Qua

Cluster | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 26, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nepenthe Music and Publishing
• ASIN: B0028OA98E
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #192,881 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Cluster Qua Klangbad/Broken Silence CD Hans-Joachim Roedelius was born in 1934, a few months before Elvis Presley. By 1938, he was already a child actor. Recently, as part of activities pertaining to his rejoining forces with Dieter Moebius to reactivate Cluster, he was spotted at an electronica club, DJing for two hours, long after younger, more fatigued patrons had taken to their beds. His own tirelessness is exemplary and evident on Qua, just one of his many recent collaborative releases. Qua is a tribute also to Krautrock s endless capacity to confound and shapeshift, rather than settle into retirement as a received and established set of musical tropes. Built around enigmatic pulses which patter like living organisms rather than with machine regularity (a scarcity of bass drums, hi-hats), Qua s titles are more like wordshapes Flutful , Ymstrob , à la Autechre, as if to reflect that they are hermetic, one-off creations signifying nothing other than their own, fleeting existence. Unlike Autechre, however, there are no sharp edges, hard lines or definite articles here, rather, gentle, harmonic contours, albeit taking constantly arresting and unexpected forms and colours. Qua is an album which smoothly and consistently eludes the grasp, despite its looped repetitions; never settles long enough to invite easy comparison. From the babbling bass brooks of Gissander to the snaking, slippery shuffle of Malturi Sa , it hovers between the liquid and the gaseous. Formalt , throbbing and oozing, seems constantly on the point of fading out but persistently fails to do so symbolic, perhaps, of the sheer, abiding qualities of both Cluster and the German music scene which first buoyed them up back in the early 70s. --David Stubs - The Wire

Product Description

Every piece on QUA, however concrete it might be in its production, remains ambiguous and open. But are we even speaking here about pieces, or works, or tracks? According to the old fashioned definition of a work, a composed piece of music is defined among other things by its duration. For this reason alone the term doesn't apply to Cluster's music. For their pieces, or let's call them "musical units", start and at some point end again. What happens between the start and the end is infinite. Each of these units could easily have been longer. Each piece wants to and should never end. This is the magic in Cluster's music. How many bands have been set on their way since the release of Cluster's first album in 1971, doing somehow repetitive, loop-based music. None have quite reached the sometimes friendly, sometimes disconcerting stoicism of their role-models. For all its eventfulness and sonic richness, Cluster never sound staged. The events and changes in sound don't want to force a new direction on the pieces, sorry, musical units. They just happen, almost unintentionally and as if by their own accord. And so Cluster lead us through their new, utterly timeless album as though through a garden full of strange plants. We stand amazed in front of each of these plants. Some have wildly rampant lives of their own, others almost leafless, with barren branches. The source of rhythm on QUA is often one solitary pulse of undisclosed origin; bass-drum, snare and hi-hat are rarely used. On Na Ernel they generate a beat that stumbles along as if the CD were jumping. But gradually a groove emerges out of the piece and the endlessness has us again. Cluster have been making music for nearly 40 years. They have long since earned legendary status. If this bands music had lost any of its currentness, one would honor it as a gesamtkunstwerk. But it's far too early for that, as Cluster are as productive, wide awake and important as ever before. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple Brilliance, July 2, 2009

By 

Vinnie C. "Electronic musician" (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Qua (Audio CD)

I came into this album after only hearing a mite bit of what Cluster had produced in the 70's. I was immediately captured by their sound, as it was seemingly the beginning of the ambient/experimental music that I have been obsessed with these days. Upon first listening to their 2009 release, I am certain that these guys are some of the most important musical minds of the last 50 years (at least for me). It amazes me that Cluster has released such a unique album after all (and I mean ALL) of the years of writing music. I always thought that after being at it for so long, a "kraut rock" group was supposed to move on to New Age music! Apparently not these guys.

