Cluster – Sowiesoso

Relaxed, minimalist electronic and acoustic gems from 1976.

"Sowiesoso" is the follow-up to Cluster's most acclaimed album, "Zuckerzeit." While the latter still clearly showed the influence of Michael Rother, with whom Cluster had recorded two albums under the name Harmonia, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius set out in 1976 to find their own new musical form. Like no other Cluster album, "Sowiesoso" embodies the duo's utopian musical vision. With its relaxed and transparent nature, it represents the landscape of the Weserbergland region, where the two musicians lived at the time. "Sowiesoso" showcases Cluster in their purest and least influenced form, at a peak of their development. The album's minimalist music is a rhythmic tapestry of elements that are partly electronic and partly acoustic; It doesn't follow any conventional song structure, and yet its harmonies give it an almost songlike quality, something unique to cluster music that is difficult to describe in words. Asmus Tietchens attempts to do so in the accompanying text.