★Bureau B
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…
Fresh Air
LP version. Orange vinyl version with bonus 7". Includes CD. Faust's new album Fresh Air differs in several respects from its predecessor, Just Us (BB 182CD/LP, 2014). The recordings were made at Jean-Hervé Péron's rehearsal studio in Schiphorst in northern Germany, hypnotic pieces with the kind of noisemaking the band is known for. For the new album, Péron and Werner "Zappi" Diermaier were looking for communication with musician friends and the audience. The tracks were recorded in changin…
Oceanheart
"Sky, the record company, were more than a little disappointed with the performance of Grosskopf's first solo effort "Synthesist", so there was no great sense of urgency as far as its successor was concerned. "they even halved my advance!" Grosskopf recalls. "Oceanheart" was released some six years after "Synthesist". "The album title reflects my love of transcendental meditation, of course it might be taken for watery esoterics." (A similar vibe was evident in the cover art, hence fresh artwork…
Musik Fur Metropolis
LP version. Includes CD. Dieter Moebius (1944-2015) was one of the most important protagonists of avant-garde electronic music in Germany. He was a founding member of Kluster/Cluster (with Conrad Schnitzer and Hans-Joachim Roedelius) and Harmonia (with Michael Rother and Hans-Joachim Roedelius) and worked with several artists such as Brian Eno, Conny Plank, Mayo Thompson, Hellmut Hattler, Asmus Tietchens, Mani Neumeier, Arno Steffen, Jürgen Engler, Jean Hervé Peron, Zappi Diermaier, and Chris Ka…
Filmmusik 2
LP version. Bureau B present part two of their Filmmusik double release. In 1975, Conrad Schnitzler recorded various pieces of music to accompany films which had yet to be made. Fittingly, he labelled this collection of songs Filmmusik. Only one of the tracks - "Gute Fahrt" ("Nice Journey") - would ultimately be paired with a film, now traceable on the internet for all to see. The music is included on Part 1 of Bureau B's Filmmusik double release (BB 244CD/LP, 2016), erroneously entitled "02/198…
Sammlung: Elektronische Kassettenmusik, Dusseldorf 1982-1989
LP version. Post-war apartments dominated the views of Düsseldorf in the early 1980s - cement slabs, the "art bunker" known as the Kunsthalle, and the elevated railway called "The Millipede". Yet reconstruction was in full swing - bank buildings on the "Kö" received postmodern interiors, the old town became stylishly retro-rustic, and advertising agencies displaced industrial companies. Music took all of this on. Punk was finished, but its pathos drifted through pubs and shared flats. At the sam…
Magnetband: Experimenteller Elektronik-Underground DDR 1984-1989
LP version. Inspired by punk and post punk, vibrant scenes dedicated to independent self-actualization by means of self-distributed cassettes - the cheapest and fastest medium - were developing on each side of the Cold War's confrontational line. Albeit, under quite different circumstances. While there was a DIY euphoria in the West, which would also have had ideological motives, subcultures in the East simply had no other means. Even the first act of replication meant moving into illegal territ…
Trans Harmonic Nights
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Peter Baumann's second solo album Trans Harmonic Nights, originally released in 1979. From 1971 to 1977, Peter Baumann was a member of the legendary Berlin band Tangerine Dream. The group were pioneers of the so called Berliner Schule (Berlin School) which had a profound impact on electronic music. Trans Harmonic Nights sees Baumann continue to break free from the gravitational pull of Tangerine Dream. Hans-Joachim Roedelius was recording the Jardin Au F…
Machines of Desire
LP version. Includes CD. "In October 2014 an idea suddenly came to mind. Although I had spent much of my life performing, recording and producing music, my attention over the immediately preceding years had been focused on the philosophy and psychology of human nature. It was a rewarding exploration, but I missed being more creative -- suddenly I felt the urge to play music again. I built a recording studio in my basement and began writing material for the first time in a long while. In November…
Atmosphere
