Moebius, Plank*, Neumeier* ‎– Zero Set

I can't believe this album isn't more widely known. Zero Set achieves an organic fusion of squelchy sequenced analogue lines and Mani Neumeier's polyrhythmic tribal drum pyrotechnics. Neumeier's drumming is the sinewy backbone of this album. He achieves a mechanical precision here that is in a very different vein from the mind-blowing freeform percussive melees that characterize Guru Guru's early albums. The rhythms on Zero Set are complex and tense--they suspend themselves indefinitely, the kicks and snares seeming almost to tumble over each other in waves of sound. At other moments, Neumeier pulls off short, syncopated machine-gun bursts. It's amazing to hear a live drummer who performs at a level far above the drum machine deconstructions later artists would carry out with sampling technology. Neumeier infuses the most machine-like rhythms with a fierce, ritualistic immediacy, as if he's some kind of shaman on a quest to prove that machines will never be able to reproduce the dynamism of a human performance. Dieter Moebius and Conny Plank's knob-twiddling is also consistently amazing. Staccato, fragmented, heavily tweaked yet incredibly warm synthlines interlock with Neumeier's very live drumming. Some tracks only hint at melodies, with the synths serving primarily to accentuate the rhythm, while others feature jaunty, child-like hooks reminiscent of Cluster's Zuckerzeit. Throughout the album the synths seem to be manipulated by a plant-like, fungal, or extraterrestrial intelligence, preserving the spirit of Cluster and Guru Guru's early 1970s consciousness-expanding jam sessions (in many of which Plank played an integral role). At moments the music warps and twists into churning ambience with interwoven heavily processed voices. The first track, on the other hand, is propelled by a rubbery, rolling bass line that almost sounds as if it could work in an Italo Disco track if it weren't so twitchy and nervous--it anticipates electronic music while thinking beyond the generic constraints to which electronic producers so often succumb. Easily one of the most forward-thinking albums of the eighties--if you're at all interested in experimental, psychedelic, or electronic music, you *must* hear this. At once cosmic and earthy, like many of the best things in life.