Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Roedelius (who is one-half of the legendary German electronic band Cluster) has had a solo career for many many years. Alas, his solo work tends to be less electronic and more keyboard easy listening fare. "Theatre Works" is a departure from that trend, with modern classical overtones and a modulated sense of drama. But the real surprise here lies with two of the tracks which are unreleased performances by Harmonia and Brian Eno--truth! Astute audiophile historians will recall the two remarkable collaboration albums by Cluster & Eno ("Cluster & Eno" and "After the Heat") which heavily influenced the evolution and maturing of the ambient music of the 80s. It seems that the collaboration originally began with a jam session between Eno and Harmonia in 1975 (Harmonia was: Roedelius & Moebius from Cluster, and Michael Rother from Neu). Later Eno returned and worked with Roedelius and Moebius as Cluster, leaving this earlier session unreleased--until now! "Theatre Works" contains two tracks from this Harmonia & Eno lesion--a total of 20 minutes of cool synthetic sound atingle with' slowbuild and strangeness. Note: these two tracks do not appear on the HARMONIA '76 CD ( on Rykodisc in USA) which featured the rest of these sessions.