Hans Joachim Roedelius - The titan who tramples the boundaries of electronic music

A giant in whose shadow many shoots of contemporary electronic music have grown, from the Seventies to today. For those shoots, which over time have become massive trees, the figure of the Teutonic titan Hans-Joachim Roedelius still looms large by comparison - composer for Kluster, Cluster and Harmonia, the grand old man who, this coming October, will celebrate his 90th birthday, marking a life spent releasing works often hailed by the most authoritative specialist critics as seminal, among the most significant of a genre that's still hard to pin down. The credit belongs to the giant himself, to his peculiar approach to composition and performance, and to his fellow travelers, figures who've since passed into legend like Dieter Moebius, Conrad Schnitzler, Michael Rother of Neu!, all the way to Britain's Brian Eno, who made a pilgrimage to Forst in 1976 to grasp the mysterious alchemy of Roedelius and co., shortly before joining David Bowie in Berlin and giving birth to the famous "Heroes".

To rediscover his greatness, besides the short interview that follows, it's worth investigating not so much the catalogue titles that get passed down unchanged, from Rolling Stone to Pitchfork, for the delight of collectors, but rather poking around in the lesser-known corners, such as the 1979 solo effort "Jardin Au Fou", the trilogy of ambient jazz made in the Nineties with our own Fabio Capanni and Nicola Alesini under the name Aquarello, or the "Selbstportrait" series, a crash course in an electronic aesthetic that's as cerebral as it is moving.

Hans-Joachim, your first approach to the arts didn't come through music but through acting, as a child.

I wasn't even a child, it happened between the ages of 3 and 5, without any kind of training, obviously. It's just one of the things that happened along my path toward adulthood.

Were you too young to draw any life lesson from it?

No. It brought me to the revelation that, from then on, I could achieve anything, as long as I wanted it with my whole being and lived in the present moment.

Yesterday I was listening again to one of the albums in the "Selbstportrait" series. Would you venture a self-portrait of yourself, but in words?

Music works just fine for telling my story, and that very series of self-portraits stands as a true diary of my everyday life. They're precise statements of my psychological state, at various points in my existence.

Among your many adventures, if I'm not mistaken, there's one in North Africa in the late Sixties; your travel companions were people who would shortly go on to found Ash Ra Tempel and Tangerine Dream.

Actually it went like this: our group, made up of guys who were part of my artistic collective "Human Being", split up as soon as we arrived in Africa. The split happened in a parking lot in Casablanca; my girlfriend and I flew to Corsica, which is my second homeland, we stayed there for a while and then headed on to London; we stayed for a bit at the home of a Black family near Crystal Palace, after which we went back to Berlin. In the British capital I wanted to try to set up a collaboration between us from Human Being and the ICA Arts Lab.

A concert that made you understand the importance of having founded the legendary venue Zodiak Free Arts Lab?

The Zodiak era was, for me, a kind of uninterrupted performance, both as a solo artist and with other groups. I consider it unforgettable in its entirety, since it was the first meeting point for the free art scene in Berlin.

Certain ambient composers put out an average of 3-4 albums a year: is that a lack of attention to composition, or excessive faith in their own improvisational skills?

I don't know, and I don't care about others. What I know is that my way of working requires being open and willing to receive that indefinable something at any given moment; you have to let that something arrive spontaneously. Whether it happens to me once a year or several times is irrelevant, as long as I'm certain it's music that's meaningful to me and, consequently, to my listeners.

What was your piano background like in the days of Kluster?

Even today I consider myself a self-taught musician and composer, so my only teacher has been the piano itself.

Conny Plank: what makes him one of the most important sound engineers in the history of popular music?

He was born to be an artist. We met in 1970, in the days of Kluster, when we recorded the sessions in Cologne that became the albums "Klopfzeichen" and "Zwei Osterei". He had grasped, before anyone else, the fundamental importance of building a solid line of communication between composer and sound engineer. He was also a musician: he played trumpet.

His contribution to your excellent solo debut, "Durch Die Wüste"?

When we recorded it, I was living in his house, we'd become great friends. But "Durch Die Wüste" is the fruit of my compositional abilities and my talent as a musician at the time; Conny still did a great job on the sound, and he even played something on it, though I can't remember exactly what now. Something rhythmic, I suppose.

What did you admire most about Moebius?

From my point of view, of everyone I've known, he was the first true punk guy in the world of contemporary music. Fascinating, honest, always genuine. And I'm glad his artistic stature is now recognized worldwide. There will never be another "Moebi" in this world.

What do you miss most about him?

Look, he had a big personality but, at the same time, he was a modest, friendly, understanding person, witty in a somewhat sarcastic way too, if you like. I always found it very easy to work, and also, for a while, to live, together with him. I'm very sorry he had to leave planet Earth so soon. Bye bye, dear Moebi... we'll see each other again soon, on the other side of existence.

Your muse is steeped in a deep spirituality, in which I don't detect allegiance to any specific creed.

And yet I believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord; he guides me, giving me the right advice to behave properly.

