Hans-Joachim Roedelius - Durch die Wüste
Sky Records, 1978"...Anyone who has listened carefully to Cluster´s 1974 effort Zuckerzeit will have come to recognize the handwriting of Roedelius on this and all subsequent Cluster and Harmonia albums. Just how far Roedelius would develop his own compositional technique and mode of playing would only become obvious when he was set free from the ensemble environment on Durch die Wüste.
Listeners at the time will have been baffled by just how little electronically generated sounds were a feature of the album. Synthesizers and electronic effects did play a part, but Roedelius integrated them so seamlessly into the arrangement that one barely noticed them. The rhythm machine was relegated to the status of metronome. In fact, Roedelius´ decision to distance himself from electronic music, rigid in structure as it had become, and turn to a new form of musical expression is what really gave the album its experimental character. Assisting Roedelius were the brilliant sound engineer Conny Plank with his unmistakeable guitar style and Dieter Moebius who, in spite of everything, set a few significant markers with the synthesizer." -from the Bureau B website.
(Bureau B has reissued this album on digipack CD and 180 gram vinyl along with many other excellent Roedelius and related albums)
"Durch Die Wüste was first released on Sky Records in 1978 as the debut full-length solo album by the great Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster and Harmonia fame. This album was studiously pieced together over a two-year period between 1976 and 1978 at Conny Plank's studio outside Cologne, it's eventual arrival sandwiched between 1977's Cluster & Eno album and 1979's Jardin Au Fou, which was given the Bureau B reissue treatment earlier on in the year. Durch Die Wüste has aged incredibly well, and that's not just because the world's ears seem to be especially sympathetically inclined towards all things kosmische at the moment - it's just a wonderfully deep, restless love letter to sound. 'Am Rockzipfel' might initially wrongfoot you with its gnarled, phased guitar solos and funk-spelunking basslines, but there are all manner of peculiar sonic interludes and gaps lurking within the main body of the track, meaning that by the time the abstract sonic explorations of the title track come along we're not too surprised. This fourteen minute analogue voyage is a magical thing, full of bewitching tape details and fizzing modulatory experiments, and although the pastoral 'Johanneslust' sees a return to more recognisable compositional formatting, its immersive, ear-cushioning production is anything but conventional. The beautiful, poly-instrumental arpeggios of 'Glaubersalz' mark another triumph, meandering blissfully through some of the most subtly verdant sound designs in all of the krautrock canon. The final two tracks take a turn in a more psychedelic direction, with 'Mr Livingstone's pentatonic pitchwheel antics carving out Chinese-inspired harmonies while freeform percussion filtered through vintage echo reels clatters in the background, and 'Regenmacher' thriving on an arrangement of similarly Eastern beat developments while electronically morphed concrète recordings layer the piece in a coating of wind and rain. A true classic of vintage German electronic music..." - from Boomkat.com
Durch die Wüste is.....
- Jaso Christo – bass, guitar
- Dieter Moebius – synthesizer
- Conny Plank – synthesizer, guitar, percussion, producer, engineer, mixing, stimme
- Hans-Joachim Roedelius – bass, percussion, synthesizer, keyboards, strings, producer, stimme
FILL YOUR EARS
1 comments:
a word on the title.... apparently "Durch die Wüste" means Through the desert (or wilderness or wasteland), which is nice considering the cover photo...
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