Eno/Moebius/Roedelius After the Heat on Import LP

Brian Eno was certainly instrumental in creating and popularizing the concept of “ambient music” – but it was not his invention alone. The German musicians Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius (Cluster) were brothers in spirit. As so often in music, the idea of ambient was in the air, both Eno and Cluster experimenting with the form in the 1970s, rendering any debate as to who influenced who redundant. 

What is certain is that Brian Eno attended a Cluster concert in Hamburg in 1975, strategically positioning himself in the front row. Sure enough, he was invited on stage to jam with the band and, after the show, the participants arranged to meet up again. They did so two years later at the Old Weserhof in Forst, the domicile of the German duo. Eno and Cluster spent three weeks in Conny Plank’s studio, resulting in two albums: Cluster & Eno and After the Heat.

In the liner notes for the pair of re-releases, Asmus Tietchens (who also played on Cluster & Eno) writes: "Cluster & Eno can, with the benefit of hindsight and without overstating its case, be seen as the first ambient album to have been produced in Germany. The second LP, After the Heat, is, however, a completely different story. Whilst Cluster & Eno bears the hallmark of a Cluster composition guided by Eno’s ambient concept, After the Heat is more of an Eno album bearing stylistic characteristics of Cluster music. Clearly, all three musicians inspired each other during their three weeks together without any clash of personalities. Nevertheless, some tracks sound more like Cluster, some more like Eno. So it made perfect sense to collect the tracks with a Cluster flavour on Cluster & Eno and the Eno influenced material on After the Heat."