4 Hands, an intimate and surreal musical conversation on the piano from German sound pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius and American composer Tim Story, is an example of all the warm yet otherworldly beauty that can come from approaching a shared love for a singular instrument from overlapping directions.

Recorded sequentially but on one and the same grand piano, Roedelius laid down a few impromptu piano études in May 2019 whilst visiting his transatlantic friend Story. Tim then learned all their intricate phrasings to add his own parts in the following months.

"Together we shaped the basic compositions, sometimes carefully preparing the piano with various materials (including my own hands), and Achim’s performances were committed to tape. I continued to compose and refine my parts in the following months. Because it was all recorded on the same piano, the result has a very appealing consistency of sound, and hopefully blurs our individual contributions into a single integrated voice,” Story explains.

4 Hands encapsulates rippling minimalistic patterns and delicate, ghostly interactions with surprising harmonic twists. Roedelius’ intuitive and instinctive approach based in improvisation, paired hand in hand with Story’s deliberate distilling of ideas over time, creates two sides of an engaging and thought provoking conversation that seems to evolve and deepen with each successive listen.

"4 Hands is not just a new album — the logical continuation of the long-standing friendship between two composers. It’s our tribute to awareness and listening, coaxing a new sound language from the endless possibilities of a single piano played by our four hands. For me, these pieces express a different kind of beauty, they evoke more than the sum of their parts, they are a wordless dialogue, a bridge across the great water that separates our cultures from one another. Allons enfants des deux patrie, haha!” adds Roedelius.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A compositionally stunning selection of ambient piano pieces on the ever-reliable Erased Tapes, '4 Hands' sees Roedelius and Story pulling together an unexpected and beautiful juxtaposition of solemn unadorned instrumentals and jagged, unexpected syncopation.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nurzu
2. Spirit Clock
3. Haru
4. Rever
5. Seeweed
6. Allegro Estinto
7. Crisscrossing
8. Thrum
9. Bent Rhyme
10. Skitter
11. Ba

Vienna, the early 1980s. Krautrock, electronic and ambient pioneer Hans Joachim Roedelius, co-founder Cluster and Harmonia and saxophone free spirit Alexander Czjzek meet for the first time. Their longstanding collaboration found its climax in the fantastic album "Weites Land", which was released in 1987 for the first time, but has been out of print for many decades and became a sought-after rarity.

Bureau B is pleased to make this organic jazz masterpiece finally available again!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Einklang 
A2. Sonniger Morgen
A3. Beruhrung
A4. Ballade
A5. Weisst Du Noch?
B1. Nahe
B2. Weites Land
B3. Hoffnung

Originally released 1982 on Sky 072

The music: electronical chamber music that impressively renders audible Roedelius' musical transition from the 70s into the 80s. Complex, vibrant, enigmatic, avant-garde, timelessy beautiful.

"Offene Türen" is a purely electronic album. Without losing himself in their infinite tonal possibilities, Roedelius delights in playing a selection of synthesizers. He even deploys an analogue rhythm machine now and then to discreet effect. Roedelius takes great care to steer well clear of any cosmic fog or depersonalised abstractions. Nothing of the sort can be heard, as he focusses intensely and exclusively on the relationships of rhythm, harmony and melody. Roedelius conjures up their delicate timbres on synthesizer with the greatest of ease. The seasoned electronic musician would have found similar results beyond the reach of his good old Farfisa organ.

180g vinyl.

The long overdue reissue of "Selbstporträt III/Reise durch Arcadien" closes a gap in the Roedelius oeuvre which his followers have long since had their eyes on. Those who found the self-portrait series irresistible had to endure a lengthy, impatient wait for the "Journey Through Arcadia".

As on the other releases in this series, the pieces on "Reise durch Arcadien" are musical sketches, fleeting ideas and aphorisms of a musician whose exuberant imagination assumes tonal form in almost every moment of his life. Created between 1973 and 1978 and recorded with decidedly modest technical equipment, this music reflects Roedelius' most intimate, wholly undisguised vision of humane music. Almost casually, Roedelius offers us as listeners direct access to his artistic riches. Neither seeking to impose himself upon us, nor setting out to impress, he simply wishes to share with us something he could barely put into words. Utterly detached from time, stylistically unique, these tracks could easily be contemporary creations. Only the questionable recording quality (common to the majority of the self-portrait pieces) hints at a bygone age.- Asmus Tietchens

How curious it is that this collaboration should come about so late in the day and how marvellous that it transpired at all. Lloyd Cole, this most ingenious of British singer-songwriters, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, a patriarch of German electronic music, did not actually meet in the studio, choosing instead a mode of material exchange more in keeping with the age, sending files across the ether for the other to complement.

