Apropos Cluster

Two old-timers serenade the e-generation with beats too fleet-of-foot for the club circuit.
 
Once upon a time, Cluster relied upon Conny Plank or Peter Baumann to furnish their lo-fi sound with studio production beeswax. By the 1990s, home recording gear could match sound levels hiterto affordable only to commercial studios. But we digress: the gear may now be digital yet Cluster's reckless spirit of discovery is just the same. Taped in less than a week after a nine-year hiatus, Apropos shows the band at the height of their powers with a series of archetypally cheesy yet infectious electronica vignettes - all quicky rhythms and sublime melodies. The 21-minute title track is a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't motorik the equal of Kraftwerk at their best whose subtlety lies in their deft switches of gear between rhythm and pulse, relentless forward movement and periodic calm and silence - leaving you in a trance state. Apropos is a sideways nod to the contemporary Techno genre while making its 120 bpm groove sound flat-footed by comparison. Hats of to the private label of Iowa Clusterhead Russ Curry for releasing a product so out of synch for the era, yet so perfect in its curiousity value.

Source: Stephen Iliffe