Roedelius/Schneider: Stunden (Bureau B)
Handsome collection of tracks from Cluster veteran Roedelius created in collaboration with Stefan Schneider of To Rococo Rot. I’m probably not the best candidate for describing a Roedelius album, because it’s in fact one of the only ones I’ve heard outside of some of his classics with Cluster and Eno. That said, I like it quite a lot. The arrangements are pretty much beatless, mostly based around piano and synth. Despite the lack of immediate drumming, some of these tracks have a nice bobbing pulse to them, such as “Single, Boogie” or “Boogie Dance.” It’s interesting to hear this work created with Schneider, someone so clearly influenced by Roedelius and his contemporaries, wherein the results meld their respective sounds seamlessly. Guitar-focused pieces like “Geschichte” or “Upper Slaughter” provide a nice, stark contrast to the otherwise dominant piano, with occasionally more obvious forays into synths and effects such as the wonderfully cyclical “Zug,” beaming with synth arpeggios. My overall takeaway from Stunden is its inner calm, that even when it’s active, there seems to be peace resonating from its center outward. This gives it a soul and an added human touch that I’ve always found elusive in some of TRR’s output; it’s subtle but an important distinction.
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