Cluster -

Cluster was a German electronic/experimental combo from Berlin, formed in 1969 as a trio. After two albums under the name Kluster, founder Conrad Schnitzler launched a solo career. Drummer/keyboardist Moebius and cellist/keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius continued as Cluster.

They made two albums on Philips and the 1974 Brain release Zuckerzeit, followed by two albums as Harmonia with NEU! guitarist Michael Rother. On Sky Records, Cluster made the 1976 album Sowiesoso and two collaborative discs with Brian Eno, followed by the 1979–81 titles Grosses Wasser and Curiosum.

Members: Conrad Schnitzler (keyboards: 1969-71), Hans-Joachim Roedelius (cello, keyboards, percussion, vocals), Moebius (drums, keyboards, percussion, vocals)

Background

Kluster sprung from a partnership between Conrad Schnitzler and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, both fixtures of the Zodiak Free Arts Lab, an experimental music venue in West Berlin. Schnitzler attended Düsseldorf’s Fine Arts Academy, where he studied under performance artist Joseph Heinrich Beuys and befriended a fellow pupil, Dieter Moebius.

Klopfzeichen

Ensemble Kluster released their debut album, Klopfzeichen, in November 1970 on Schwann AMS.

Klopfzeichen (German for Knocking Sounds) presents two extended electroacoustic pieces built from live tape treatments and improvisational interactions between sound manipulators Conrad Schnitzler, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Dieter Moebius. Schnitzler layers electronics against Roedelius’s processed organ and Moebius’s filtered devices while Christa Runge delivers stark spoken narration on the first side.

Side A contains text-based elements in accordance with producer Oskar Gottlieb Blarr, who required the inclusion of religious content for the album’s release on the church-run Schwann label.

A. “Kluster 1 (Electric Music) und Texte” (23:31)
B. “Kluster 2 (Electric Music)” (21:34)

Kluster recorded the album on December 21, 1969, at Rhenus-Studio in Gordorf, two months after Schnitzler’s participation in Electronic Meditation, the debut album by Tangerine Dream. Konrad Plank produced Klopfzeichen in sequence with 1970 albums by Andromeda, Gomorrha, Kraftwerk, Nosferatu, Organisation, Sweet Smoke, and the Peter Brötzmann Sextet.

Klopfzeichen appeared in a limited edition of 300 copies with a fold-out insert and embossed plastic cover.

Zwei-Osterei

Kluster released their second album, Zwei-Osterei, in early 1971 on Schwann AMS.

Zwei-Osterei (German for Two Easter Eggs) consists of two long-form electroacoustic pieces shaped through live tape manipulation, amplified acoustic instruments, and spoken liturgical text.

Conrad Schnitzler generates textures that overlap with Moebius and Roedelius on electronically treated organ, piano, guitar, cello, flute, and percussion, processed in real time by engineer Konrad Plank. Manfred Paethe adds spoken word on Side A, drawn from the religious texts of Rudolf Otto Weimer, Dorothee Sölle, and Kurt Marti.

A. “Zwei-Osterei (Teil 1)” (22:50)
B. “Zwei-Osterei (Teil 2)” (22:09)

Kluster recorded the album on February 23, 1970, at Rhenus-Studio in Gordorf with Oskar Gottlieb Blarr as producer. Konrad Plank engineered the session, electronically modifying the instrumental input from the control booth. The original LP appeared in a limited run of 300 copies with an embossed plastic sleeve and fold-out inserts.

After this album, Schnitzler went solo with the 1973/74 self-released albums Rot and Blau, both proto-types of industrial noise music and power electronics. Moebius and Roedelius respelled the Kluster name with a C.

Cluster

Cluster released their first album as a duo in 1971 on Philips. The album contains three pieces titled after their duration.

The music builds from live manipulations of sustained tones, layered signal pulses, and continuous feedback textures. Hans-Joachim Roedelius handles organ, treated cello, and signal generators, interacting with Dieter Moebius’s filtered Hawaiian guitar and audio processing units; Conrad Plank shapes their outputs through modulated delay, distortion, and synthetic effects.

