★Bureau B
Cluster 71
* 50th Anniversary Edition gatefold sleeve & 180g * For the 50th anniversary of this influential album, Bureau B release Cluster 71 as a special LP version: 500 copies, numbered, gatefold and 180 gram vinyl. According to The Wire, the British bible of musical excellence, Cluster 71 is one of the "one hundred records that set the world on fire." Very few albums from Germany can lay claim to this honor. Cluster 71 is a monster: the debut work from the year 1971 (actually just called Cluster) conta…
Eins und Zwei und Drei und Vier: Deutsche Experimentelle Pop-Musik 1980-86
Spunky wave kraut from early ‘80s Germany, portraying the sound of the country’s first proper youth movement, with Conrad Schnitzler, Der Plan, Palais Schaumburg, Asmus Tietchens, Holger Hiller, Populäre Mechanik and many more
Con-struct
LP version. About the Con-Struct series: Conrad Schnitzler liked to embark on daily excursions through the sonic diversity of his synthesizers. Finding exceptional sounds with great regularity, he preserved them for use in combination with each other in subsequent live performances. He thus amassed a vast sound archive of his discoveries over time. When the m=minimal label in Berlin reissued two Conrad Schnitzler albums at the outset of the 2010s, label honcho Jens Strüver was granted access to…
Demo Tapes 1984-86 (LP)
Demo Tapes 1984-86 by Heiko Maile includes a selection from his beginnings of electronic music and the bizarre sonic worlds he inhabited. Most of the tracks on this album were recorded with a basic stereo (2-track) cassette recorder. The studio set-up looked more or less like this: a drum computer (no Midi) and a sequencer were connected to each other and synchronized rhythmically. I crafted melodic sequences and rhythms and usually transposed them to the desired pitch manually, using the keyboa…
Durch Die Wüste (LP)
LP version. The Bureau B label reissues the first solo record by composer/poet Hans-Joachim Roedelius, one of the most prolific musicians of the German avant-garde and a key figure in the birth of Krautrock, synthesizer pop and ambient music. Durch Die Wüste was originally released in 1978 on Sky Records, and fans of German electronica awaited the LP with particular anticipation, as the founding member of Cluster/Kluster/Harmonia had played a major role in the development of synthesizer music. T…
Sowiesoso
2021 repress; LP version. The fourth full-length album by legendary German electronic music duo Cluster, originally released on Sky Records in 1976. Sowiesoso follows on from their most highly-acclaimed album, Zuckerzeit (1974). Michael Rother's influence was clearly audible on the latter, Cluster already having recorded two albums with him under the name of Harmonia. 1976 saw the duo looking for new musical forms. More than any other Cluster album, Sowiesoso represents the utopian vision of Han…
Wir Arbeiten Fur Die Nachste Welt (1991-2012)
This first Bureau B retrospective devoted to Die Welttraumforscher covers the Swiss project's early creative period from 1981 to 1990. The eccentric, heartwarming pop songs now sound like documents from a parallel world, interwoven with idiosyncratic fantasy, surreal stories and dreamlike apparitions. All tracks have been remastered and the artwork has been lovingly crafted with the original Forscher drawings.Die Welttraumforscher is one of Switzerland’s most enigmatic musical projects, with a c…
Sowas Von Egal: German Synth Wave Underground 1980-1985
LP version. LP version. "Sowas Von Egal, is the result of a collaboration between Bureau B and the Hamburg party series Damaged Goods. Record companies and DJs are aligned through a love and passion for seeking out rare music which simply needs to be heard. For the three of us as DJs, we created Damaged Goods as a party where we could play music beyond the electro clichés. Our focus would be seldom-heard post-punk and synth-wave from, or in the style of, the 1980s. We'd slip in these unknown or …
Early Works / Things Popping Up From The Past
Michel Banabila, born 1961, is a sound artist, composer, and producer. Banabila releases music since 1983 and has produced musical scores for numerous films, documentaries, theatre plays and choreographies. This album collects 11 songs from his early years, released on tape, vinyl EPs or limited CD editions: beautiful minimal loop-based electronica, neo-classical pieces and ambient drone music. A true discovery!
