Cluster ‘71

One of the fascinating things about krautrock is that it really can be boiled down to roughly 25 people, and five of them are engineer Conny Plank. Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius had already made three albums as Kluster with Conrad Schnitzler, so they knew what they were doing when they became a trio here with Plank. The name change meant something. It seemed important for them to listen to these machines and to live in these echo units. (This is another massive entry in the non-reggae dub catalog.) This isn’t even strictly speaking a synth album, since some of the sound sources are acoustic instruments and free-standing electronic units of unspecified origin (probably early oscillators and tone generators). The trio have retained the metallic crunch of the earlier version of the group while getting into a state of spiritual engagement with sustain and echo, creating new shapes freed from the limitations of fingers making notes with strings (though there is some of that as material, buried in here.) A long and thrilling slalom down some thick shale.