Cluster opens with no fixed anchor, only a suspended churn of tone bursts, feedback drag, and granular distortion that rotates between pressure and collapse. The first piece moves through layered cycles of modulation and sudden dropouts, at times thinning to isolated pulses, then ramping back into full-spectrum hiss and crumbling overtones. The middle track spans over fifteen minutes, alternating tension with brief plateaus of harmonic suspension before rupturing again into thick swells and jagged tonal surges. Each shift arrives without cue, driven more by internal instability than formal structure.

The final side-length piece draws out its spatial disorientation through slow, phased oscillations and deteriorated textures that mimic flickering machinery or distress beacons in low orbit. Throughout, Roedelius and Moebius blur source and signal, eroding any distinction between treated instrumentation and synthetic artifact. Plank’s engineering saturates the space between events, turning every pause or rupture into a charged field. Nothing holds steady for long—volume surges, tonal registers invert, and shapes dissolve just as they start to take form. It’s a record less built than decomposed in real time, charting internal feedback as physical process.

A1. “7:42”
A2. “15:43”
B. “21:32”

Plank produced and engineered the album in January 1971 at his studio facility, applying effects processing and tape manipulation in real time. Elke Walford supplied the front cover photo and Witt handled sleeve layout.

Cluster II

Cluster released their second duo album, Cluster II, in April 1972 on Brain.

The album expands on the pair’s earlier experiments with layered oscillation and texture, this time structured into six named tracks of variable length. Hans-Joachim Roedelius manipulates tonal generators and ambient electronics in dialogue with Dieter Moebius’s electric organ, filtered guitar, and sequenced effects; their processed signals interweave across contrasting dynamic fields.

Musically, Cluster II stretches sound into stratified densities, alternating between layered sonic pressure and intermittent structural drift. “Plas” opens the set with cold-edged distortion and abrasive static, punctuated by mechanical organ shapes that swell and collapse without contour. “Im Süden” builds from a looped guitar fragment stretched across near-thirteen minutes, expanding its harmonic bandwidth through shifting frequencies and layered oscillations that mimic spatial movement. “Für die Katz” narrows focus to high-end pulses and crackling textures that fracture across a subdued midrange haze.

“Live in der Fabrik” deepens the immersion with suspended low-end mass and untethered tonal shifts that suggest weightless machinery, its fourteen-minute arc shaped more by surface erosion than internal change. “Georgel” introduces hollow organ layers with faint dissonance, producing a smeared, ritualistic effect beneath faint, unearthed background tones. “Nabitte” closes with detuned piano stabs and heavily modulated vocal fragments submerged in thick reverb, casting the album’s bleakest impression in its shortest span. Throughout, Moebius and Roedelius shape each piece through subtractive momentum—building walls of processed tone only to perforate them with unstable detail.

A1. “Plas” (6:00)
A2. “Im Süden” [In the South] (12:50)
A3. “Für die Katz'” [For Nothing] (3:00)

B1. “Live in der Fabrik” [Live In the Factory] (14:50)
B2. “Georgel” (5:25)
B3. “Nabitte” [There You Go] (2:40)

Sessions occurred in January 1972 at Star-Studio in Hamburg, where Conrad Plank produced and engineered the album in sequence with 1972 Brain-label sessions by Achim Reichel & Machines, Grobschnitt, Guru Guru, Ibliss, Jane, Kin Ping Meh, Lucifer’s Friend, Neu!, Night Sun, Scorpions, and Thirsty Moon.

Zuckerzeit

Cluster released their third duo album, Zuckerzeit, in 1974 on Brain.

Zuckerzeit (German for Sugar Time) presents ten concise electronic pieces shaped from playful interactions between looped rhythm-box patterns, cyclical keyboard motifs, and layered synthetic textures.

Moebius and Roedelius each composed and recorded separate tracks on different days without collaboration. Both musicians tracked each piece to a preset, effects-filtered rhythmic pattern, creating asymmetric pulses that anchored the album’s disjointed structure.

Roedelius supplies the lighter cuts—spare, lilting pieces like “Hollywood” and “Rosa” that move with a crystalline calm, built from soft-edged electric piano and slow-looped textures, their phrasing restrained but not static. “Fotschi Tong” and “Marzipan” follow suit, trading in nimble patterns and sustained intervals shaped by upper-register lines. “Heiße Lippen” closes his half in short phrases and pulsed keys, recalling his work in Neu! 75 with Rother, who also co-produced.

