DIETER MOEBIUS

It is almost impossible to rate the 80's prog/electronic music scene, in an "electronic" category, where YELLO, is not included. It seemed like 1980's PAs, shut themselves in their tower against anything which smelled "New Wave" (true to god Zappa's principles). Well we are missing YELLO, as we are missing TUXEDOMOON. Half of what others did in those years, has to be measured by those "new" electronic standards, this 2 bands proposed.

Anyway, considering this, it would have been a miracle, if by this album's year of release, not only Dieter Moebius, but many former Krautrockers and electronics could have avoided the radio-waved sound of a switzerland's warehouse kitchen, where Yello was cooking their first "single" in 1979, "Oh Yeah" which became known WORLDWIDE, but mostly in central-europe. The unavoidable comparisson, makes "Zero Set" sound, like an "innocent" remix of a remix of something Yello had already written. (by this year 1983, Yello had already released 3 whole albums).

Nicely threaded, but crammed with childish (for children, not joking!), repetitive melodic lines, which go nowhere. Primitive is no synonym of simplistic!

The percussion work, although genial, is subdued by this "minor-flaw". Maybe "cool" for those who never heard of Yello, but it is not worth my money.

***3 PA stars.

On "Zero Set" you have Neumeier banging away very energetically on the drums, and his playing may be the most valuable part of the entire record. Moebius contributes on keyboards and synthesizers, and Plank is only credited for production, though his influence on the music will be obvious to those familiar with other projects he's worked on. The album is filled with often times hypnotic drum riffs and polyrhythmic synths, bordering on insanity. Every track has a hyper quality to it, and it's impossible not to be infected with their bubbling energy.

The reason I think this album deserves 5 starts is simple, it's a fantastic album that I still haven't gotten tired of hearing, and it is quite unlike anything I have ever heard before! The meaning of "essential" to me is fulfilled by this record, because you would be missing out on something very unique if you didn't add it to your collection!

Zero Set is still an extraordinare contribution to "new age"-music. I still find the tracks very timeless and the track "Pitch Control" is my favourite. I played it for some of my classmates at scool around 1985, they were used to normal dance music of the 80s. They had never heard anything like it before. I really can't put the album in som kind of genre, maybee "rhytmic synthetic world music" perhaps :-)

4 stars from me!

A lot of bull has been said about the so called drop in musical quality during the 80s, and if one only chooses to judge said decade by what the biggies from the 70s were dishing out, then I can somewhat understand people's rather vile vocal secretions. As I have previously stated, I think there was a huge amalgamation of wonderful music happening outside of the English speaking world, and especially the former communistic countries were now experiencing their own 70s so to speak. Apart from that, I also have a huge collection of RIO and avant releases from this decade that I absolutely adore. So much happening on that front - all happening just beneath the surface of things, that you needed special antennas and eardrums to pick up the beat and flavours. Sadly, one of my favourite styles of music underwent some of the same horrible changes as the big dinosaurs did all through the 80s. Electronic music was indeed a giant plastic party - soaking all of the horrific synthesizer sounds up like a giant sea sponge without any sense of funnelling out the weak and soulless bits.

Zero Set is a collaboration between famous Krautrock producer Conny Plank, Guru Guru drummer extraordinaire Mani Neumeier and one part of the Cluster duo, Dieter Moebius. Everything I just said about the 80s and how the sounds and experimentations went south in the electronic quarters, at least from my point of view that is, still stands regarding this release, although instead of coming off like a new age plastic bag with all the umphh of a kitten fart, all of this sonic deceit and falsehood gets served up in a metallic and unwelcoming dressing. This is, essentially, electronic punk. It doesn't feature low- brow profanity and chromatic riffing, but it wields a distinctive primal caveman energy that propels the music forward like a bull-ringed cherokee-wannabe-street-warrior from 1983, who's tired of all the fake mainstream insanity sneaking suspiciously into everything around him.

Moebius' electronics are a mish mash of squirming feline screeches, naive kindergarten melodies and a big boot-full of the kind of dance orientated sounds and trickery you'd encounter in movie soundtracks from around the same time. The end result is disturbing and void of any feeling - especially when you mix all of this up with the robotic and harsh drumming from Mr Neumeier as well. Now, I am a huge fan of this man's style, but I continue to be amazed of just how many different sonic appearances this guy has. He can be all over the place - rumbling like a caged baboon on cocaine, but when he chooses to, he comfortably slips into something infinitely more vague and slithering - now sounding bonkers and off- beat like only he can. Those people who have heard him freak out in Guru Guru or just standing in on other band's albums probably know what I'm on about, as his persona always has a way of shining through on even the most minuscule of cameos. Eclectic is probably the word I'm looking for...

Anyway, this album is all about this rhythmic meeting, where electronics meet strange exotic drums and adventurous percussion. You could call it forerunner to the IDM(Intelligent Dance Music) scene happening nearly 10 years later, I actually think I've read that somewhere, but that doesn't seem to do it justice in any way, because like I said previously, the punk-like attitude that rumbles through the reins like a distracted teenager is the key here. I do not think this album would have gone down easily with the punks, but the abandoned and misanthropic moods that prevail here take absolutely no prisoners. It sweeps across this release like a huge vacuum cleaner - sucking up every little colour, emotion and sign of human empathy. It is an ode to concrete and metal. It's deliberately perfidious - exposing all of our plastic handbags, neon earrings, Converse shoes, microwave ovens, bubble gum philosophies and stock market sensibilities - like were they man's self-inflicted debt to himself for being so reckless and imaginative all through the 70s. "No, this certainly won't stand! We need to prioritise our values and put things through machines and great big banks".

