„I’m autodidact. There was no music school I went to. I can neither write nor read scores, but even so, the body of work that I created since I moved from healing to tone-art in 1967 includes thousands of musical works, about 1000 texts/poems, an uncountable amount of photos, photo-collages and films. There’s a lot yet to come out from my archive of unreleased works.“
(Roedelius)
Finally, another edition of a Cluster concert from the days of old. To be released at the beginning of December, two months after Roedelius‘ autobiography „Das Geschenk“. Every performance had been a risky affair for Moebius and Roedelius: they all started at point zero, with no more than a few sketches in the back of their minds. But on that trip, sponsored by the Goethe Institut, they did a hell of a ride, in the mood for grooves and free jazz, kind of. Free improvisation has always been on their agenda, but jamming along with a great saxophone player from Cologne, had been a really surprising twist. Gerd Dudek was the joker in the game surfing on the rhythmic waves of their most robotic pieces. Very unusual, too, Cluster did a cover version of „Ruckzuck“, the first earworm ever by a music company called Kraftwerk. The tracklist: Wolkenmaler / Brandzeichen / Ruckzuck / Drachenhimmel / Chant Of The Earlybirds / Feuerland. In a word of sincerity, Brian Eno commented the release of this archival rarity, writing that the music didn‘t at all live up to the expectations of a Cluster concert, and that he has mixed feelings about the freewheeling rides of saxophone that seemed to arrive from a different universe. But, then again, he concludes, „confusion is the gateway to the new.“ Sometimes the new takes its time to arrive in public awareness. And now it will happen in dead quiet vinyl (and CD, DL). In fact, Brian was the most famous guest of the release party for this long buried treasure. And it all happened in a dream tonight. Sad thing is I forgot about ninety percent of the dream story. I was far away from turning it into a lucid dream. And in the morning I said to myself: how many lines will someone reading this believe it is all true till he or she realizes it‘s just a story being cooked in the windmills of the mind. Fair enough to end with the words of Mr. Roedelius remembering the early times: „It started around 1967 after working for about ten years as a nurse guider of the dying, physiotherapist and masseur, but also as a roofer gardener, kitchen-help, cook, detective, mountain-guide, toilet-cleaner, flight and travel-companion, animator, waiter, ice-cream-vendor and many more of such jobs and activities.“
Cluster Classics:
- Zuckerzeit
- Sowiesoso
- Cluster & Eno
- After The Heat (Moebius / Roedelius / Eno)
- Grosses Wasser