★Bureau B
Elemente
LP version. Includes CD. Elemente -- album number seven from the third incarnation of the legendary krautronic project Kluster/Cluster springs a surprise with a minor sensation: sequencer lines. Using an array of exclusively analogue instruments, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Onnen Bock, and Armin Metz have recorded eight tracks which, at one and the same time, are intrinsically hypnotic and sublimely beautiful. In principle, Elemente was created in much the same fashion as earlier Qluster albums: the…
Tasten
LP version. Includes CD. The artists: Hans-Joachim Roedelius (piano), Onnen Bock (piano), Armin Metz (piano). The music: minimalist, spherical sounds by three grand pianos. Introverted, minimalist "classical" music has reached full bloom as devotees of the neo-classical movement flock to see the likes of Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, and Chilly Gonzales. One pioneer of the resurgence in minimal piano music is Hans-Joachim Roedelius, best known as a member of the avant-garde electronic combo Cluste…
Auferstehung: Elektronische Musik aus Berlin 1983/1984
LP version. In 1983, electronic musician Rudolf Langer (Tyndall) and guitarist Peter Preuß teamed up to form a duo by the name of LAPRE (LAnger + PREuß). Aligned with the second generation of the Berlin School, their output is incredibly varied: from repetitive sequencer patterns via playfully cheerful synth pop all the way to atmospheric, hypnotic minor key expanses. It's all there. By 1984, LAPRE had released two tapes and a 12" vinyl. Bureau B's compilation presents the most compelling tracks…
Chronolyse
Bureau B present a reissue of Richard Pinhas's Rhizosphere, originally released in 1977. Richard Pinhas is one of the most important French electronic space rock musicians. Following five albums with his band Heldon, he released his first solo record in 1977. Backed by Heldon's congenial drummer François Auger but no longer bound by the group dynamic, he explores his freshly purchased Moog modular system in search of new sounds. It marked a departure into new realms. "We don't need new technique…
East West
Bureau B presents a reissue of Richard Pinhas's East West, originally issued in 1980. The fourth solo album by French spacerock mastermind Pinhas, East West was his first and only album to be released by a major label (CBS). Some say it is his most commercial but Pinhas doesn't see it that way. "Signing to CBS was a blessing. It gave me the tools for better production. At that time, some big companies were better and more honest than the so-called underground labels. Besides, I don't see any vir…
Sonnenlicht
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Tyndall's debut album, Sonnenlicht, originally released in 1980 on Sky Records. The two electronic sonic inventors Jürgen Krehan and Rudolf Langer founded Tyndall in the year 1980, naming their duo after a light scattering phenomenon in physics. Armed with an impressive array of instruments, devices, and home-made synthesizers, they created free and easy electronic music in the style of the Berlin School (Berliner Schule), much to the liking of the legen…
Third (It's Always Rock 'N' Roll)
Double LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's third album Third (It's Always Rock 'N' Roll), originally released on Disjuncta in 1975. Third album from the French space-rock electro combo masterminded by Richard Pinhas. Heldon's darkest work lays another stone in their sonic mosaic: synths, drones, fuzz, and trippy improvisations. There's something wicked happening on Heldon's third album It's Always Rock And Roll. Richard Pinhas's essential attack of searing guitar and space-bound s…
Agneta Nilsson (Heldon IV)
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's fourth album Agneta Nilsson, originally released on Urus Records in 1976. Agneta Nilsson opens with a mind-paralyzing track that proves stillness can have a pulse. "Perspective I" spends ten minutes poring through tectonic layers of heavy sound, piling everything so thick that the song becomes like quicksand for your brain. It's one of the most daunting works in the Heldon catalog, made all the more impressive by how simple it is. It's just soun…
Synthesis: Electronic Music 1984-1988
LP version. Dennis Young is best known as the percussionist of the New York band Liquid Liquid, which is known for their piece "Cavern" from 1983, which in turn became very well-known because Grandmaster Flash sampled it and used it as the basis for their hit "White Lines". But Young was more than just a member of the band, he produced plenty of his own music, much of it reflecting his passion for analog electronics. He was fascinated by the pioneers of the genre. In 2016 Bureau B released Wa…
Allez-Teia (Heldon II)
