This album is a treat for any fan of Kosmiche Musik, for previously unheard music by Dieter Moebius, who sadly left this orbit in 2015, is something to be treasured. Hugely influential on experimental electronic music, Moebius and his partner in noise Hans-Joachim Roedelius, aka Kluster/Cluster, and later two-thirds of the wonderful Harmonia with ex-Neu! guitarist Michael Rother, will need no introduction to the initiated. The music Dieter and his cohorts made back in those heady days half a century ago remains as vital and unexpected now as it ever was, hence its remaining influence on electronica boffins to this day.
Aspirin was recorded around the time of 2006 album Nurton, but for whatever reason was shelved. Now it emerges blinking into the daylight, stamping Moebuis’s recognisable signature of agitated beats and restless electo-noise for our delectation. Clocking in at a brief but entertaining 34 minutes, Aspirin starts with the title track, a fingerpoppin’ excursion into the kitchen and back again. Of course it is! C9H8O4 is the chemical formula of aspirin – it couldn’t really be anything else, could it? A synthetic train beat, not a million miles from early Kraftwerk shunts this one in along in a similar manner to the title track, its insistent hypnotic rhythm insinuates itself (woah! alliteration overload!) in your cranium and won’t budge. Spiraea will have you twitching in simpatico with its mechanical lurch, while the robots sing themselves a lullaby on Providence. We are the robots…
The album reveals itself at a leisurely pace in this fairly understated but dislocating manner, much like an ongoing clinical experiment in a synthesiser laboratory. While of itself this album is hardly remarkable, and you likely will not return to it often, much like that recently overplayed Fab Four sign off, Aspirin is more significant for what it represents than what it actually is, as it is the last “new” music we will hear from this prime innovator.
TRACK LISTING
01. Aspirin (4:56)
02. C9H8O4 (7:18)
03. Synthetic (5:16)
04. Spiraea (5:15)
05. Providence (4:33)
06. Muffler C (6:47)
Total Time – 34:07
MUSICIANS
Dieter Moebius – Synths, Electronic, Beats, Manipulations
ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: Curious Music
Country of Origin: Germany
Date of Release: 6th October 2023
LINKS
Moebius – Website (Curious Music) | Bandcamp