Cluster

"Cluster II is the second full-length album by German electronic music group Cluster. It was recorded at Star-Studio in Hamburg, Germany in 1972 and was the first release for the legendary Krautrock label Brain Records, a relationship which would last until 1975 and include the subsequent album “Zuckerzeit” as well as the first two Harmonia albums, a group which included both remaining members of Cluster and Michael Rother of Neu!. Cluster II went from the discordant, proto-industrial sound of Kluster, as the band was named previously, towards a more electronic sound. Compositions are always made of repetitive patterns, simple motifs, noisy and cerebral. However it features a better implication in term of ‘structures’. The electronic exercises are shorter, more controlled. The album starts with a spheric music that surrounds you, then it introduces a continuous organ line with perpetual static electronic ‘tones’ and guitar's distortion. This tune evokes the unit of perception. "Im Suden” used a hypnotic electronic bass pulse / guitar patterns to produce hallucinations inside your ears. Gradually it alternates the sound level of each part. Fascinating and visceral ‘Brain’ music. "Fur Die Katz" combines modulating electric sounds with many electronic noises and effects in the background. The atmosphere obtained is very creepy, calibrated for a real discharge of intensity. "Live In Der Fabrik" is made of a repetitive, concentric, duplicated electric sound with a kind of abstract electric bass sound. Very industrial and chaotic. We can also hear modulating frequency harmonies, feedback in the performance space. "Georgel" is a haunted, dark organ work, irrevocably moving to a series of changing, beating pitches. A sonic meditation, a pleasant cerebral massage. One of the most incredible, stimulating albums ever."