★Bureau B
Lustwandel
A stroll for pleasure. 'Lustwandel' gathers Roedelius's graceful piano-and-synth miniatures, tender, unhurried and quietly luminous, a proto-ambient forerunner of everything gentle in electronic music. Timeless kosmische calm.
Flieg Vogel Fliege
'Fly bird fly': Roedelius at his most songful and light. Gentle keyboard melodies flutter and loop with folk-like innocence, the warm, melodic heart of the Cluster co-founder's solo work. Radiant miniature music.
Durch Die Wüste (LP)
'Through the desert': Roedelius sets out on solitary electronic wandering. Spare, hypnotic keyboard figures and dry, shimmering textures conjure vast imaginary landscapes, early solo kosmische of quiet, questing beauty.
Reverse
France's electronic guitar visionary. The Heldon founder folds searing, delay-treated guitar into churning synthetic drift: heavy, hypnotic and cosmic, where krautrock momentum meets sci-fi menace. Pinhas at full intensity.
Phantom Band
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.
Freedom Of Speech
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.
Trans Harmonic Nights
Baumann's brightest solo record. 'Trans Harmonic Nights' sets crisp sequencer motifs against warm melody: the Berlin-school grammar sharpened into concise, luminous electronic pop. Tangerine Dream's pop instinct, distilled.
Romance 76
The Tangerine Dream man's debut solo statement. 'Romance 76' splits between pulsing electronic sequences and orchestral romanticism: lush, melodic and forward-looking. A landmark of the Berlin school stepping toward song.
Nightfall
Tangerine Dream's keyboardist in solo flight. 'Nightfall' glides on elegant sequencer patterns and widescreen synth melody: the Berlin-school aesthetic at its most polished and songful. Cosmic music with a pop pulse.
Another other places
An unlikely trio: Cluster's Moebius, Guru Guru's Mani Neumeier and Die Krupps' Jürgen Engler. 'Another Other Place' grinds electronics, percussion and industrial edge into taut, exploratory grooves, three generations of German sound in dialogue.
Electri City
Cosmic bass explorer Michael Bundt goes fully electronic. 'Electri City' rides propulsive sequences and interstellar synth sweep: Berlin-school motion with a rock heart, a lost gem of German space music returned.
The Sum Of Our Wounds (Cassette Recordings 1973-85)
Rev's earliest experiments unearthed: cassette recordings, 1973-85. Skeletal drum-machine pulse, raw keyboard drones and proto-Suicide menace, the primordial ooze of minimal electronics, captured as it first formed.
Martin Rev
The first solo record from Suicide's synth architect. Rev strips everything to skeletal drum-machine pulse and cheap-keyboard melody, at once brutal and strangely tender. A foundational document of minimal synth.
Les Nymphes
Martin Rev turns to reverie. 'Les Nymphes' drifts through delicate, looping electronic tone-poems: melodic, meditative and unadorned. The Suicide co-founder in intimate, luminous solo flight.