Klopfzeichen

If you think of Kluster as early synth work from the krautrock family, that’s only sort of true. Schnitzler, Roedelius, and Moebius enter into the heart of the echo unit on Klopfzeichen and they don’t strictly have synthesizers as such. People have mentioned Throbbing Gristle and other unbiddable noise acts in relation to this one, which is partly because of the woman narrating parts in German. She says something about freedom and revolution and work? I’m not good enough with German to tell, but I might love what they’re saying? It’s feeling very Baader-Meinhof! It’s frustrating how often record collector boys leave the woman’s narration out of the story here. This album is noisy as heck: lots of metallic sounds duking it out in half-ruined silence. Kluster made some grouchy and fully charged music, only barely related to the sweet and salty Cluster records to come. Dark, bitter stuff, and really fucking good.