BUREAU B

2020 repress of Bureau B's 2009 reissue. LP version. Originally recorded and released in 1977 on Sky Records, the first collaborative album by Brian Eno and Cluster was the first ambient record produced in Germany, and is considered the seminal, defining work of the genre. Brian Eno was certainly instrumental in creating and popularizing the concept of "ambient music" -- but it was not his invention alone. The German musicians Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius (Cluster) were brothers in spirit. As so often in music, the idea of ambient was in the air -- both Eno and Cluster experimenting with the form in the 1970s, rendering any debate as to who influenced who redundant. What is certain, is that Brian Eno attended a Cluster concert in Hamburg in 1975, strategically positioning himself in the front row. Sure enough, he was invited on stage to jam with the band and, after the show, the participants arranged to meet up again. They did so two years later at the Old Weserhof in Forst, the domicile of the German duo. Eno and Cluster spent three weeks in Conny Plank's studio, resulting in two albums: Cluster & Eno and After The Heat (1978). In the liner notes, Asmus Tietchens (who also plays on the record along with Can's Holger Czukay) writes: "Clearly, all three musicians inspired each other during their three weeks together without any clash of personalities. Nevertheless, some tracks sound more like Cluster, some more like Eno. So it made perfect sense to collect the tracks with a Cluster flavor on Cluster & Eno." The importance of this record can never be overstated, nor can its elegance of diverse forms be matched. From Indian sitar and tamboura, to synth warbles and airy tributes to Western groove, it is a rare glimpse at what happens when masters meet.

Martin Rev’s fifth solo album – Strangeworld – was released on the cusp of the new millennium. The label responsible was Puu, a Finnish imprint belonging to Tommi Grönlund and Mika Vainio’s Sähkö Recordings which came to fame in the 1990s on the strength of its uncompromising minimalist sound.
Four years earlier, in 1996, Rev had unleashed See Me Ridin, an album which surprised its listeners with keyboard melody sketches and distilled doo-wop compositions. It was also the first solo album to feature Martin Rev on vocals.
Strangeworld started where its predecessor left off. Melodic passages dissolved into a thicket of fragments and set pieces, coalescing in a celestial shimmer between rhythm loops and Rev’s voice, which assumed the role of an additional instrument rather than a standard singing part.

2020 repress; LP version on 180 gram vinyl. In 1983, Dieter Moebius (Cluster) and legendary producer Conny Plank teamed up for the third time, resulting in the Zero Set project, originally released on Sky Records. On this occasion, they were backed up by one of the best drummers on the German rock scene: Mani Neumeier of Guru Guru. Plank, usually more of a background figure as producer, takes an equal share of the limelight alongside the musicians. His supermodern studio is brought into play like an instrument in its own right; Plank explores the full range of audio editing, pushing recording techniques to the limit to achieve maximum brilliance and plasticity. Neumeier uses all of his many years of experience as a drummer, demonstrating the precision and stamina of a drum machine, just infinitely livelier and more inventive. And finally, to Moebius: always one of the patriarchs of German electronic music, a creator of the most bizarre sound happenings, yet never sounding forced or arbitrary. On the contrary, he consistently worked within the context of the tracks themselves and their relationship to each other. The music on Zero Set flows both smoothly and energetically. An important and mystifying chapter in the legacy of Krautrock/Kosmische Musik and a historic moment in German electronic music.

A journey into multiple dimensions, both introverted and vibrant. He has collaborated with important German new age/ambient artists Cass. and Wolf Müller, as well as Sascha Funke. The latest release from Berlin percussionist and DJ Niklas Wandt, who is actively working with a number of groups, is now available. Emotional and escapist(?). This ambitious first solo album is an exhilarating and free mix of German kosmische musik, ethnic jazz, Afrobeat, and ambient, updating the German electronic vein in a more psychedelic and modern way.

Ulrich Schnauss and his ally Mark Peters, two of Germany's most popular writers who have captivated many people at the intersection of electronica and shoegaze, have released their third collaborative album in eight years. The final title of the trilogy. Folktronica and ambient techno, superb shoegaze music created in the horizon of exuberance and optimism. A masterpiece of an album that has reached a supernatural beauty!