Numerous threads run through the music of Michel Banabila, whose contemporary work …
Die Rückkehr der echten Menschheit 1981-1990
This first Bureau B retrospective devoted to Die Welttraumforscher covers the Swiss project's early creative period from 1981 to 1990. The eccentric, heartwarming pop songs now sound like documents from a parallel world, interwoven with idiosyncratic fantasy, surreal stories and dreamlike apparitions. All tracks have been remastered and the artwork has been lovingly crafted with the original Forscher drawings.Die Welttraumforscher is one of Switzerland’s most enigmatic musical projects, with a c…
Paracon - The Paragon Session Outtakes 1978-1979
"Conrad Schnitzler is incredible. I would dearly have loved to meet him, to have been present when he, Seidel and Baumann were working their magic at Paragon Studio. Fortuitously, Wolfgang Seidel, co-author of these pieces, has opened up his archive of recordings to the Bureau B label. He and Conrad Schnitzler spent many years together experimenting with sound, capturing the results on the two Consequenz albums, amongst others. I had the honor of meeting Wolfgang Seidel at the Golden Pudel Club …
Banzai: Elektronische Musik aus Berlin 1985/87
LP version. "Rudolf Langer (formerly of Tyndall) and Peter Preuß teamed up to create Lapre as a vehicle for their adventures in sonic experimentation. They set about capturing their nocturnal rehearsal room sessions on tape, Langer on synthesizer and Preuß on guitar. With the exception of a solitary single and a few extremely limited cassette runs, Lapre released no further material during their active phase. It was not until 2018 that their works became accessible to a wider audience, when Bure…
Stand By
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's seventh and final album of the 1970s Stand By, originally released in 1979. After the release of Stand By, Richard Pinhas focused on solo LPs before quitting music for around a decade. "It was the end of the tale," he explains. "We decided to split for many reasons. The main one was that one or two of the other musicians wanted to stop. They were session musicians, mainly. At one point they said they didn't have so much time to give. And it was …
6 - Interface
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's 6 - Interface, originally released in 1977. A brilliant moment occurs right at the end of Heldon's sixth album, Interface. The album's final song, its side-long title track, builds up slowly into a roaring tornado of fiercely mutating drum patterns, effervescent synth work, and guitar licks that wail into the atmosphere like an abandoned astronaut. Then, after nearly 19 minutes of highly futuristic avant-garde space rock, this ultramodern music …
Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale, originally released in 1976. Heldon's Richard Pinhas has never been shy of pinpointing his influences while, at the same time, making music that is noticeably distinct from any of his designated sources. He has, for instance, made it clear that a significant font of inspiration was Robert Fripp's guitar style and melding of rock music with cutting-edge electronics (especially in collaboration with Brian Eno). I…
Results, Not Answers
Bureau B present a reissue of Young Scientist's debut album Results, Not Answers,
originally released in 1979. When you think of the music to have
emerged from Seattle, grunge and Sub Pop are probably the first things
that come to mind. But Seattle was already home to a vibrant alternative
music scene back in the 1970s. One of the most prominent synthesizer
acts of the period was the trio Young Scientist. Influenced by the likes
of Cluster, Harmonia, and Tangerine Dream, they released thei…
Conditions of the Gas Giant
Bureau B present a reissue of Conrad Schnitzler's Conditions of the Gas Giant, originally released on cassette in 1988. The Berlin artist first released these recordings on a small American cassette label. Admirers of the seminal artist Conrad Schnitzler can be found all over the planet, including the USA, of course. Matt Howarth, illustrator and independent comic artist, is one of them. He has been following Schnitzler's music since the early 1970s whilst drawing offbeat science fiction stories…
L\'Ethique
LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Richard Pinhas's L'Ethique, originally released in 1982. Following the vaguely poppy shapes of 1980's album East West (BB 292CD/LP), his fifth album L'Ethique saw the ex-Heldon guitarist and synth wizard return to bigger and bolder band-like methods. After the release he disappeared from the limelight for nearly a decade and returned in the 1990s. Interviewed by the Electronics & Music Maker magazine in 1982, Pinhas spoke in buoyant terms about the futur…
Nachtfalter
Günter Schickert's debut Samtvogel (1975) was one of the most significant guitar albums of the krautrock era. Points of comparison from today's perspective are Syd Barrett or Pink Floyd's more adventurous early recordings. Schickert's follow-up, Überfällig (1980) was released on the legendary Sky label. Once again a milestone recording, it showcased Schickert's hypnotic echo guitar which developed into one of the hallmarks of the krautrock sound. Schickert's new album Nachtfalter, translating as…
Last Wave
LP version. Bureau B presents a reissue of Bernard Xolotl's fifth album Last Wave, originally released only on cassette in 1982. This is French electronic music from California. He named himself after the Aztec god of lightning and death; his music is influenced by the Berlin school of electronic music. As a teen, Xolotl (b. 1951) was introduced to electronic music through the works of Musique Concrete composers like Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer, although he found the early recordings of Pi…