Moebius, by contrast, favors disjointed loops and mechanical friction: “Caramel” locks into an urgent 4/4 pulse with bright, synthetic stabs; “Rote Riki” runs slow and unstable, layering warped bleeps over staggered pacing. “Caramba” overlays bent guitar tones atop minimal two-chord churn, while “James” mutates riff fragments into lopsided repetition with a guitar-led drone. “Rotor” clicks forward with warped keyboard phrases over a fast, clipped rhythm. Across the album, the duo alternate sequences without overlap, producing a rhythm-box architecture that flickers between disarming calm and twitchy tension.

A1. “Hollywood” (4:40)
A2. “Caramel” (3:00)
A3. “Rote Riki” (6:10)
A4. “Rosa” (4:08)

B1. “Caramba” (3:55)
B2. “Fotschi Tong” (4:15)
B3. “James” (3:18)
B4. “Marzipan” (3:15)
B5. “Rotor” (2:38)
B6. “Heiße Lippen” [“Hot Lips”] (2:20)

Moebius and Roedelius recorded the album in January 1974 after relocating from Berlin to the rural village of Forst, following their collaboration with NEU! guitarist Michael Rother on Musik von Harmonia, their first of three albums as Harmonia. Rother provided the Elka Drummer One drum machine and additional gear—including a four-track, stereo mixer, and Farfisa instruments—before departing and leaving production duties in their hands. Though credited as co-producer, his role primarily involved facilitating the setup.

Sowiesoso

Cluster released their fourth duo album, Sowiesoso, in November 1976 on Sky.

Sowiesoso (German for Anyway) unfolds in low, breath-paced pulses that alternate between soft percussive drift and slow-form environmental layers. Keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius and sound sculptor Dieter Moebius alternate lead figures on piano, synthesizer, and modulated effects, blending percussive accents with ambient coloration across short-form sequences.

The title track sets the pace with clipped, brushed sequences that repeat beneath shifting tone clusters and low-register refrains, evoking a naturalistic warmth through processed decay. “Halwa” pivots darker, bending synthetic leads over sluggish phrasings with unsettled harmonic pull, while “Dem Wanderer” contrasts pointed bass jolts against insectoid textures and warped vibrato patterns that rise and fade. “Umleitung” opens with soft piano phrasing, but splinters midway with layered yelps and a celebratory, almost chaotic burst of rhythmic clutter, undercutting the album’s prior stillness.

“Zum Wohl” returns to restraint, anchoring detuned pitch bends and faint reverberations against a sparse keyboard line and ambient field effects. “Es War Einmal” shifts toward repetition, locking piano motifs to faint pulses and narrow tonal shifts that drift between gentle and disquieting. “In Ewigkeit” closes the set in a state of suspension, extending hushed intervals and pitch-blurred overlays across a slow, whispering fade. Across all seven pieces, Cluster reduces structure to breath-length intervals and nuanced contrasts, with Roedelius’s grounded phrasing often offset by Moebius’s textural distortion.

A1. “Sowiesoso” (8:10)
A2. “Halwa” (2:45)
A3. “Dem Wanderer” [To the Wanderer] (3:50)
A4. “Umleitung” [Detour] (3:25)

B1. “Zum Wohl” [To Your Health] (6:50)
B2. “Es war einmal” [Once Upon a Time] (5:25)
B3. “In Ewigkeit” [For Eternity] (7:10)

Cluster recorded the album over two days at their countryside studio in Forst, then mixed it at Conny’s Studio in Wolperath. Conny Plank produced the session, marking his return after serving solely as engineer on Cluster II.

Sowiesoso followed their collaboration with Brian Eno in Harmonia and prefigured their joint albums with him.

Cluster & Eno

Cluster released their first of two collaborative albums with Brian Eno in August 1977 on Sky.

The album presents nine ambient instrumentals shaped through textural interplay between keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, tone-shaper Dieter Moebius, and sound processor Brian Eno. Roedelius frames soft melodic phrases in counterpoint with Eno’s layered sustain and Moebius’s treated signals, with guest input from bassist Holger Czukay on the opener.

