Album of the Week: Harmonia- Musik Von Harmonia

If you know anything about Brian Eno, you know that it would take a pretty outstanding situation for him to actively seek out a band and join it. Though he has collaborated with many, many musicians over the years, the only time I can think that he went out of his way to work with someone was in the mid 70s when he pursued Germany's Harmonia, a krautrock "supergroup" featuring members of Cluster and Neu!.

The band's first album, Musik Von Harmonia, was released in 1974, and led Brian Eno to declare the band "the world's most important rock band" (or something to that effect). It's not hard to see Eno's point of view, since he was splitting time between his brilliant experimental pop albums and his fledgling ambient work--Musik Von Harmonia splits the difference between those two extremes, creating something some have called "ambient rock."

But I'm getting off track here. Let's talk about the album.

Harmonia is made up of the two guys from Cluster and one half of Neu!. Though I'm hardly an expert on krautrock, I can tell you that the bands in the genre seem to range from the tribal improv of Can to the austere, robotic Kraftwerk. As such, Musik Von Harmonia ends up somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. I'm not sure "ambient rock" is quite the right term, but the album does meet the criteria Brian Eno set out for the ambient style: you can listen to it either as sonic wallpaper that colors an environment, or you can focus on it and enjoy it just as equally.

The emphasis on the album is decidedly textural, with fascinating soundscapes produced by keyboards, synthesizers, electronic drums, and guitars all over the place. Though the majority of the songs tend toward a rhythm-less free floating air, some, like 'Dino' have the distinctive relentless beat of motorik that tips the hand of the Neu! third of the band. Elsewhere, 'Ahoi!' has a delicate air that sounds like something you might hear in a massage parlor (and was possibly influential on Eno's ambient albums); 'Ohrwurm' is all sinister synths and a guitar tortured until it sounds like a groaning violin; and album closer 'Hausmusik', with its ethereal music box piano lines that are submerged beneath a shimmering glacier of sound before the latter recedes as gradually as it came.

Not much more needs to be said about Musik Von Harmonia. If you have even the slightest interest in krautrock or ambient music in general, you'll find it a worthy addition to your collection.