ZUCKERZEIT

Well there is a singular album, groundbreaking for the time it was recorded but not having aged all that well. After two solid albums that were revolutionary in the same mould than Tangerine Dream's Zeit and Atem albums, but this one was drastically different and will resemble Kraftwerk's works from their third album onwards (coincidence on the third album as well?). after two albums as Kluster and two more as Cluster developing a weird but free form music close to tangerine Dream and radical Polit rock as Floh De Cologne, Rodellius and Moebius met up with Neu!'s Michael Rother to experiment an interesting mix of their respective music in a project called Harmonia. The resulting music was definitely rhythmic and clearly Cluster was now influenced by Neu! By the time this album was released, the old Cluster was simply gone and resembled Kraftwerk.

Yes, this album boasts the same kind of proto-new wave that their countrymen would become so famous for, but Cluster will remain obscure, only known to a handful, most notably our great collab Philippe Blache (admirateur éternel de Krautrock électronique) and a few of his pupils. As much as I can recognize historical merits to Cluster, I cannot actually endorse this type of album, hating New Wave as a whole and not just to a rhetorical level. And the atrocious fact is that I cannot even spot one track that would eventually surface as a highlight and stand out on its own. Musically I find the album uninteresting outside its historical importance and it is a far cry from the incredibly adventurous 71 album.

So if you appreciate mid-period Kraftwerk or early 80's music, this album might just be close to indispensable to you, but I cannot think of a more boring (but not historically, though) album. According to this writer, this album is best avoided like the pest. Not sure I appreciate the tendentious photo on the back cover album, also. Let's just say that the album gets its rating rounded to the second star on the basis of its historical importance. But I still prefer the older Cluster or the early Neu! to this album