Track by track, Cluster & Eno unfolds in a series of quiet set-pieces that favor delicate pacing and short-form drift. “Ho Renomo” opens with clustered keyboard tones and staggered motion, anchored by Czukay’s slow bassline that threads the entire structure. “Schöne Hände” works in shimmered delay patterns and swaying synth textures, extending and retracting across a narrow field of movement. “Steinsame” hinges on stammered pulses and subtle tonal blurring, its phrasing fragmented but continuous. “Selange” introduces low piano figures against faint percussive loops, building a framework of circular motion without climax.

“Mit Simaen” contracts to under two minutes, alternating faint high-register piano motifs with detuned counterpoints that dissolve as quickly as they appear. “Die Bunge” layers chirped electronics over staggered rhythm fragments, its pacing pushed forward by a ticking internal cadence. “Wehrmut” slows further, with processed drones stretched behind soft keyboard accents. “One” diverges sharply, drawing out a six-minute swell of sitar and sustained tension, paced by filtered noise and open reverb that exaggerate the track’s internal imbalance. “Für Luise” closes the set in quiet restraint, layering descending piano lines and slow, reverberant textures with a restrained finality. Across the album, the trio shape motion through restraint, highlighting gradual tonal interplay over fixed structure or trajectory.

A1. “Ho Renomo” (5:10)
A2. “Schöne Hände” [Beautiful Hands] (3:00)
A3. “Steinsame” [Stone Seeds] (4:20)
A4. “Wehrmut” [Wormwood] (5:00)

B1. “Mit Simaen” [With Simaen] (1:30)
B2. “Selange” (3:30)
B3. “Die Bunge” [The Bungee] (3:50)
B4. “One” (6:00) – with Asmus Tietchens and Okko Bekker
B5. “Für Luise” (3:50)

The three artists recorded the album in June 1977 at Conny’s Studio in Wolperath with engineer Conny Plank and assistant J. Krämer. Plank mixed the material from live takes and post-tracked layers using Eno’s tape processing and Cluster’s sequenced setups.

Each musician received equal authoring credit. Czukay plays bass on “Ho Renomo,” recorded during his off-time from Can. “One” features modular synth textures by Tietchens and sustained guitar noise from Bekker. Sky issued the album with unified artwork and equal billing for all three players.

After the Heat (w/ Eno)

Cluster and Brian Eno released their second set of collaborations, After the Heat, in 1978 on Sky, which billed the album as Eno Moebius Roedelius. The album contains ten further pieces from the June 1977 sessions that produced Cluster & Eno.

The music balances abstract ambient passages with occasional structured elements, including layered keyboard figures, reversed vocal segments, and environmental sound treatments. Keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius and synthesist Dieter Moebius alternate tonal patterns alongside Eno’s treated piano, synth overlays, and vocal experiments, with Holger Czukay contributing bass on the closing track.

Overall, After the Heat arranges short-form tonal sketches and atmospheric vignettes into a balanced arc that blends tactile electronic drift with sudden vocal rupture. “Oil” opens with layered synth swells and processed piano figures that stretch across a low, slow-moving undertow. “Luftschloss” and “The Shade” focus on textural piano and muted motion—each phrase gently loops, framed by microtonal adjustments and brief melodic turns. “Foreign Affairs” deepens the space with echo-staggered keys and stretched sustain, pulling rhythm inward without ever settling it.

“Base & Apex” overlays synthetic string patterns onto fragmented pulses, building a low-level tension that flickers and recedes. “Broken Head” splits the form—Eno’s dry monotone circles over a staggered backdrop of clipped electronics and rhythmic stutters that pitch-shift without resolution. “The Belldog” anchors layered synth modulation beneath stacked vocal refrains and spare percussion, its rising harmonic wash cut only by brief silences. “Tzima N’arki” cycles through reverse-tracked vocal fragments and spiraling instrumentation, its phrasing nonlinear and intentionally opaque. Throughout, Moebius, Roedelius, and Eno trade stability for suggestion, shaping each track as a discrete frame while allowing their internal elements to erode or echo across the album’s sequence.

A1. “Oil” (4:12)
A2. “Foreign Affairs” (3:30)
A3. “Luftschloß” [Castle In the Air] (3:10)
A4. “The Shade” (3:08)
A5. “Old Land” (4:10)

B1. “Base & Apex” (4:29)
B2. “Light Arms” (1:29)
B3. “Broken Head” (5:25)
B4. “The Belldog” (6:16)
B5. “Tzima N’Arki” (4:30)

They recorded and co-produced the material at Conny’s Studio in Cologne during the same June 1977 sessions that produced Cluster & Eno, where Plank engineered the project. Eno’s reversed vocal collage on “Tzima N’Arki” repurposes elements of “King’s Lead Hat” from Before and After Science. He also voices “Broken Head” over flanged tape cycles.

