Customer Reviews

Zuckerzeit

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Zuckerzeit ("Sugar Era") proves to be a classic upon first listen. The album was a progressive move forward for Roedelius and Moebius who began to compose with rhythmic structures by way of an early drum machine and a stronger emphasis on harmony, a great departure from "Cluster II". What results is a fresh and warm analog experience which many to this very day are trying to recapture but so very few do. Re-mastering seems to have been well done.

I wonder why this release is not as well known as the classic "Autobahn" considering they both came out in 1974.

First things first: I recently saw the instructive "Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution" DVD documentary, and in it a bunch of Germany's so-called "Krautrock" scene is discussed, including of course Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Neu!, Can, etc, but also a number of bands with whom I was less familiar, or not familiar at all. Kluster (later renamed to Cluster) is one of those bands, so I started reading up a bit on these guys, and ordered this CD.

"Zuckerzeit" (1974; 10 tracks, 38 min.) is somewhat of a curiosity. Band members Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius were at a crosspoint in their career, and for this album rather than the full-blown space rock one might suspect, Roedelius and Moebius each contributed 5 racks, ranging from 2 to 6 min. Moebius seems to be the pushing the band into a further experimental direction, check out "Rote Riki", by far the longest of the tracks here, and also the most abstract piece. I love it. Roedilius' pieces remind me more of the latter days of Tangerine Dream, almost new age-like. Check for example "Rosa" and "Hollywood". Not bad, but not terribly engaging or demanding either. His "Fotchi Tong" and Marzipan" tracks are much better, though.

In all, this is not a bad album, but not a great one either. I will be exploring more of the Cluster albums in the near future, in particular and can't wait to see where that will lead me, but I've got "Cluster II" and the Eno-collaborations on my radar screen already.