Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

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Mojo FEBRUARY 2024 - by Kieron Tyler

MOEBIUS: TONSPUREN

Kosmische titan's 1980s solo debut evokes his landmark collaborative mid-'70s recordings.

Kosmische titan's 1980s solo debut evokes his landmark collaborative mid-'70s recordings. Although Dieter Moebius (1944-2015) debuted on record in 1970, 1983's Tonspuren was his first solo credit. Earlier, he had recorded with Kluster and then Cluster. He had been in Harmonia. At various times, his musical partners included Conny Plank, Guru Guru's Mani Neumeier, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Michael Rother and Conrad Schnitzler. There were brushes with Brian Eno. Given the stylistic scope of what he had been central to, those coming to this fresh will wonder what tack this kosmische lynchpin's debut solo outing would take. Forbiddingly experimental? Floatingly ambient? In the event, Tonspuren's ten instrumental pieces meld the playful, cartoonish sounds of the 1974 Cluster album Zuckerzeit and the bubbling, pulsing aspects of Harmonia's Deluxe, from 1975. It must have been deliberate: in 1983, Dieter Moebius chose to say that this, in particular, was what he was about.