The roots of German electronica reach back into the early 70s, when artists such as Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius began their musical experiments as Kluster/Cluster. They, in turn, influenced non-musicians as important as Brian Eno, who was so entranced that he recorded two albums with them.
Since that time, Moebius has engaged in a raft of collaborations as well as released a vast number of entrancing solo albums. Like a lot of this Swiss-born artist’s output, the music on his latest album is wonderfully timeless. The drift of Defekt could have been recorded back in 1971, whilst the nine-minute title track and eight-minute Ruston And Monotron are extended clangs with the same sub-dance rhythm that, with a decent remix and melodic augmentation, could find solace on a club’s dancefloor in the early 21st Century.
With so much electronica currently being released, it’s great to see one of the godfathers of the genre still coming up with the goods. That said, the ideas are sometimes a little too light to sustain elongated interest. Timeless it may be but, unlike Inch-Time’s fantastic Floating World LP, it doesn’t quite point towards the future, either.
