Cluster’s Sowiesoso begins very, very quietly. Something plucks away, perhaps a drum machine, quite possibly self-built. Gradually the other instruments follow; one never quite knows what is acoustic and what is electronic. As in a drone, everything in the album’s title track builds over a root note, but with dynamic flow, rhythmically accented, and at the same time with a calm capable of spontaneously pulling the plug on one’s tension.
When Cluster released their fourth album Sowiesoso in 1976, they were in a highly productive phase. Brian Eno came to visit Forst for sessions with their flatmate and Harmonia bandmate Michael Rother. Recordings by Cluster with Eno followed a little later. None of this outwardly eventful period can be heard on Sowiesoso. The slowly drifting pieces are often called »pastoral«. This applies in particular to the second side, on which Cluster leave the beat out almost entirely.
»Zum Wohl« consists of slowly rising tones, accompanied by gently circling piano chords and synthetic birdsong. »Es war einmal« offers more piano, linking two slightly wavering, washed-out micromelodies into a mini-epic with a wistful undertow. One of their most beautiful moments. To close, a blues stripped back to its rudiments: a quiet pulse, slowly dispersing chords, Spartan blue notes from the synthesiser, occasional beeping in between so that things do not turn out too idyllic. An album, well, for »In Ewigkeit«.
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