Hans-Joachim Roedelius
Hans -Joachim Roedelius ( born October 26, 1934 in Berlin ) is a German musician of experimental, ambient and electronic music. He is best known as the co-founder of the krautrock bands Cluster and Harmonia as well as for his contribution to the ambient jazz trio Aquarello.
Life and musical work
As a child he played in UFA films such as " ... rides for Germany " (1941 ) and " Verklungene Melody" (1938).
In 1968 he founded with the concept artist Conrad Schnitzler the music community "Human Being" and the underground club Zodiak Free Arts Lab, the center of the former Berlin scene. There he met Dieter Moebius and the three formed the clusters formation.
Schnitzler left the group in 1971 and began his long career as a solo artist, Roedelius and Moebius anglicised the band's name to the cluster, deepened her style, first published in Philips and then switched to the record label Brain. In 1974, she first worked together with the New! Guitarist Michael Rother.
Rother, co-produced their third album sugar time and led the band from its avant-garde sound to a more melodic style of music, similar to the current trance. The trio had since the spring of 1973 toured Germany and the Netherlands and decided to record an album under the name Harmonia. The album " Musik von Harmonia " was accompanied by a large advertising campaign of the company Brain published.
Harmonia published in 1975 another album, entitled Deluxe. British artist and musician Brian Eno took a big fan of Cluster and Harmonia contact with them on, from common jam sessions thereupon arose the 1997 released album " Tracks & Traces".
Rother left Harmonia for his solo career and cluster took on as a duo Sowiesoso, their first album for the label was founded in 1975 " Sky Records ". Brian Eno was working just in Germany with David Bowie, improvised on two other music albums with cluster: 1977 " Cluster & Eno " and 1978 's "After the Heat" by which won wide attention in the British music press, the band.
On another Cluster album, " Big Water ", they expanded their music on longer pieces. Roedelius created in 1978 his first solo album " Through the Desert " and continued his solo career continued with the 1979 released " Jardin au Fou " (1979). This album established Roedelius ' future style: melodic piano and (often imitated ) acoustic instruments that are played with a sharp electronic coloring.
As the first part of his long self protrait series Roedelius published in 1979 by his work with Cluster and Harmonia clippings, which his fellow musicians have contributed nothing. He took the album in only two long tracks that became the focal points of his early solo recordings.
Roedelius left Sky in 1982. When he then stood at Virgins sub label venture under contract, his work approached the New Age style. During this period, his best-selling solo album was "gift of the moment - Gift of the Moment".
The collaboration with venture ended in 1989 and he subsequently published in various small labels, such as multi- Mood Records and Prudence. During this time he ventured - for the first time with his 1991's album The Otoscope, showed the 25 -minute opener " Reflectorum " already significant features of his later series Sinfonia Contempora - on the territory of just evolving techno.
1994 Roedelius ' style was a daring mix of amateur electronics and sometimes clichéd sounding ambient jazz. Theatre Works, which was created this year, was honored by The Wire, a show for experimental music as album of the month.
A significant turning points in Roedelius ' career was the publication of the Sinfonia Contempora No.. 1: From time to time, in 1994, Roedelius this:. " Since the start of my career, nothing was more important than finding my own musical language. I have, so I think they may have found. "This album consists of random, non-mutually adjusted band fragments ( out of many a jam session between the mid- eighties and mid-nineties ), which laid multi-track above the other a seemingly unrelated and strange sound result.
The " Sinfonia Contempora No.. 2: La Nordica ( Salt Of The North ) "was published in 1996 and sounded darker and duller than its predecessor. Also from this period comes the "Self Portrait VI: The Diary of the Unforgotten ," the first of the newer self-portraits. Instead, the DAT tapes from the seventies to revise only technically ( Remastering ), Roedelius also played over them. The sound installation "Homage à Frost " processed many pieces of Harmonia and Cluster to a new mixture.
In the meantime, new cluster was formed. With the 1990 album "Speaking cluster " was renewed the band, and came not in a style unlike that of " Big Water " in new ways towards techno. In 1996 cluster on a tour to Japan and to America. Both tours were included in the live album the following year. Cluster new sound benefited from Roedlius ' " Sinfonia Contempora " and Moebius ' distinctive style.
The year before the turn of the century was Roedelius most productive years: Between 2000 and 2001 he published a total of eight albums. As Roedelius in 2000 the seventh time turned to the subject of self- portrait, he composed for the resulting album, " Self Portrait VII: the wind ahead - ahead of the wind" for the first time, completely new pieces. In the new millennium Roedelius also began working with other musicians, most of whom were younger than those with whom he had worked together in the late eighties.
One began in 1995, another series is "Songs from the stone box ". Roedelius speaks it - mostly in its original German dialect - poems to the musical pieces. In 2001 he worked since 1971 for the first time with Conrad Schnitzler, whereby the self-published, published and extremely rare project album " Acon 2000/1 " was born.
Roedelius became increasingly famous went back on tour since the cluster group in 1996. He is often quoted by musicians from the electronic genre, and released several albums per year, many of which are collaborations with contemporary musicians who are his fans. A highlight was the opening concert of the cluster disputed by documenta12 2007 in Kassel. Roedelius worked closely with the composer Tim Story, was published in 2009 the album Fibre with the support of Noh 1 (also known as George Taylor). It reached the thirteenth place on " The Third Uncut Playlist of 2009" by the British music magazine Uncut, ahead of Bruce Springsteen's Working on a Dream.
In November 2010, the third separation of clusters was announced. Officially announced the separation would be that Dieter Moebius leave the group. As part of the public interest in this message Roedelius announced to start as a successor of the bands Cluster and Kluster a new project called Qluster. This band consists of Roedelius supplemented by the electronic musician and sound engineer Onnen Bock and brought out a trilogy in 2011, "Call ", " questions " and " answers ".
Phases of work
Roedelius ' publications can be roughly assigned to 7 phases:
Discography
With bands
Human Being
Kluster
Cluster
Harmonia
Aquarello
Global Trotters Project
Qluster
- 2011: Questions ( Live Album)
- 2011: Call (Studio Album)
- 2011: Answer (Studio Album)
Solo Works
Work together
With Alexander Čžjžek
With Aqueous
With Barbieri and Chianura
With Alquimia
- 2000: Move and Resonate
With Tim Story ( sometimes collectively referred by to as Lunz )
- 2000: The Persistence of Memory (Studio Album)
- 2002: Lunz (Studio Album)
- 2005: Lunz - Reinterpretations (Remix Album)
- 2008: Inlandish (Studio Album)
With Conrad Schnitzler
- 2001: Acon 2000/1 (Studio Album)
- 2001: Evermore
With Lynn
- 2001: Act of Love ( album )
With Nikos Arvanitis
- 2002: Digital Love (Studio Album)
With Noh 1
- 2003: Imagine Imagine ( soundtrack, released as Roedelius and Fratellis )
- 2009: Fibre (Studio Album)
With Morgan Fisher
- 2005: neverless (Studio Album)
With David Bickley
- 2008: Bonaventura (Studio Album)
With Kava
- 2008: The Gugging Album ( Studio Album)
With Tim Story and Dwight Ashley
- 2008: Errata (Studio Album)
With Alessandra Celletti
- 2009: Sustanza di cose Sperata (Studio Album)
With Christopher Chaplin
- 2012: King Of Hearts (Studio Album)