Hi Radio Beach
This is what I wrote about
Cluster earlier on this thread:
... Then came some aural torture in the form of industrial music as performed by Kluster. They may have been the guys who invented Industrial Music but it´s certainly not for me. Even Cluster 71 and Cluster 11 are in the same vein. I´d only rescue a track from the latter "Im Suden". Then came Zuckerzeit to my amazement. This is a great album and one which ranks alongside Autobahn and Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy as the electronic albums of 1974. The unfortunate thing is that Cluster´s pioneering synth pop only lasted one album. Their next releases were very good ie Sowieoso, Cluster & Eno, After The Heat and Grosses Wasser. Not too sure about the track from After The Heat "Broken Head" as featured on Rusty´s playlist. Their 1981 release, Curiosum, was going back to their industrial days, a real shame. Begegnungen and Begegnungen II are interesting compilations involving Conny Plank. Conny Plank was their engineer even during the Kluster days ! Conny was also involved in the production at some point.
I find Neu! 75/La Dusseldorf more important to me. Their highly influential music and a number of gems can be found on the following. I´ll list my favourite tracks on each:
Neu! 75: Isi; E-Musik
La Dusseldorf: Silver Cloud; Zeit
Viva: Viva; Rheinita; Geld; Cha Cha 2000
Individuellos: Dampfreimen, Ich Liebe Dich, Koksknodel
Neu! 4: Schone Welle; Wave Naturelle; Quick Wave Machinelle (these 3 tracks are different recordings of the same track but love them all!)
Neu! 75, La Dusseldorf and Viva are their classic albums.
Rheinita was their biggest hit and
Silver Cloud a close second. Both magical instrumentals.
Hero and
After Eight from Neu! 75 and
La Dusseldorf from La Dusseldorf being punk favourites.
An article on Klaus Dinger with his comments on various matters:
http://www.dingerland.de/About/neu.html Excerpt from an article [taken from "Melody Maker" '79] where David Bowie mentions la Düsseldorf as music being close to his heart...
http://www.dingerland.de/About/bowie.html More on the making of Neu! 75 etc and how his break up with Anita, his Swedish girlfriend, marked him for the better ie musically. Klaus went on a songwriting trip and made New Wave history! ie Neu! 75 and so on.
http://www.dingerland.de/Talks/pop_int.html Enjoy!
Chris C