This album exposes the plastic for what it is: plastic. And for that it should definitely earn the respect of the punk generation. It certainly has mine. 3.5 stars.

Albums are slightly different between each other. The first one , "Rastakraut Pasta", is downbeat electronic/minimalistic sound, quite simplistic and accessible. Both musicians ( Dieter plays synth, guitars, flute,sings and Plank is engineer, but works with sounds and affects) are mixing some industrial, kraut-rock, space-electronic sounds and even dub. There is Can bassist Holger Czukay presented on three tracks as well.

Music reminds a bit Can ,but more German early electronic experimental works, mostly Kraftwerk. Second album has much better organised structure ,faster rhythm and demonstrates proto-electronic dance music in many cases.

Being quite experimental works for its time, looking from now this double-album release sounds a bit naive, but still could attract listeners, interested in early electronic progressive rock.

Another offshoot from half of Cluster, Dieter Moebius, this time with production Kaiser Conny Plank in the latter's most essential studio in the outskirts of Cologne. The third "stooge" happens to be Holger Czuckay and his bass on three of the nine tracks, ranging from 1:30 to 7 minutes. Coming with a bland toothpaste artwork, this album was released in 79, which is rather late for pure Krautrock release, but as the first part of the title, the music is a bit up to date, since there is the odd track featuring a reggae beat.

Despite a seemingly binary bass line that could've been Czuckay's , the opening track News has a hypnotizing seemingly square drumming beat made from electronic doodles, courtesy of Dieter, as is that aforementioned bass. Guitar death throes and piano cords gratings and echoes are also audible. The title track is a weird reggae beat on a binary beat, and you'll find a variation of the same in Missi Cacadou. Other tracks can vary soundwise from Tangerine Dreams to the electro-pop of Kraftwerk or some Cluster (Zuckerzeit). I wouldn't call this album essential or even worth the detour, but if you're into the stranger facets of Krautrock, this album could make you happy.

Their debut collaboration (1979's "Rastakraut Pasta") closed the previous decade with style, and two years later this follow-up was likewise a breath of fresh air in the stale musical climate of the 1980s. This was a decade (you'll recall with a shudder) of skinny ties, bright sneakers, big beats and bad hair, with an unhealthy emphasis on empty style perhaps lampooned in the album's mock-generic title and tongue-in-cheek cover photo of a distinctly unglamorous pile of trash bags.

The album opener "Conditionierer" could almost be heard as a brilliant satire of then- current musical clichés, sounding not unlike yet another standard New Wave dance number, except for all the subversive weirdness lurking just behind the beat: manic slide guitars gone haywire; beer-hall horns in alpine liederhosen; and one of those relentless Krautrock grooves that just won't stop (think of NEU!'s "Hallogallo", '80s style).

"Infiltration" slows the pace down with one of Moebius' patented rhythm-box patterns (set to maximum grunge), percolating under a dubby two-note bass guitar riff and a lot of offhand noise: telephone operators, PA announcers, radio wave interference and so forth. If HOLGER CZUKAY (CAN's musical loose cannon) wasn't actually involved in the recording, his cut-and-paste spirit was certainly being channeled by Moebius and Plank in a big way.

Opening Side Two (on the original vinyl) is "Tollkühn", not much more than six minutes of mad, fuzzed-up sequencers and cymbals, easily five minutes longer than necessary. And the electro-throb improvisation of "Osmo-fantor" is a short diversion that never fully develops into anything, but sets up the haunting soundscape of "Nordöstliches Gefühl" very nicely.

This final track (rough translation: "Northeastern Feeling") is a slower, melancholy piece set around a reverberating drum machine and a simple electric piano. It unfolds with an almost cinematic flair, suggesting the post-war urban alienation of an early Wim Wenders movie, and providing a dramatically mismatched but evocative bookend to the upbeat energy of "Conditionierer".

Like their first album this one is far too short: only 35 minutes, give or take a beat or two. The silver lining is the fact that both were later combined in their entirety on a single CD, a generous windfall to budget-minded Progheads and, like the team that produced them, a match made in Krautrock heaven.

Add the sonic wild-card of kindred spirit/guest bassist (and ex-CAN guru) HOLGER CZUKAY, and the sum is an unpredictable package of (mostly) instrumental weirdness, with a lyrical title that all but itemizes the various influences brought to the studio.

It's not a very long album, but there's a lot happening in its brief 35-minutes. The mock electro-reggae of the title track and "Missi Cacadou" (complete with silly vocoder interjections and saxophone farts) is only the tip of a very wide iceberg. Elsewhere there's the industrial/tribal stomp of "News" (driving a cacophony of pirated broadcast chatter), and later the hypnotic, throbbing over-amped guitars of the aptly titled "Feedback 66".

The flipside of the original vinyl has a more easygoing disposition, moving from the dreamlike ambient space-jazz of "Solar Plexus" (backwards voices, assorted noises, and an electric piano wired through what sounds like every flanger in Cologne, where Plank had his celebrated studio), to the sunny rhythm-boxed groove of "Two Oldtimers". With a lilting melody played on (acoustic) guitars and piano, this track (at 7-minutes the longest on the album) suggests a glimpse of what the men-machines of KRAFTWERK could have sounded like, minus all their trendy cybernetics.

This album and its likewise recommended 1981 sequel "Material" were later re-packaged together onto a single CD: a near-indispensable bargain for anyone with an ear for odd music, especially coming out of Germany in the late 1970s. Krautrock was always more an attitude than a style, and in the hands of these two pioneers it never sounded more playful or creative.