Zuckerzeit

Recorded after Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius relocated Cluster to the rural village of Forst and produced again by Conny Plank, Zuckerzeit marked a sharp turn toward shorter, more rhythmic, synthesizer-and-drum-machine-driven pieces — a lighter, more melodic sound than the group’s earlier drone albums, arriving the same year the pair began recording as Harmonia with Michael Rother, and anticipating the two collaborative albums they would go on to make with Brian Eno later in the decade.