Cluster (album)

{{Infobox album

| name = Cluster

| type = studio

| artist = Cluster

| cover = Cluster71.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Cluster 71 edition cover

| released = 1971

| recorded = 1971

| venue =

| studio =

| genre = {{flatlist|

Kosmische{{cite web |url= http://www.allmusic.com/album/r105949 |title=Zuckerzeit - Cluster | AllMusic |first=John |last=Bush |work=allmusic.com |year=2011 |accessdate=26 June 2011}}
drone{{cite web |last1=Phimster |first1=Rust |title=URTHONA: I REFUTE IT THUS |url=https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/1972/ |website=Head Heritage |access-date=28 December 2020}}
electronic
krautrock
space music

}}

| length = 44:28

| label = Philips

| producer = Conrad Plank

| prev_title =

| prev_year =

| next_title = Cluster II

| next_year = 1972

}}

{{album ratings

| rev1 = AllMusic

| rev1score = {{Rating|4.5|5}}{{cite web |url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/cluster-71-mw0000344625 |title=Cluster '71 – Cluster | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards | AllMusic |last=Jurek |first=Thom |website=AllMusic |accessdate=15 March 2015}}

| rev2 = Pitchfork

| rev2Score = 8.5/10[http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21701-cluster-1971-1981/ Pitchfork Media review]

}}

Cluster (also reissued as Cluster 71) is the debut studio album by German electronic music outfit Cluster. It was recorded in 1971 and released the same year by record label Philips. It is also the only album on which producer Conny Plank is credited as a member.

Recording

Recorded in January 1971, Cluster began a transition away from the discordant industrial sound of their earlier group Kluster towards softer atmospheres.{{cite AV media notes |title=Cluster II |others=Cluster |year=2012 |type=CD booklet |first=Malcolm |last=Dome |publisher=Esoteric Recordings |location=London}} Thom Jurek of AllMusic describes Cluster as "a dislocating, disorienting meld of random space music, industrial noise, proto-ambient atmospherics, feedback and soundwash". Instrumentation included a pair of organs, Hawaiian guitar, cello and audio generators, all played by Moebius and Roedelius and all of which were electronically treated by Conny Plank. Spencer Grady of BBC Music stated that "far from providing mere background ambience, [the album's] rolling waves of hypnosis are continually exposed to perforation by disorienting surges of energy, imparting wake-up calls to comfort.

Release

Cluster was released in 1971 by record label Philips; Cluster's only release for the label.

The album was reissued with new artwork and a new title, Cluster 71, by Sky Records in 1980. Cluster 71 was digitally remastered (from a vinyl source, not a tape) and reissued on CD in 1996 by Sky with new artwork: a total of three different cover designs for the album to date. It received its first U.S release in 2006 on the San Francisco based Water label. The Water reissue restored the original Philips cover art but retains the Cluster 71 name. A 1,000 copy limited remastered edition of Cluster 71 with the original Sky LP cover art was reissued by the Japanese Captain Trip label as a CD on September 20, 2007.{{cite web

| title = CLUSTER Digital Remaster & Paper Sleeve series

| work = Miniature LP/CD Kami Jacket

| publisher = Captain Trip Records

| year = 2007

| url = http://www.captaintrip.co.jp/kami-cd/index.html

| accessdate = 2008-02-20 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20071217013126/http://www.captaintrip.co.jp/kami-cd/index.html |archivedate = 2007-12-17}} It was re-released once again in 2010 by Bureau-B with the original cover art and running order, but again mastered from an LP.{{cite web

| title = CLUSTER Digital Remaster

| work = CD Jacket

| publisher = bureau b

| year = 2010

| url = http://www.bureau-b.com/

| accessdate = 2011-06-29}}

Legacy

The Wire placed Cluster's self-titled debut album in their list "One Hundred Records That Set the World on Fire".{{cite journal |last1=Roy |first1=Daryl Stephen |author2=Uncle Fester |year=1992 |title=100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening) |magazine=The Wire |url=http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/thewire.html#onfire |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071019022442/http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/thewire.html#onfire |archivedate=19 October 2007 |url-status=usurped |accessdate=15 March 2015}} Spencer Grady of BBC Music depicted the album as an influence on artists like Brian Eno, John Foxx, and Coil, as well as "a new global network of synth-powered cosmonauts [...] from Emeralds and Oneohtrix Point Never to Mountains, Astral Social Club and the Ghost Box imprint," stating that "each owes a colossal debt to Cluster and this album in particular."{{cite web |last1=Grady |first1=Spencer |title=Review of Cluster - Cluster 71 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/xfnv/ |website=BBC Music |accessdate=6 May 2019}} The Wire wrote that Cluster "prefigures illbient by about 20 years, parts of it sounding uncannily like DJ Spooky", while crediting "patches of regular thudding thudding pulse" for conjuring up "a malformed techno". They praised the album for fusing new possibilities for "electronic noise production" with the "repetitions and resonances" of dub music, resulting in music that resembles "space music with a severe hangover."{{cite magazine |title=100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening) |magazine=The Wire |issue=175 |date=September 1998}}