Despite originating from the same sessions as the earlier release, After the Heat assembles distinct pieces that shift focus from ambient drift to structural layering and processed speech. Sky issued the album with photography by Michael Weisse.

After these sessions, Hans-Joachim Roedelius branched into solo work with the 1978 Sky release Durch Die Wüste, followed by the 1979 titles Jardin au Fou and Selbstportrait (Teil 1 Sanfte Musik).

Grosses Wasser

Cluster released their fifth duo album, Grosses Wasser, in 1979 on Sky.

The album combines short-form ambient and rhythmic sketches with one side-long composition that shifts between atmospheric drift and structured electronics. Keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius shapes melodic passages and spatial textures around Dieter Moebius’s percussive electronics and filtered signal manipulation. They overlap tonal and textural roles across both sides.

A1. “Avanti” (4:44)
A2. “Prothese” [Prosthesis] (2:04)
A3. “Isodea” (4:03)
A4. “Breitengrad 20” [Latitude 20] (4:04)
A5. “Manchmal” [Sometimes] (2:05)

B1. “Großes Wasser” [Big Water] (18:38)

Cluster recorded the album in 1979 after a year-long break from collaboration, following two studio releases with Brian Eno. Former Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann produced the album at Sky’s Hamburg facility with engineer William Roper.

The duo returned to a more experimental format, particularly on the title track, which transitions from quiet tonal phases into cracked electronics and structured percussive patterns. Roedelius and Moebius developed the album’s material using layered keyboards, tape devices, and modified rhythm sequences.

Live in Vienna

In 1980, Cluster released Live in Vienna, a document of their June 12 performance at the Wiener Festwochen Alternativ with Farnbauer.

The album captures extended live improvisations built on real-time manipulation of tone generators, metallic percussion, and processed electronic textures. Synthesist Hans-Joachim Roedelius and oscillator manipulator Dieter Moebius generate shifting signal layers against Joshi Farnbauer’s live percussion electronics, with additional input on “Metalle” from percussionists Michael Jürs and Paul Rapnik.

A1. “Service” (32:44)
A2. “Kurz” (4:30)
B1. “Piano” (5:30)
B2. “Drums” (13:30)
B3. “Metalle” (24:25)
B4. “Ausgang” [Exit] (7:00)

Cluster recorded the performance direct to tape at the Wiener Festwochen Alternativ, a fringe event of the larger Vienna Festival. Engineer Eric Spitzer-Marlyn captured the material with minimal post-production. The set’s abstract majority recalls Kluster-era harshness, though “Piano” ends with a live version of “Manchmal” from Grosses Wasser.

Meanwhile, Moebius and Plank collaborated on the 1980 Sky release Rastakraut Pasta, a fusion of dub, kosmiche, and musique concrete.

Curiosum

Cluster released their sixth duo album, Curiosum, in 1981 on Sky.

The album presents seven concise electronic pieces shaped through abstract sequencing, tonal misdirection, and clipped rhythmic patterns. Synthesist Hans-Joachim Roedelius threads ambient figures through Dieter Moebius’s fragmented textures. They both alternate lead phrases and signal interplay across short-form compositions.

Compared to their earlier side-length constructions, Curiosum isolates ideas into standalone segments, with each track presenting a singular pulse or motif.

A1. “Oh Odessa” (3:15)
A2. “Proantipro” [Before and After] (7:30)
A3. “Seltsame Gegend” [Strange Area] (8:00)

B1. “Helle Melange” (3:45)
B2. “Tristan in der Bar” (3:00)
B3. “Charlic” (4:40)
B4. “Ufer” [Riverbank] (8:40)

Cluster recorded the album in May 1981 at Hamet Hof in Vienna, Austria, in what would be their final session before an eight-year hiatus. They self-produced the album without outside collaborators, working with portable synthesizers and basic outboard processing gear. Sky issued the album later that year as the duo’s final release for the label.

Discography: