Live 1974

Performer: Harmonia
Producer: Dieter Moebius (Compilation); Pat Thomas (Reissue); Filippo Salvadori (Reissue)
Distributor: City Hall

Notes: Harmonia: Hans-Joachim Roedelius (electric organ); Dieter Moebius (synthesizer, electronic percussion); Michael Rother. Personnel: Michael Rother (guitar, piano, organ, electronic percussion); Hans-Joachim Roedelius (piano, organ). Audio Remasterer: Gary Hobish. Recording information: Penny Station, Griessem, Germany (03/23/1974). Harmonia (consisting of Dieter Mobius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster, and Michael Rother of Neu!) was a krautrock supergroup of sorts. Their music was a stately blend of synthesizers and guitar-based bluster, and their pioneering early '70s efforts presaged much ambient and electronic music in the coming decades. LIVE 1974 offers a historic snapshot of the group during the period between their debut, MUSIK VON HARMONIA, and their follow-up, DELUXE. Hypnotically drifting between extended space-rock jams and hypnotic, burbling synth sequences, the album captures the genesis of a post-rock paradigm--where traditional song structure and development were upended in favor of the drifting soundscapes of ambient music. This archival live set catches Dieter Moebius, Roedelius, and Michael Rother at their most expansive and free form, pushing deeper into the territory they had begun exploring on Musik Von Harmonia before their work coalesced into De Luxe's more structured, glossier pieces. The emphasis here is on experimentation and process, rather than end product: guitar, keyboards, synths and machine-generated beats abandon rock's narrow narrative path in favor of hypno-minimalist soundscapes whose melodic and rhythmic patterns nod to the likes of Terry Riley. Combining repetition and incremental change in seamless, kaleidoscopic configurations, these five previously unreleased tracks take listeners on proto-ambient trips into inner and outer space. Such mind-expanding excursions clearly suited the rapt audience members (gathered in a decomissioned German train station), who don't make a sound for the duration, save for the occasional cough. Like Harmonia's studio work, this live document underscores the trio's ability to paint in both intricate and broad strokes, generating engrossing detail as well as larger environments. Two tracks in particular dramatize this: living up to its title, the exquisite "Arabesque" belies its five-minute duration, spinning out an ornate sonic mandala that seems to extend infinitely; "Schaumberg" mesmerizes with precise, decorative keyboard arpeggios and oscillating rhythms as Rother layers fluid, wandering guitar textures. Even at its most epic, Harmonia's material is never less than spellbinding: the quarter-hour "Holta-Polta" chugs relentlessly through dark, disquieting industrial dub terrain, while the 17 minutes of "Veteranissimo" are an exhilarating Motorik ride from start to finish. More than 30 years after Harmonia's original studio recordings, the rediscovery and release of this long-buried treasure reiterates quite emphatically how hard it is to overstate the band's pioneering influence: from Eno and Bowie -- as Another Green World, Low and Heroes attest -- through subsequent generations of artists charting the intersections of rock, pop, and electronic musics. ~ Wilson Neate

Uncut (p.102) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Facing their nest of wires and hardware, the trio unravel five new kosmiche jams..." The Wire (p.35) - Included in The Wire's "50 Records of the Year 2007". Q (Magazine) (p.141) - "As with most of the electronic end of Krautrock, everything is mechanically crisp and precise, but also full of an indefinable emotional quality."

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