Where bought? I have a distinct memory of picking this up in Liverpool, so probably Probe, who have always been a bit better than anywhere in Manchester with kosmiche and European progressive music.
I do miss the days of picking music up only half aware of what it might contain. Had I been in the market for a Cluster record now (I suppose I am) I'd have gravitated toward their late 70s work, or maybe one of their Eno collaborations, or the Michael Rother collaborations under the name Harmonia (in fact, a shop in town has Deluxe for 17 smackers, might get it). But back then, idiot fool me went for this because I preferred the cover to the slightly cheesy font used on Zuckerzeit or the inscrutable drawing on Grosses Wasser.
But this is the one I got, which is a music that some might characterise as 'ambient' but I think is probably best thought of as 'atmospheric' ie. it definitely isn't trying on any level to be ignored or enhance or become secondary to a physical space.
Later records use technology more gracefully, almost directly converging with Brian Eno's own ambient experiments, but this is a record of a more chunky and analogue sensibility, a modular synthesist's dream as two men patch cables into a piece of equipment the size of a wardrobe and make cool sweeping and filtering noises that evoke the darkest realms of space. Someone will twang an acoustic instrument here and there, but most of it is deep synth lore of the most profound kind.
Generally Dieter Mobius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius did no wrong in the 10 years from the first Cluster LP. An odd group in a few notable ways (they were 15 years apart, and came together as teacher and student) that probably have just as much an impact on the contemporary musical landscape as nearly any other contemporary not named Kraftwerk. They moved, together, to the German countryside to live and work in peace, away from the city whilst most contemporaries were forged by the culture and spirit of the city. There's none of the pastoralism here, but it definitely creeps into later works.
A total keeper. It just plays through like a 45 minute piece, more-or-less.
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