What do you think of Brian Eno's musical strategies?

Brian is an absolutely extraordinary figure in the history of music and art, not only of our own time. The most surprising thing for me, then as now, is how he's able to use the recording studio just like a musical instrument. His genius is beyond question. But he's also a good friend, to me and to everyone in my family, an influence that's still very significant in various ways. Over the years he's made all sorts of statements about my work, and he even wrote the foreword to my autobiography, "The Book – The Autobiography Of Hans-Joachim Roedelius".

You co-wrote one of Eno's most celebrated tracks, "By This River". Tell the truth: did it all start from your piano part?

Yes. My piano melody line was the foundation for everything else.

How do you assess the sound and attitude of Kluster today?

At the time it was what I might call "Viennese Actionism in music", nothing more - the first step towards what later became German-style ambient music. Today, when I listen back to those recordings, I realize just how significant they were in the history of music.

In 1971 you and Moebius became a duo, renaming yourselves Cluster; only four years passed between "Cluster '71" and "Zuckerzeit", but in that time some significant stylistic changes took place, such as a different approach to the use of noise.

There were no strategies laid out beforehand. We simply captured the most authentic impressions - certain moments, atmospheres, ambient suggestions. But maybe there's more to it than that. There's the spirit that guides every artist's work to consider, and there's also the fact that, at the time, everyone was going through a broader shift, moving from the age of Pisces to the age of Aquarius.

Whether as Kluster or Cluster, your music wasn't really in tune with the kosmische musik of the era.

Because of Conrad Schnitzler's particular compositional approach, Kluster's music was totally different from everything around us at the time, and therefore not easy for audiences to digest. Moebius and I found our own tonal language as a result of that experience; what united us both was an absolute connection to the present moment. Conrad... he was a formidable guy too. May he rest in peace.

The specialist press regards "Zuckerzeit" and "Sowiesoso" as your milestones. In my view, "Grosser Wasser" goes even further, yet it's rarely mentioned.

"Grosser Wasser" had Peter Baumann as co-producer, someone with a very different approach to artistic production compared to the people who came before him. That, naturally, left its mark.

What did you hate about Germany in the Seventies?

I don't think I ever hated anything about Germany back then, but I'll confess I'm glad that my love story with my current wife led me to move to Austria; German is still spoken here, but I sense a different emotional climate. Maybe it's because Austrians, unlike Germans, aren't crazy about beer and schnapps: they prefer good wine.

Last Kraftwerk album that impressed you?

Kraftwerk never impressed me. Their music always seemed like it was made by automatons for automatons, and I'm not at all drawn to that kind of approach. What I can tell you is that, back when I lived in Düsseldorf, I was friends with Florian Schneider's sister, Claudia, so I knew Florian and Ralf Hütter well too.

No Kraftwerk, fair enough. But surely there were German bands or musicians of your generation you admired…

Oh, sure, absolutely. I liked Can, Kraan, Manuel (Göttsching, composer and guitarist of Ash Ra Tempel, ed.), as well as Michael Hoenig of Agitation Free and Amon Düül. On the other hand, I never went crazy for Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream, maybe because I'm not really into sequencers.

Among your many collaborations in the new millennium, which have been the most significant?

I'm especially fond of the material recorded with Tim Story, then Tempus Transit-Treffpunkt Wien (an ensemble of acoustic music for five players, with piano, clarinet, bagpipes, bass and violin), the albums "King Of Hearts" with Christopher James Chaplin, "Imagori I & II" with Christoph H. Mueller, and everything I've done with Onnen Bock for the Hamburg label Bureau B. Pretty varied stuff, both in terms of ingredients and "temperature".

Your greatest wish for the future?

I couldn't say. I'm a very privileged person, who can afford to do exactly as he pleases without anyone ever interfering.

Among your lesser-known but most significant artistic ventures is your work with the dance theatre collective Treffpunkt, which you co-founded in Vienna.

Treffpunkt (also known as Meeting Point Vienna) was that special happening that came about after a particular group of people met. I was involved in a series of projects, among which I'm glad to mention the three-part show "Wir Sind Machines/ We Are Machines", which, musically, crosses the brutal modernism of kraut-rock with eccentric electronics, folk, jazz, and even brings in voices typical of the classical tradition. The story is a kind of road trip that begins with the birth of new German rock in the late '60s and ends in the age of artificial intelligence.

Arnold Schoenberg: "If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art."

A particularly cryptic pronouncement. Still, I wouldn't be so categorical about it.

What are Cluster's merits when it comes to redefining modern electronic music?

As Cluster, we helped refine the genre, not redefine it. Our discography is, generally speaking, far more diverse than that of most other groups, branching out in many different directions, but the essential point is that, even today, no other artist or group has emerged with a modus operandi like ours.

What's the most extraordinary thing about being an artist?

Being able to bring to life something that holds deep importance for me in relation to the contemporary electronic music scene, but not only that, as shown by my forays into writing, poetry, or highly complex projects, such as the aforementioned "We Are Machines".

Ride the wave of great music

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