The 1981 Listening Post - Cluster - Curiosum

 Cluster - Curiosum

#239

By Jim Coursey

June 15 1981

Cluster 

Curiosum

Genre: If you like Krautrock

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Jim’s rating: 2.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Ufer

Throughout the 70s, German duo Cluster created an inventive and influential discography which married synthetic textures, pulsing rhythm boxes, and more organic tones like pianos, guitars and other odds and ends. While the result could sound dreamy or alien on occasion, albums like “Zuckerzeit” and “Sowieso” were particularly human and warm when compared to music of the electronic music of the time. Born out of the adventurous German music scene, they were musically distinct from much of their Krautrock cousins, with none of the mystical bombast of early Tangerine Dream or the clinical electro-fetishism of Kraftwerk. There was a playfulness to Cluster’s music, perhaps the result of friends experimenting with their musical toys in a laboratory, and as they progressed their music seldom felt stale or redundant.

Enter “Curiosum,” the duo’s only album of the 80s. The album retains some of the playfulness of earlier Cluster works, but sticks to a purely synthetic palette and a rather abstract sense of melody. The result is a bit sterile, as if the robots have won – but even Kraftwerk is warmer than this. If anything this is most like their earliest experimental work in its feeling of alienation, but with more precision and structure than their old side-long jams.

While I’d probably listen to this one over Cluster’s somewhat formless 1971 debut, it’s far from my favorite. There is a sort of whimsy to the album, and it would make a great soundtrack to a series of experimental animation films. If one is so inclined I’d recommend listening with eyes closed, imagining the accompanying movies. In one listen I heard workers on assembly lines at a box factory, cartoonish palace guards pacing back and forth, moving sidewalks, sneezes, hospital equipment, the plucking of nose hairs, and dreams about bean farming. It’s probably the best way to engage with this music.

Mind you, the Cluster of old creeps back as the second side goes on, culminating in “Ufer” (“Shore”), the final and best track on the album. The calm oscillating drone paired with synthesized waves crashing sounds may as well be borrowed from a prototypical album-length b-side from fellow Krautrockers Ash Ra Tempel. It makes a much more appealing base for the cute little synth lines Cluster lays over top, and proves that even the simulation of natural sounds adds some needed warmth to this outing.

I don’t know why Cluster actually broke up after “Curiosum”, but it’s not hard to imagine the reasons. Whatever spark they once had was mostly gone on this record, and they were making better music under their own names at this point (see Roedelius’ 1981 “Wenn der Südwind weht” or Moebius’ 1983 “Tonspuren” for example). If you like your music chock full of blips, you’ll get plenty of “blip pweee bloop” here. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/2CaEJCDIN1DCOw0naWrhd8?si=9Pgj7KcsQ6W8wKiVs9KKhw