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's second album Allez-Teia, originally released on Disjuncta in 1975. Before making his own music in the early '70s, Richard Pinhas was a King Crimson fan. The British group has buzzed in Pinhas's mind for decades, but their greatest impact came early. When he first saw them play, Pinhas was struck by music played during intermission. "When I saw (King Crimson guitarist) Robert Fripp and Brian Eno perform in Paris later, I realized that the intermi…
Traumland
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Tyndall's second album Traumland, originally released in 1981 on Sky Records. The electronic sonic inventors Tyndall pulled out all the stops for their second album. Armed with an impressive array of analog synthesizers, they unleashed the full force of their experimentalist ambitions, weaving synth pop, repetitive bass patterns, laminar sounds, and carefree melodies into a unique amalgam of the Düsseldorf and Berlin Schools. Traumland was released…
Les Cassettes 1980-1983
LP version. In the early 1980s, the French musical duo Fondation, comprising Ivan Coaquette and Anannka Raghel, released three tapes of fantastic electronic music which owed much to the experimentalism of the seventies. Synthesizer, drum computer, solo guitar. Repetitive, meditative, hypnotic -- between ambient and synth pop. Les Cassettes 1980-1983 presents a selection of their finest pieces from this period. During an extended sojourn in Italy around 1970, the multi-instrumentalist Ivan Coaque…
Live in Vienna 1980
Double-LP version. The first live recording of Cluster (Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius), and their only collaboration with Austrian musician Joshi Farnbauer (drums and percussion), recorded in Vienna in 1980. A sonic throwback to their early years, reissued on CD. Were one to be presented with two separate stacks of Cluster recordings -- one composed of their studio work, the other of live performances -- an innocent listener might conclude they are the efforts of two completely d…
Nordborg
"Electronic musician Adelbert von Deyen’s debut and sophomore album were released just a year apart from each other. “Sternzeit” was followed by “Nordborg”, which featured only one track on each side. Again, von Deyen took his time crafting a meditative maelstrom of ambient sounds. The B-side, “Iceland”, is actually an acoustic interpretation of a snowstorm in Nordborg, Denmark, as remembered by von Deyen.
Von Deyens debut album “Sternzeit” had caused quite a stir in 1978 in his home tow…
Rhizosphere
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Richard Pinhas's Rhizosphere, originally released in 1977. Richard Pinhas is one of the most important French electronic space rock musicians. Following five albums with his band Heldon, he released his first solo record in 1977. Backed by Heldon's congenial drummer François Auger but no longer bound by the group dynamic, he explores his freshly purchased Moog modular system in search of new sounds. It marked a departure into new realms. "We don't n…
After The Heat
Brian Eno's second album collaboration with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster consists of slow-moving instrumentals full of repeated synthesizer sound patterns and sustained guitar notes. An idyllic spot ofland
Cluster & Eno
The first of two milestones in ambient music recorded by Germany's legendary electronic pioneers Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius together with Britains music eccentric Brian Eno.
Southland
Just when you thought you had heard everything that German electronic music of the 1980s had to offer, up pops an artist who has resolutely stayed off the radar all these years, in spite of having a discography which lists no less than 18 albums. (Hobby) musician Rüdiger Lorenz, a pharmacist by trade, completed an album almost every year beginning in the early 1980s, first as limited runs of two to three hundred on cassette, then switching to vinyl in 1983, and CD in 1990. His last album was rel…
Konzerte 1972/1977
LP version with CD. The two authorized recordings presented on Konzerte 1972/1977 vividly conjure up the atmosphere, perhaps even the magic, of a Cluster performance back in the day. One took place in 1977 during a science fiction festival in Metz (France). The other dates back to an earlier show in Hamburg's Fabrik venue. Cluster played three gigs in the city in 1971/1972, including the one partially included on 1972's Cluster II (LR 335LP). Cluster shows routinely lasted six hours or more, …
The Awakening Dream
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Jurriaan Andriessen's The Awakening Dream, originally released in 1977. Jurriaan Andriessen (1925-1996) was a Dutch composer. Although he was actually at home in classical music, he recorded three synthesizer albums in the late 1970s, the first of which, The Awakening Dream, is an outstanding excursion into experimental ambient and minimal music. Andriessen himself, 52 years of age at the time, called it a "trance symphony". The music - perhaps su…