★Bureau B

'Listening': Qluster distil their art to its essence. Soft analogue tones and slow, deliberate motion invite deep attention, chamber electronics of great tenderness from Roedelius and Onnen Bock.

The Ata Tak pranksters score a film. Der Plan's soundtrack to 'Die letzte Rache' is gleeful, cracked electronic pop: toy synths, absurd humour and genuine invention. The mischievous engine room of German new wave.

Der Plan were invited to Tokyo in 1984 to play six concerts for Seibu, a Japanese department store chain. Seibu were staging a “German Week”. But how did they come to choose Der Plan, of all bands? Why not an Oktoberfest combo or the Scorpions? Mo…

LP version, on 180 gram vinyl. Bureau B reissues Pyrolator's Wunderland, originally released on Ata Tak in 1984. Quote 1: "I have always strived for the opposite of whatever is hip at the time." (Pyrolator in June 2013) Quote 2: "Wunderland is so bea…

LP version, on 180 gram vinyl. Bureau B reissues Pyrolator's Wunderland, originally released on Ata Tak in 1984. Quote 1: "I have always strived for the opposite of whatever is hip at the time." (Pyrolator in June 2013) Quote 2: "Wunderland is so bea…

The influential German post-punk electronic pop band Palais Schaumburg has reunited in the classic line-up. Since its release in 1981, their debut album has remained in a league of its own: fleet-footed and peculiar, abstract and pop, amateurish an…

Kluster was a short-lived project of three musicians/artists/performers: Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Konrad Schnitzler. They recorded two albums in 1970, unprecedented in their experimental radicalism. Chaotic, apocalyptic (noise) impr…

This album saw Conrad Schnitzler head further in the direction of pop music. Like Consequenz, Con 3 (1981) is a collaborative effort with Wolfgang Seidel, alias Sequenza. Con 3 is a really odd mixture of numerous ingredients which Schnitzler was ca…

Commercial Schnitzler? How quickly, how prematurely are opinions and judgements bandied about when an artist suddenly changes the form of his work. Conrad Schnitzler fell under such a cloud when, after 1978, his songs, for a time at least, did not…

Bureau B reissues the first Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft album, originally released in 1979. True D.A.F. connoisseurs will, of course, be aware of the early phase of the Düsseldorf-Wuppertal combo. But most fans of the subsequently world-famo…

Der Plan sharpen their cracked pop craft. 'Normalette Surprise' fizzes with cheap synths, tape trickery and gleeful absurdity, the Düsseldorf collective turning DIY electronics into surreal, catchy miniatures. Essential NDW.

180 gram LP version. Bureau B reissues Günter Schickert's album Überfällig, originally released in 1979 on Sky Records. "No sooner had electronic music broken through in Germany, principally aligned in the two schools of Düsseldorf and Berlin, tha…

180 gram vinyl version. Imagine finding a message in a bottle, forty years after it was dispatched. That is what it feels like when you listen to Kluster's Klopfzeichen for the first time, mysterious, hard to decipher, a relic of a time long since…

Der Plan's riotous debut, a founding shot of Neue Deutsche Welle. 'Geri Reig' is anarchic, homemade electronic pop: dime-store keyboards, Dada humour and pure Ata Tak irreverence. NDW at its most inventive and unhinged.

CD version. Zwei Osterei is the second half of a recording session which took place on a single day in November 1970. Klopfzeichen is the first part. Yet the uncompromising Zwei Osterei surpasses the earlier Klopfzeichen album by some distance in ter…

With Asmus Tietchens and Dieter Moebius, two artists counting among the greats of German avant-garde electronic music have come together. Both have been active for well over 30 years: Moebius (since 1970) as a member of Kluster/Cluster and Harmoni…

Kurt Dahlke's debut as Pyrolator. 'Inland' collides sequencers, tape and early synths in short, sharp electronic sketches: playful, political and DIY to the core. The inventive nerve-centre of Ata Tak and the NDW.

'Abroad': Pyrolator's imaginary world tour on synthesizer and tape. Kurt Dahlke maps invented territories in bright, restless electronics, witty, inventive and unmistakably Ata Tak. German new wave at its most curious.