How did they come to work together? Lloyd Cole released "Plastic Wood" in 2001, an instrumental, electronic album, most unusual by his standards. Listening to "Plastic Wood", one can clearly hear that Cluster's "Sowieso" album (1976) is one of Cole's all-time favourites. A friend of Cole's who also knew Roedelius, sent the latter a copy of the Englishman's album. Roedelius liked it so much that he immediately set about remixing the whole LP, or rather he added overdubs to the existing tracks - without asking and without having been asked! On receiving the results, Cole was not only flattered, he was also very impressed with the Roedelius remixes.
"Plastic Wood" had already been released and Cole felt that the project had run its course, so the Roedelius reworks were consigned to the archives. Nevertheless, the idea of collaborating appealed to the pair of them, and they did write to one another from time to time.

A good ten years later, the two finally met in person, when Lloyd-Cole passed through Vienna on tour. Now things could begin in earnest. The first results of their endeavours, now released, are modestly entitled "Selected Studies Vol. 1". Studies, strictly speaking, represent incomplete explorations of compositional and tonal possibilities. And yet this album reveals mature, carefully composed music, as if Cole and Roedelius had been working together for years already. Both artists focus on electronic sounds in a selection of succinct, direct pieces, free of musical garrulousness. Cole neither sings nor plays guitar and Roedelius rarely touches the keys of his grand piano. Instead, both musicians have developed a subtle soundscape which only drifts towards pure noise on one track, "Wandelbar". All of the other "studies" on the album move within a vast spectrum of harmonic wonder and rhythmic stepping stones.

However paradoxical it may sound, "Selected Studies Vol. 1" is reminiscent of the music of Claude Debussy, if electronic instrumentation had been available to him 120 years earlier. Highly impressionistic images flicker around the listener, airy, transparent, lost in time, each its own window on a bright, yet mysterious world. Far removed from kitsch, ambient and feel-good music, "Selected Studies Vol. 1" demands to be listened to attentively if the serious artistic expression of these two musicians / composers is to be appreciated fully. This opens up the album's beauty and depth. Cole and Roedelius seek to present fantastic, aural topographies in opposition to the dullness of the real world, inviting us to enter a friendly labyrinth of constant surprise, a place one can still leave at any time, without fear of getting hopelessly lost.

Tenth solo album, first released in 1984. His most commercially successful album to date.

On “Gift of the Moment” Roedelius broke away unequivocally from purely electronic music. If “Lustwandel” and “Jardin au fou” had seen the process set in motion, this was the album that completed the transition. Following the “Selbstportraits”, which had at least been created through the use of electric organ and synthesizers, Roedelius focussed on the grand piano, sometimes accompanied by a cello, violin and guitar. Distant echoes of a not so distant musical past could only be detected in the occasional appearance of sparse chords played on a polyphonic synthesizer. The album wore a veil of delicate melancholy: no vibrant folk dances, no colourful carousels, no cheerful melodies. Instead, Roedelius offered a calm, almost detached form of music, openly acknowledging romantic heritage. “Gift of the Moment” eluded contemporary definitions of the “experimental” concept, as Roedelius was now experimenting in new, eclectic areas, too weighty, too grainy to be labelled “Proto New Age”. Roedelius was not striving for perfection, but for authenticity, a music stripped of disguise; and to this end he left little playing errors in the mix, fading out tracks rigorously to eliminate any bigger blunders.

"After The Heat" is the 1978 album by Brian Eno and both members of Cluster, namely Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. This album represents the second collaboration by the trio, the first being 1977's Cluster & Eno. Again, it was created in collaboration with the hugely influential Krautrock producer, Conny Plank. 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".

"Jardin Au Fou" is the second solo album by German keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, best known for his work with Cluster, Harmonia, and Aquarello. Recorded from April through July, 1978 at Paragon Studios in Berlin, it was produced by former Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann and released by the French label Egg in 1979. The original release included 10 tracks but the final short piece, "Final", was left off the tracklisting on the original album cover.