Hans-Joachim Roedelius
Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Hans-Joachim Rödelius, born October 26, 1934 in Berlin, Germany) is an German experimental / ambient / electronic musician. He best known as a co-founder of the German krautrock groups Cluster and Harmonia and his work in the ambient jazz trio Aquarello.
As a child he acted in UFA films such as "...reitet für Deutschland" (Riding for Germany) (1941) and "Verklungene Melodie" (Dead Melody) (1938).
In 1968 Roedelius co-founded the music commune known as "Human Being" and co-formed Zodiak Free Arts Lab, the center of Berlin's Underground Culture at the time, with conceptual artist Conrad Schnitzler. He met Dieter Moebius at the Zodiak. In 1970 Roedelius, Schnitzler and Moebius formed Kluster.
In 1971 Schnitzler left the group to start a long-running solo career and Moebius and Roedelius anglicised the band's name to Cluster. At first Cluster worked along the same lines as their parent group, signed first to Philips then to Brain. In 1974, they worked with Michael Rother for the first time. Rother was the guitarist for NEU!, another Krautrock group.
Rother co-produced their third album; Zuckerzeit, moving the band's style further from avant-garde 'noise' to a more melodic music, similar to modern day trance. The trio had been touring Germany and the Low Countries since early 1973 and decided to record an album together under the moniker of Harmonia. Musik von Harmonia was released on the back of a huge publicity campaign by Brain.
Harmonia would release one further album initially; 1975's Deluxe. British musician Brian Eno, who had become a fan of both Cluster and Harmonia, joined them for several jams, the result of which would be released in 1997 as Tracks & Traces.
Rother left Harmonia to pursue his solo career and Cluster returned to the studio to record Sowiesoso which would be released on Sky Records. Brian Eno (who had returned to Germany to work with David Bowie improvised two albums worth of music with Cluster: 1977's Cluster & Eno and 1978's After the Heat, the latter of which gained the band much attention in the British music press.
A further Cluster album, Großes Wasser which extended Cluster's music into long form. Roedelius' solo career began with Durch die Wüste in 1978 and then Jardin au Fou in 1979. This album laid down Roedelius' future style: melodic piano and (often faked) acoustic instruments played with a sharp tinge of electronics.
The first of the lengthy Selbstportrait series was released in 1979, being outtakes from his work with Cluster and Harmonia, without the input of his collaborators. Consisting of only two tracks and recorded very unprofessionally, the Selbstportraits make up the backbone of Roedelius' early solo recordings.
Leaving Sky in 1982, his work took a more New Age style as he signed to Virgin's Venture sub-label. During this period, his best selling solo album: Geschenk des Augenblicks - Gift of the moment was released.
He was dropped by Venture in 1989 and began releasing on a variety of small labels, notably Multimood and Prudence. He began to venture into the newly emerging genre of techno, starting with 1991's Der Ohrenspiegel whose 25 minute opener, Reflectorum displays some of the characteristics of the later Sinfonia Contempora series.
By 1994 Roedelius' style was a heady mix of amateur electronics and sometimes clichéd ambient jazz. An album from this year; Theatreworks, was rewarded with the title "album of the month" by experimental music magazine The Wire.
Arguably the biggest turning point in Roedelius' career came in 1994 as well. The release of Sinfonia Contempora No. 1: Von Zeit zu Zeit marked, in Roedelius' own words, "Since the beginning of my career nothing was more important to me than to find my own musical language. I have, so I believe, eventually found it." The album consists of mismatched tape fragments (from numerous jams ranging from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties) multitracked over the top of each other to create a disjointed but oddly musical sound.
Sinfonia Contempora No. 2: La Nordica (Salz Des Nordens) was released in 1996, making for a much more sinister and muddy sound than its predecessor, yet arguably Roedelius' best album. Also released in this period was Selbstportrait VI: The Diary of the Unforgotten, the first of the modern Selbstportraits. Now, rather than merely remastering the seventies DAT tapes, Roedelius also played over them, the sound montage Homage á Forst samples many Harmonia and Cluster tracks into the mix.
In the meantime, Cluster had reformed. 1990's Apropos Cluster was an update for the band, being a work of avant-techno not dissimilar in style to Großes Wasser. In 1996 Cluster embarked on two international tours, one of Japan and one of America. Both tours would be summarised on the following years live albums. The new sound of Cluster learns from the Sinfonia Contempora sound whilst adding Moebius' distinctive sound.
The turn of the century was Roedelius' most productive year, an astonishing eight albums being released between 2000 and 2001. Reprising the Selbstportrait series for the seventh time in 2000, Roedelius composed entirely new tracks for the first time on Selfportrait VII: dem Wind voran - ahead of the wind. The new millennium also saw Roedelius begin to work with other, usually younger, musicians than he had done since the late eighties.
Another series is Lieder vom Steinfeld. Beagn in 1995, Roedelius recites poems over these pieces, primarily sung in his native German dialect. In 2001 Roedelius worked with Conrad Schnitzler again for the first time since 1971. The independently released and excruciatingly rare Acon 2000/1 was the result.
Roedelius had been growing substantially in fame since Cluster began touring again in 1996. He is now often cited by electronic musicians and releases several albums a year, many of which are collaborations with modern musicians who are fans. He works extensively with Tim Storey and recently released Fibre with the help of Noh 1 (a.k.a. George Taylor), an album which has reached 13th place in "the Third Uncut Playlist of 2009" for Uncut Magazine, ahead of Bruce Springsteen's Working on a Dream. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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