Cluster - Sowiesoso - 1976

Review

Sowiesoso is the fourth full-length album by German electronic music outfit Cluster.

Sowiesoso was recorded in just two days in Forst, Germany in 1976. It was Cluster's first release for Krautrock label Sky Records, a relationship which would last until 1983 including albums with Brian Eno, solo recordings, and three albums by the duo of Moebius and former Cluster member and frequent engineer/producer Conny Plank.

Sowiesoso was Cluster's gentlest and most melodic album of electronic music to that point. Brian Eno had worked with Moebius and Roedelius with Harmonia prior to the recording of Sowiesoso and worked with Cluster again on two albums in 1977 and 1978 and the influence of the British ambient musician is clearly heard on the softer and more controlled sound of this album. Russ Curry describes the album this way: "...a fully realized marriage of electronic sounds with a pastoral warmth." Julian Cope included Soweisoso in his Krautrock Top 50.

The album was first reissued on CD by Sky Records in the mid '90s. It has also been reissued by the American label Gyroscope in 1996, the San Francisco based Water label in 2006 and the Japanese label Captain Trip in 2007.

Track listing

"Sowiesoso" – 7:17

"Halwa" – 2:47

"Dem Wanderer" – 3:47

"Umleitung" – 3:25

"Zum Wohl" – 6:50

"Es War Einmal" – 5:25

"In Ewigkeit" – 7:10