Roedelius, Hans Joachim

Artist: Moebius,+ Roedelius
P: 1990 / 2014
Cluster (Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius) are considered pioneers of electronic music and key Krautrock protagonists. In the late 1960s, together with Konrad Schnitzler as the trio Kluster, they changed the world of music for ever with their radical improvisations. Having split from Schnitzler, Moebius and Roedelius continued as Cluster, releasing eight further milestones of electronic and ambient music up until 1981, two of them with Brian Eno. A hiatus lasting almost a decade was brought to an end in 1990 when Cluster made a surprise comeback with "Apropos Cluster".

Artist: Müller + Roedelius
P: 2015
Collaboration between long time electronic/ambient musician Hans Joachim Roedilius and Christoph Mueller features tracks a step above ambient in beat, with a few uptempo tracks, including About Tape, which features Brian Eno. Eno's voice snippets are used, and I'm not sure if they are previous recordings or newly recorded.

Titled Origami, the sounds have a Japanese them running through them and lots of piano melodies carrying several of the tracks. I enjoyed all songs on the album and found it to have just the right balance of piano, ambient sounds, and upbeat electronic melodies.

Artist: Müller + Roedelius
P: 2015
A collaboration of Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Harmonia & Cluster) and Christoph Mueller (Gotan Project). We witness new experiments on IMAGORI II that are well aware of the foundations they are built upon and that sometimes let us forget the present with their future-oriented perspective while never descending into pure escapism. The twelve tracks allow the listener to close his or her eyes and enter a dream that could not sound more beautiful – we experience this phantasm as IMAGORI II. It contains no fractures, merely passages that provide a plane on which something new emerges.

Artist: Qluster
P: 2015
QLUSTER are Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Onnen Bock and Armin Metz. "Tasten" is their fifth album. The trio explores the musical depths of three Steinway concert grands to their fullest potential. Spherical sounds of three overlapping instruments, complete with gentle tones and little melodies, sporadically culminating in impulsive sonic storms. A wonderful piece of "neo-classical" music by three masters of their art.

Artist: Hans Joachim Roedelius & Celletti
P: 2009
This is the result of a magical artistic encounter with a great master of contemporary music, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, with whom we have worked for months playing live concerts before deciding to move our musical experience from the stage to the recording studio. My piano intertwined with Roedelius's electronic suggestions and vice versa. Soon we shall get Sustanza out of the studio back on the live stage again.

Artist: Hans Joachim Roedelius + Christopher Chaplin
P: 2012
Nice collaboration of the two artist.

Artist: Hans Joachim Roedelius & Lloyd Cole
P: 2013
What a collaboration! The British singer-songwriter Lloyd Cole has always been a Cluster fan, especially of the 1976 LP "Sowiesoso". Cole released his own heavily Cluster-influenced album "Plastic Wood" in 2001. Roedelius liked it and, over the next decade, Cole and Roedelius considered working together from time to time, but never actually got around to it. It was not until 2011 when they finally met in Vienna that they could finally begin in earnest. The album reveals mature, carefully composed music, as if Cole and Roedelius had been working together for years already. Both artists focus on electronic sounds in a selection of succinct, direct pieces, free of musical garrulousness. Cole neither sings nor plays guitar and Roedelius rarely touches the keys of his grand piano. Instead, both musicians have developed a subtle soundscape which only drifts towards pure noise on one track. All of the other "studies" on the album move within a vast spectrum of harmonic wonder and rhythmic stepping stones.

Artist: Hans Joachim Roedelius & Lloyd Cole
P: 2013
This is the vinyl LP version, where also the CD is included.
What a collaboration! The British singer-songwriter Lloyd Cole has always been a Cluster fan, especially of the 1976 LP "Sowiesoso". Cole released his own heavily Cluster-influenced album "Plastic Wood" in 2001. Roedelius liked it and, over the next decade, Cole and Roedelius considered working together from time to time, but never actually got around to it. It was not until 2011 when they finally met in Vienna that they could finally begin in earnest. The album reveals mature, carefully composed music, as if Cole and Roedelius had been working together for years already. Both artists focus on electronic sounds in a selection of succinct, direct pieces, free of musical garrulousness. Cole neither sings nor plays guitar and Roedelius rarely touches the keys of his grand piano. Instead, both musicians have developed a subtle soundscape which only drifts towards pure noise on one track. All of the other "studies" on the album move within a vast spectrum of harmonic wonder and rhythmic stepping stones.

Artist: Hans Joachim Roedelius + Schneider
P: 2011
Hans-Joachim Roedelius, legendary figure in kraut rock, part of the seminal bands Cluster and Harmonia, and Stefan Schneider, founding member of the neo kraut rock band Kreidler (1994 – 1999), part of the trio To Rococo Rot and releasing music with his solo project Mapstation, present the recordings of their first collaboration. In twelve miniatures, played with piano and electronics, they unfold images that come across poetically, glorifying tranquility.

Artist: Hans Joachim Roedelius + Schneider
P: 2013
Not long after Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster, Harmonia) and Stefan Schneider (To Rococo Rot, Kreidler, Mapstation) had released their first album “Stunden”, accompanied by a few live shows in 2011, Eric Satie and Brian Eno were quoted as the great inspiration for their musical collaboration. Fine references no doubt, one having invented musique d'ameublement, and the other having refined it into ambient music 80 years later. Yet
“Tiden” does not sit easily in either camp. This is neither tasteful decor (à la Satie), nor is it electronic-auditory space filler (à la Eno), gazing towards infinity. The short duration of the 13 pieces is enough to discount either genre. Better to consider these as concentrated, inspired études, carefully thought through and in no way random or sketchy.
With cheerful gravitas, the two artists create absolute music – music which desires only to be itself, without ulterior effects and with the declared intent of involving the listener in his emotional, inventive game. Perhaps Franz Schubert’s moments musicaux would be a more suitable citation. The lightness and atmospheric intimacy of this music reveal Roedelius (grand piano, synthesizer) and the decades younger Schneider (Elektronik) as
musicians who understand how to listen to one another and improvise on each other’s ideas immediately. The result is a lively, relentless interplay of great composure, more surprising than any tide could be, as precise calendars exist for tidal flows.
Roedelius can already look back on a adventuresome career in music. Schneider has also prospered through exciting decades in contemporary pop. This is the second time their paths have crossed. “Tiden” keeps the promise which their first album made, genial contemporary music from two artists who are as one in heart and soul. And when Roedelius steps on the pedal of his grand piano, well it squeaks a little. (Asmus Tietchens)