j o e

This is the second album of Harmonia, a merger of the members of Cluster and Michael Rother from the influential Krautrock band Neu! The minimalist, repetitive strains that were common for what I call the 'Plank camp' of Krautrock (i.e. the Krautrock albums and bands produced by the late engineer Conny Plank) reign as ever they could here. And though I personally don't think of this as progressive rock (like much of the Plank-related recordings), from a historical context this is an impressive antecedent of the New Wave era (early 80s) of popular music. The album also has more of a drive to it than the first Harmonia album, perhaps in part to Rother's guitar being much more upfront and noticeable, as well as the addition of Guru Guru drummer Mani Neumeier on some tracks. A noteable comparison to this music is La Dusseldorf (the band led by Rother's ex-bandmate, Klaus Dinger). The trio also lay down some vocals here (e.g. the opening track), sounding something like happy zombies. This CD is available at typically exorbitant sums that I cannot support (I found it for really cheap in a used CD shop one New York summer long ago) given what's on the album. But, this might just be the best of the Harmonia albums; it's certainly more animated than the debut. review by Joe McGlinchey — undated —