Cluster: Zuckerzeit [BUREAU B]

Why you'll love it

Bureau B's reissue brings back the original Brain album. Pitchfork ranked Zuckerzeit No. 63 among the top 100 albums of the 1970s, and Julian Cope listed it in his Krautrock Top 50.

This edition

• Stereo mix

About the album

Zuckerzeit means sugar time, and after the abrasive noise of their first two records it's exactly that. Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius had moved from West Berlin to the countryside at Forst and made the Harmonia album with Neu!'s Michael Rother, and the change of air shows in every bright, bouncing track.

Each piece is a solo composition, with the two recording separately on different days; The Quietus called it two solo EPs masquerading as a joint album. Cheap drum machines and synthesizers do the heavy lifting, stacked preset rhythms run through echo, and the results are wonderfully catchy. "Hollywood" and "Caramel" bubble along, "Rote Riki" and "Caramba" buzz with a toy-box charm, and "Heiße Lippen" signs off in fine form.

Rother is credited as co-producer, though his main contribution was leaving them some gear, including Farfisa instruments, a four-track recorder and an Elka Drummer One drum machine. That last one may be the most useful thing a producer has ever left lying around.

Also at Kops: more Cluster on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On Bureau B / Brain (cat# BB447), a reissue of the 1974 album.