CLUSTER

"Zuckerzeit"
(1974)

This album came as quite a surprise to fans of Cluster's early ambient soundscape or industrial experiments. Suddenly their music became more joyful, funny, melodic and all in all more accessible. This album consists of ten pieces of music that are driven forward by a primitive drum machine, synthesizers and different traditional instruments.
The opening track "Hollywood" feels like Harmonia's "Watussi", a strange rhythm and an overall quiet feeling. "Caramel" is a totally different thing, it might even have been successful as a single. A heavy drum machine sound tries to copy hard rock drums while different kinds of synthesizers play a great melody line. At the end the sound collapses and leads right into "Rote Riki", pure synthesizer chaos with different pieps and bliebs. As these two tracks are credited to Moebius, you may expect him to be the more
experimental musician. Roedelius' "Rosa" is - in contrast to "Rote Riki" - a quiet end to side 1. "Caramba" has some great guitar work and the same rock feeling like "Caramel". "Fotschi Tong" is more melodic and peaceful, a wonderful easy sound. "James" is more complicated, full of strange guitar sounds that build up a crescendo of (maybe) untuned guitars and synthesizers. "Marzipan" is more melodic again, but "Rotor" comes on like a monotone synthesizer freak out.

Neuschnee