‘Material’ is the second album of playful studio experimentation from Konrad ‘Conny’ Plank and Cluster’s Dieter Moebius.

It was produced in 1981 at Conny’s studio and features the two long-standing friends and collaborators (Plank had worked as engineer on practically all of Moebius’ records) in an endearingly explorative mode.

The throbbing rockabilly send-up ‘Conditionierer’ makes a crazy start to the album, and much like the rest of their work at this time, strangely predates the techno culture of Germany by a decade or so.

From here we pass through drowsy dub-tronica on ‘Infiltration’, to the exhilarating arpeggiations of ‘Tollkuehn’ and a pair of loungey off-world electronica tracks fixing kosmiche with dub techniques and an unimpaired imagination for new forms and styles.

Vinyl