Hans-Joachim Roedelius reviews, music, news

» Edit Band Information
» Edit Albums

» Add a Review
» Add an Album
» Add News

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Hans-Joachim Roedelius (born October 26, 1934) is an German experimental / ambient / electronic musician. He best known as a co-founder of the German krautrock groups Cluster and Harmonia and his work in the ambient jazz trio Aquarello. Roedelius' solo career began with Durch die Wüste in 1978 and then Jardin au Fou in 1979. This album laid down Roedelius' future style: melodic piano and (often faked) acoustic instruments played with a sharp tinge of electronics. The first of the lengthy Selbstportrait series was released in 1979, being outtakes from his work with Cluster and Harmonia, wit ...read more

Hans-Joachim Roedelius (born October 26, 1934) is an German experimental / ambient / electronic musician. He best known as a co-founder of the German krautrock groups Cluster and Harmonia and his work in the ambient jazz trio Aquarello. Roedelius' solo career began with Durch die Wüste in 1978 and then Jardin au Fou in 1979. This album laid down Roedelius' future style: melodic piano and (often faked) acoustic instruments played with a sharp tinge of electronics. The first of the lengthy Selbstportrait series was released in 1979, being outtakes from his work with Cluster and Harmonia, without the input of his collaborators. Consisting of only two tracks and recorded very unprofessionally, the Selbstportraits make up the backbone of Roedelius' early solo recordings. Leaving Sky in 1982, his work took a more New Age style as he signed to Virgin's Venture sub-label. During this period, his best selling solo album: Geschenk des Augenblicks - Gift of the moment was released. He was dropped by Venture in 1989 and began releasing on a variety of small labels, notably Multimood and Prudence. He began to venture into the newly emerging genre of techno, starting with 1991's Der Ohrenspiegel whose 25 minute opener, Reflectorum displays some of the characteristics of the later Sinfonia Contempora series. By 1994 Roedelius' style was a heady mix of amateur electronics and sometimes clichéd ambient jazz. An album from this year; Theatreworks, was rewarded with the title "album of the month" by experimental music magazine The Wire. Arguably the biggest turning point in Roedelius' career came in 1994 as well. The release of Sinfonia Contempora No. 1: Von Zeit zu Zeit marked, in Roedelius' own words, "Since the beginning of my career nothing was more important to me than to find my own musical language. I have, so I believe, eventually found it." The album consists of mismatched tape fragments (from numerous jams ranging from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties) multitracked over the top of each other to create a disjointed but oddly musical sound. Sinfonia Contempora No. 2: La Nordica (Salz Des Nordens) was released in 1996, making for a much more sinister and muddy sound than its predecessor, yet arguably Roedelius' best album. Also released in this period was Selbstportrait VI: The Diary of the Unforgotten, the first of the modern Selbstportraits. Now, rather than merely remastering the seventies DAT tapes, Roedelius also played over them, the sound montage Homage á Forst samples many Harmonia and Cluster tracks into the mix. The turn of the century was Roedelius' most productive year, an astonishing eight albums being released between 2000 and 2001. Reprising the Selbstportrait series for the seventh time in 2000, Roedelius composed entirely new tracks for the first time on Selfportrait VII: dem Wind voran - ahead of the wind. The new millennium also saw Roedelius begin to work with other, usually younger, musicians than he had done since the late eighties. « hide