Search - Cluster :: One Hour

One Meandering Hour

DAC Crowell | 01/28/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I've liked Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius's work for years, since discovering it back in the 1970s. But during the 80s, they went on a long hiatus following the release of "Curiosum" and this, the first album since that one, really doesn't satisfy. Cluster's music went thru numerous changes, from spook-house terrornoise in their first incarnation with Conny Schnitzler, thru proto-industrial ambience on their "Cluster" and "Cluster II" albums, then into total electro-bubblegum with "Zuckerzeit" to splash down into ambient music with "Sowiesoso", the cinematic "Grosses Wasser", and "Curiosum" and their Eno collaborations. But this...is odd. Annoying, even, as everything else Cluster did had a certain terse, concise beauty to it. This is neither terse nor concise, but meandering and seemingly unfocussed. There does seem to be a certain flowing logic to it, but one really longs for a jump back to the ways of those earlier releases. Very troubling."