Deluxe

The Vinyl/CD package is superb. The vinyl is very high quality and sounds brilliant and is a credit to the Lilith label. I have bought many (100's) re-issues in the past few years and this vinyl is up with the best. The music on the album is very slick, the whole album flows seamlessly from song to song and Harmonia are at their most melodic and focussed on this album. This is my favourite Harmonia album because it has the motorik drive of Neu supplied by Michael Rother but catches and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster in fine form contributing ambient and interesting electronic embellishments. The album sounds like a complete vision from the artists and is equal parts Krautrock and ambient but really neither, more of its own thing which just happens to be wonderful. The first Harmonia album Musik Von Harmonia is more experimental and sounds more like you might imagine a supergroup of these artists to sound and is brilliant also but this album sounds more like a real unified group with a collective purpose. If you like Eno, Bowie (Berlin Era), Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Faust, or are just interested in electronic music you need to get this album it is the zenith of the genre.

The major difference between the two Harmonia albums is that, in this marriage of Krautrock giants Neu! (in the person of Michael Rother) and Cluster (Roedelius/Moebious), on Musik von Harmonia, the influence of Neu! seems to hold sway, while Deluxe is much more a Cluster-sounding record. On tracks like Dino, the first album showcased some of the pulsating, motorik guitar grooves you recognize from Neu!'s three records. Those grooves that make for great driving music, and which Stereolab so shamelessly borrowed from on the song "Jenny Ondioline" and their whole sound at the time of that song. Cluster records, like Zuckerzeit and Sowiesoso, are more things you want to play with the headphones strapped on, and you sprawled out on the floor, letting the music take your mind wandering to places unknown. With the exception of the one uptempo track, "Monza (Rauf Und Runter)," which could have come straight off of Neu!75, the whole here feels like Cluster with Michael Rother as a guest musician. If anyone of this sounds like a complaint, it's not meant to be. If you twisted my arm and made me choose between Neu! and Cluster, I WOULD take Neu!, but I love them both. And I love the look of the three guys on the back cover, an image which, I think, says it all: three cool dudes hanging out by the water, lawn chairs, beach umbrellas, bikes, a dog and musical instruments in their midst. How great it must have been to record music like this in your own studio, in a little village, and you are making the music just the way you want to make it. Shimmering beauty.

I first started listening to older Cluster and Neu records in the 1990's. Up until now I was unaware of Harmonia so I decided to try this, and I'm not surprised to find that I really like it. Reminds me a bit of Autobahn-era Kraftwerk.

This was a very satisfying find. I have the Cluster records, and this fits right in with them.It has all the hallmarks of Cluster: Serial patterns of electronic sounds evolving and morphing as layers of melody play over them.If you like Cluster, or ambient Eno works, then you'll get it.

Apparently, the 1970's saw the birth of much ambient experimental synth music. You can listen to this actively on headphones and have a different experience than driving in your car. But either way I find it very relaxing. My first experience with ambient. The more I listen to this one the more I like it. It's the album I wish Orb/Gilmour could have done instead of Metallic Spheres.

A wonderful transition work between Neu and then solo works by Michael Rother and Roedelius. Highly recommended.

Excellent,,,

Very nice import edition I received from Amazon w/ Brain name on the disc. This is a brilliant early Krautrock album and this edition does not disappoint.