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Adelbert Von Deyen's third album Atmosphere, originally released in 1980. Album number three from electronic musician Adelbert Von Deyen marks the end of his ambient phase. Whilst Atmosphere largely swathes listeners in familiarly vast expanses of sound, the driving analog drums of the opening track (Von Deyen's most successful, as it turned out) signal a shift towards electro-kraut terrain. Atmosphere showcases Adelbert Von Deyen at the peak of his powe…
Zero Set
2016 repress. LP version on 180 gram vinyl. In 1983, Dieter Moebius (Cluster) and legendary producer Conny Plankteamed up for the third time, resulting in the Zero Set project, originally released on Sky Records. On this occasion, they were backed up by one of the best drummers on the German rock scene: Mani Neumeier of Guru Guru. Plank, usually more of a background figure as producer, takes an equal share of the limelight alongside the musicians. His supermodern studio is brought into play like…
Strange Music
LP version. Bureau B reissues the first collaborative release by Dieter Moebius and Gerd Beerbohm, originally released by Sky Records in 1982. In the latter half of the 1970s, alongside their Cluster collaboration, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius embarked almost simultaneously on individual musical journeys. Roedelius focused primarily on solo projects, while Moebius preferred to engage with other musicians on equal terms. Strange Music -- as unimaginative as the title may first appear…
Tonspuren
LP version, pressed on 180 gram vinyl. This is the first solo album by Dieter Moebius, recorded at Conny Plank's studio and originally released in 1983 on Sky Records. By 1969 at the latest, Dieter Moebius was synonymous with the avant-garde electronic music scene in Germany. He and Hans-Joachim Roedelius formed Cluster, a seminal electronic/ambient duo, while Moebius was also a member of the so-called Krautrock supergroup Harmonia (with Michael Rother and Roedelius), as well as collaborating on…
Off the Record
LP version. Well-known as one-quarter of the "classic" Kraftwerk line-up, Karl Bartos' new album is an audio-visual sensation. Lost for many years, some of his early music has been re-conceived and re-contextualized in a thrilling modern setting. Here's the story: during Kraftwerk's heyday, Karl Bartos wrote -- off the record -- a secret acoustic diary. Based on his musical jottings (rhythms, riffs, hooks, sounds, chords, and melodies) this is what he has come up with today -- 12 brand-new, exci…
Fur mich
LP version. Tired of quarreling endlessly with his imperious brother Klaus, Thomas Dinger quit the production of Viva, the second La Düsseldorf album, and promptly set off for the south of France. Frustrated and far away from home, his mind turned to the possibility of a solo album. An album devoted to his own musical ideas, free from domineering voices telling him what to do. Presenting his own vision in the context of a La Düsseldorf LP would have been difficult at the best of times. "I wanted…
Kollektion 05: Conrad Schnitzler Compiled and Assembled by Thoma
LP version. Things come full circle. In 1976 Thomas Fehlmannarrives in Hamburg to study art at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts. In 1979 he attends a guest lecture by Conrad Schnitzler, who demonstrates how the "extended definition of art" established by Joseph Beuys can be applied to music. This proves to be a crucial element in Fehlmann's decision to become a musician. And now, in 2015, over 35 years later, Fehlmann has compiled the fifth installment in Bureau B's Kollektion series, arrangi…
Structures
LP version. Latecomers to the krautrock party, Circles created a manifesto of frenzied inertia in the late 1980s, swimming in the same gene pool as Cluster and Popol Vuh. Ambient music for the end of time does not get any more authentic than this. The Structures album is a time capsule unlocked, containing previously unreleased recordings from 1985 to 1989. Music that blends the extremes of end-times foreboding and drifting lightness to beguiling effect. Music that succeeds in sounding more cont…
Elektronische Mythen
CD version. Jürgen Karg began his music career in the 1960s as a bassist for German jazz legend Wolfgang Dauner. It was not until the 1970s that he switched his attention to electronic music, launching himself wholeheartedly into exploring the genre and building up an extensive collection of synthesizers over a five-year period. His efforts culminated in the 1977 Elektronische Mythen LP, a mighty opus of experimental music that reveals new aspects every time it is played. This is its first reiss…