At first glance, the music in Qua felt to be like a minimal "world" music, but as I listen more and more, it is indeed very other worldly. It is atmospheric, to be sure, but beyond simple background music (a term that I have never been a fan of). The subtle textures developed through an immense knowledge of analog synths combines with very restrained percussive elements, and the songs tend to pulsate, inflate, and deflate rather than move from point A to point B. There is nothing more that I can say to describe the sound, but it seems to be very true to what the duo has always done, and that is record very innovative, provocative music.

Again, having known very little about Cluster when writing this review, I can at least say that as a fan of experimental music, as well as ambient, these guys get it. They have a very adventurous approach to music, and it really works. I find that with some experimental music, the songs seem to have little to say or accomplish. Much of today's avant garde evokes little emotion in me (it sometimes bores me to tears), and I have been searching for something much more lucious and dream-like. What a welcome album this is for me. I hope others will pick it up and enjoy it. There is just nothing else quite like it.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Qua's a Treat!, December 23, 2009

By 

A. Schlesinger "Synpro" (Swamps of NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Qua (Audio CD)

I have been listening to Cluster since the 70's and one cannot discount their influence on electronica music across the musical spectrum. Listen to bands like Mum. They've had a major influence on many including the inimitable Brian Eno as well. I was surprised to see a new album from these two musicians as it has been quite a long time.

If you are a fan of cluster I would say that you are NOT likely to be disappointed in this new collection of tunes. All their characteristic and unique approaches to sounds and compositional structure are there...updated with the various studio technologies now available with a computer and an iPod. Tim Story's production is spot on and he lets their creative juice flow forth.

What makes this so wonderful is Cluster still sound like Cluster and that quirky clock-not-working-quite-right approach to their music is still intact. The sounds sound fresh, unique and fun and it they create a unique sonic soup like no others. The album is a shining, intermittent LED flashlight on a rather bleak musical landscape signaling that there is still adventure and child like naivete to be had for those willing to take a listen.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars this was a nice surprise, April 4, 2011

By 

A Dinosaur-Shaped Car "Homosexual Porn" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Qua (Audio CD)

First, a little disclaimer: this is five star-worthy music and I say Cluster are the most important "band" in electronic music.

Like the philosophically different yet periodically inseparable Kraftwerk, Cluster are in the difficult position of poising themselves between pretending modern electronic music doesn't exist (which would be disingenuous) and acknowledging it (which could lead to a sad case of inventors imitating imitators). What makes Qua a success is its total disregard for this dilemma: modern techniques are used merely as tools for another realization of Cluster's exotic, occasionally humorous musical philosophy.

Although Qua proves deeply futuristic compared to the band's more pastoral-minded mid-career stuff, it fully retains the idiosyncratic impressionism characterizing that period, which occasionally edges the material to near crudeness. It's like they're masterful technicians who were ordered by some unknown authority to only use a handful of sounds per song, so they did the most they could with each voice.

At any rate, even at their current age, the Cluster duo's in no danger of getting monochromatic or overly academic. With 17 songs, each one is its own distinct little soundscape, totally divorced from the last in terms of color. The simple, stumbling polyrhythm in "Na Ernel" provides endless fascination, while in Putoil, the sound of a creaking door is mixed in as the main instrument. "Xanesra" is the most nakedly emotional this album gets, with the surreal contrast of bright, nintendoish synth spelling out something that has an intense aura of devotion and sadness.

The minimal house-esque "Stenthin" shows the deconstructive genius that Cluster can channel in even the most simple and quirky contexts, the main rhythmic figure breaking into its own set of blurting electronic voices as strings scrape out an orbiting accompaniment. In "Formalt", washing, luminous layers of synth give the slightest suggestion of rhythm atop a simple bass pulse and horn-like lead phrasing. Then, "Imtrerion" is a giant balloon slowly deflating, a doleful denouement to an album full of understated wit.

A couple stars off for idiotic packaging, however. It comes in a paper slipcase thing you're doomed to eventually throw out, so you'll need a spare CD case.

One thing you can't call Cluster is immodest. They pioneered ambient and electronic music, which in the subsequent decades turned into something that feels like brain surgery; and despite that, even now, they write simple and endearing music that captures the imagination on an almost childlike level.