Cluster
Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius made ambient, minimalist electronic music, often alongside Brian Eno, that stripped rock down to texture and space rather than rhythm and melody. Both belonged to the '68 generation who, as Moebius put it, spent "a lot of the times on the streets instead of studying." That restlessness, shared with communards and radicals across West Germany, fed directly into music that refused almost every convention of the rock band, favoring drift and tone over song. Their influence on later ambient and new-age music runs in a straight line from those early, patient recordings.
At a glance
- Active
- 1971–2010
- From
- Berlin, West Germany
Listen
In the issues
- German KrautrockSupporting cast · 1968-1975
German Krautrock is a music scene from West Germany (Düsseldorf, Cologne, Berlin), 1968–1975. Its principal artists include Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and Tangerine Dream. This issue covers 10 essential albums and 12 dated events.
Family tree
Bands that shared members with Cluster, and who.
- Kluster1969–1971Dieter Moebius, Hans‐Joachim Roedelius
- Harmonia1973–1976Dieter Moebius, Hans‐Joachim Roedelius
Places
- Conny's Studio (Conny Plank Studio)Cologne · 1969-1987 · German Krautrock
Producer Conny Plank's studio where he recorded Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia, and early Kraftwerk, becoming the sonic architect of krautrock's experimental production techniques.
Voices
Quotations from the issues, each matched word for word against the source it links to.
“We were a lot of the times on the streets instead of studying. As young people we were not very proud to be German [...] we were all tired of listening to bad German music and imitations of American music. Something had to happen.”