P version on 180 gram vinyl. On the Red Album Rot, Conrad Schnitzler laid down the direction his musical artistry would take. His second solo , The Blue Album Blau, originally released in 1974, offered confirmation of his intent. Maybe the "Red" an…

LP version on 180 gram vinyl. There was a particular type of artist who could only have emerged in the legendary early 1970s. Few musicians fit the bill better than Conrad Schnitzler (Tangerine Dream, Kluster). Revolution, pop art and Fluxus created …

The first collaboration between Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters, “Underrated Silence” has been one of Bureau B’s most successful releases so far. Ulrich Schnauss (famous for his three solo albums as well as for his remix work) teamed up with Mark Peter…

Roedelius and Onnen Bock as Qluster: 'answers' in the form of hushed, exploratory electronics. Analogue keyboards drift through patient, chamber-like pieces, the Cluster spirit reborn, meditative and warm.

180 gram LP version. The third studio album by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, originally released by Sky Records in 1981, fulfilled a dream he had long cherished. A series of chamber music pieces, with grand piano solos taking center stage in some places, a…

'Calling': more hushed, luminous keyboard music from the reborn Cluster lineage. Qluster let melodies surface slowly from analogue haze, patient, warm and quietly devotional. Ambient kosmische at its most human.

A quiet meeting of minds. Roedelius and Schneider let delicate electronic and acoustic textures unfold over 'hours' of patient, meditative music: serene, spacious and gently kosmische throughout.

'Water in the wind': Roedelius conjures flowing, weightless keyboard music of great delicacy. Melodies drift and eddy like the title, serene, warm and quietly transporting. Solo kosmische at its most graceful.

'Questions', a companion in Qluster's quiet dialogue. Roedelius and Onnen Bock spin delicate, unhurried keyboard music, more felt than composed. Intimate, spacious and gently searching ambient kosmische.

Roedelius at the keyboard, alone and unguarded. 'Piano Piano' offers spare, melodic sketches of great intimacy: neoclassical in feeling, ambient in spirit. The quiet, human centre of a pioneering body of work.

'Happy moments', and it sounds it. Roedelius spins fragile, looping keyboard miniatures of great warmth and melodic grace, the gentler, sunlit side of the Cluster and Harmonia mastermind. Quietly radiant kosmische ambience.

*2023 stock* If we can agree on 1969 as the year of Cluster's inception, then Roedelius needed a good 17 years to discover the aural qualities and musical beauty of the grand piano for his own compositions. Rarely has the title of a Roedelius album s…

Faust reactivated. 'Something Dirty' pairs founding members with new collaborators for grinding, groove-driven experiments: raw guitars, motorik pulse and studio mischief, the old subversive spirit alive and unbowed.

LP version, on 180 gram vinyl. This is the tenth solo album by German keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, originally released in 1984 on Editions EG. On Geschenk Des Augenblicks - Gift Of The Moment, Roedelius broke away unequivocally from purely ele…

LP version on 180 gram vinyl. This is the third solo album by German keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, originally released in 1979 on Sky Records. Alongside his ongoing work with Cluster and Harmonia, Roedelius amassed an almost incalculable numbe…

This is the fourth solo album by German keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, originally released in 1980 on Sky Records. With Selbstportrait, Roedelius gave unequivocal confirmation that he no longer was treading the hitherto common paths of electroni…

*2023 stock*The former Der Plan man and NDW legend offers more sleek experiments in mesmerizing Techno minimalism on the 2nd 'Neuland' session. A-side 'Minato Mirai' is a beautifully fluid Teutonic techno groove with a rolling, elliptical bassline an…

The abrasive, epochal debut. Moebius and Roedelius push organ, guitar and homemade electronics through banks of effects into three untitled slabs of proto-ambient drift. Year zero for German electronic music, still startling fifty years on.

The self-titled debut of Jaki Liebezeit's post-Can group. Motorik pulse meets echo, dub and electronic haze: loose, driving and deeply hypnotic. Krautrock's rhythmic genius stretching out on his own terms.

Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit's own vehicle. Phantom Band ride his inexhaustible groove into dubwise, hypnotic krautrock: spacious, propulsive and endlessly funky. Rhythm as pure hypnosis, from one of the great German drummers.

*2023 stock* A beautiful collection of recordings from 1972 to 1978, first released in 1990 (with different artwork). "Selbstportrait VI" contains compositions Roedelius did in addition to his work with Cluster, Harmonia and Brian Eno in the legendar…

The sixth Selbstportrait, a musical diary. Roedelius revisits fragile keyboard improvisations, each a small remembered moment: intimate, melodic and deeply personal. The ongoing self-portrait of a kosmische master.