL

It's a shame more people on the archives are not familiar with Roedelius' solo work. Lustwandel is IMO one of, if not, his best solo albums ever released. He uses a combination of acoustic piano, which I find quite wonderful, with various vintage synthesizers. The acoustic piano elements may be one reason why I prefer this to some of his other material.

If you are familliar at all with and appreciate the later Cluster material or the Begegnungen compilations (especially the Roedelius tracks), then you will probably enjoy this. To me, Roedelius was always the less avant garde of the two Cluster musicians, and both the Moebius solo albums (bar the Blue Moon Soundtrack) and Roedelius solo works reflect this idea. Some may say that Lustwandel is new age (although this would be considered more experimental), and they probably aren't very off in saying it. The difference between this and say, a later Vangelis or Yanni album, is that this is highly evocative and engaging, where some of the other more famous names in the genre produce vapid and lifeless material (that's not the case for all Vangelis albums, however).

The title track and "Legende" are probably my favorite pieces on the album, and to be honest there is no really bad track here. On "Wilkommen," Roedelius incorporates some Middle Eastern elements which seem a bit out of place, but it's definitely interesting. Like I said in the beginning of the review, I tend to prefer the acoustic tracks, but the electronic ones are very enjoyable nonetheless. This is a pretty mellow and soft effort in the vain of Sowiesoso. If you like Cluster, you'll probably like this; that is unless you only like the edgier, more experimental albums. I really enjoy it, and like I said this may be my favorite Roedelius solo effort so far, and IMO it's an excellent starting point, four stars.