Kluster 'Zwei Osterei' LP

***SLIGHTLY DAMAGED SLEEVE***

Reissue (originally released in 1971)

Zwei Osterei is the second half of a recording session which took place on a single day in November 1970. Klopfzeichen is the first part. Yet the uncompromising Zwei Osterei surpasses the earlier Klopfzeichen album by some distance in terms of its harsh noisiness and near brutal sonic attacks.

Everything that was left of the revolutionary verve of the late 1960s seems to have been distilled into this music with a burning glass: aesthetic destruction to liberate the mind and ears for utopian designs; the definitive coalescence of art and pop into something completely new; unbridled musical freedom, coupled with a love of noise. Zwei Osterei is all of this.

Conny Plank played a pivotal role as sound engineer with the relatively limited studio equipment available to him. His meticulous reading of the band's intentions let to the creation of pure, electroacoustic music - loud, violent, real-time improvisation. Shrill feedback, tape echo loops and layers of sonic cascades dominate this section of the album. This was no longer psychedelic, nor "progressive". It was more like sonic warfare, waged against all musical categories and conventions. Many a listener posed the rather helpless question "What is that supposed to be?"... art? Music? A happening?

According to statements made by the band, none of the above. It was simply Kluster. A lofty, nigh exclusive claim which "Zwei Osterei" fulfils one hundred per cent. Translated, the statement is nothing more nor less than a challenge to ignore the accumulated theory of art and music, with all the risks and side effects this entails. 

Kluster are history, the Klopfzeichen and Zwei Osterei LPs their legacy. And above all, an idea of artistic freedom has remained, worlds away from commerce and public servility. Even if the concept of "utopia" has lost something of its former allure, Kluster can at least be a catalyst for those who may wish to entertain the idea once again. 180g vinyl