''Cluster'' (also reissued as ''Cluster 71'') is the debut studio album by German

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

outfit Cluster. It was recorded in 1971 and released the same year by record label Philips. It is also the only album on which producer

Conny Plank Konrad "Conny" Plank (3 May 1940 – 5 December 1987) was a German record producer and musician. He is known for his innovative work as a sound engineer and producer in Germany's krautrock and kosmische music scene in the 1970s. Plank was involv ...

is credited as a member.

Recording

Recorded in January 1971, ''Cluster'' began a transition away from the discordant industrial sound of their earlier group

Kluster Kluster was a Berlin-based German Experimental music, experimental musical group formed in 1969 by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Conrad Schnitzler, and Dieter Moebius. Their improvisational work presaged later industrial music. The original Kluster w ...

towards softer atmospheres. Thom Jurek of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

describes ''Cluster'' as "a dislocating, disorienting meld of random space music, industrial noise, proto-ambient atmospherics, feedback and soundwash". Instrumentation included a pair of organs, Hawaiian guitar, cello and audio generators, all played by Moebius and Roedelius and all of which were electronically treated by

. Spencer Grady of BBC Music stated that "far from providing mere background ambience, he album'srolling waves of hypnosis are continually exposed to perforation by disorienting surges of energy, imparting wake-up calls to comfort.

Release

''Cluster'' was released in 1971 by record label Philips; Cluster's only release for the label. The album was reissued with new artwork and a new title, ''Cluster 71'', by Sky Records in 1980. ''Cluster 71'' was digitally remastered (from a vinyl source, not a tape) and reissued on CD in 1996 by Sky with new artwork: a total of three different cover designs for the album to date. It received its first U.S release in 2006 on the

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

based Water label. The Water reissue restored the original Philips cover art but retains the ''Cluster 71'' name. A 1,000 copy limited remastered edition of ''Cluster 71'' with the original Sky LP cover art was reissued by the Japanese Captain Trip label as a CD on September 20, 2007. It was re-released once again in 2010 by Bureau-B with the original cover art and running order, but again mastered from an LP.

Legacy

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

'' placed Cluster's self-titled debut album in their list "One Hundred Records That Set the World on Fire". Spencer Grady of BBC Music depicted the album as an influence on artists like

Brian Eno Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno (, born 15 May 1948), also mononymously known as Eno, is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambien ...

, John Foxx, and Coil, as well as "a new global network of synth-powered cosmonauts ..from Emeralds and

Oneohtrix Point Never Daniel Lopatin (born July 25, 1982), best known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is an American Experimental music, experimental electronic music producer, composer, singer, and songwriter. His music has utilized wikt:trope, tropes from various ...

to Mountains, Astral Social Club and the Ghost Box imprint," stating that "each owes a colossal debt to Cluster and this album in particular." ''The Wire'' wrote that ''Cluster'' "prefigures illbient by about 20 years, parts of it sounding uncannily like DJ Spooky", while crediting "patches of regular thudding thudding pulse" for conjuring up "a malformed techno". They praised the album for fusing new possibilities for "electronic noise production" with the "repetitions and resonances" of

dub music Dub is a musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style.Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.&nb ...

, resulting in music that resembles "

space music Space music, also called spacemusic or space ambient, is a subgenre of ambient music and is described as "tranquil, hypnotic and moving". It is derived from new-age music and is associated with lounge music, easy listening, and elevator music ...

with a severe hangover."

Track listing

The 1980 Sky label edition reverses the order of the tracks on Side 1.

Personnel

Hans-Joachim Roedelius Hans-Joachim Roedelius (born 26 October 1934) is a German electronic music, electronic musician and composer, known as a co-founder of the influential 'kosmische musik, kosmische' groups Cluster (band), Cluster and Harmonia (band), Harmonia. He ...

– organ, electronically treated

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

, audio-generator,

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power su ...

Dieter Moebius Dieter Moebius (16 January 1944 – 20 July 2015) was a Swiss-born German electronic musician and composer, best known as a member of the influential krautrock bands Cluster and Harmonia. Career Moebius was studying art at Berlin's Akademie Gr ...

– organ, Hawaiian guitar, audio-generator, amplifier, helias * Conrad Plank – electronics, effects, producer

References

{{Authority control 1971 debut albums Philips Records albums Cluster (band) albums Albums produced by Conny Plank Drone music albums