31.12.69

A bare slip of a thing on first listen, Roedelius Schneider 's Stunden readily at some time reveals itself to be as complex a transmission as might be expected from two masters of electronic music. Recorded over the surely of a year, this minimal gem emerged from Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Stefan Schneider’s sentence to form an unlikely alliance between piano and synth – and to walk just one rule when collaborating: that their album would be, above all things, peace of mind.

Luckily, quiet isn't much of a stretch for either of them. Roedelius, now 76, is a Krautrock fable – he co-founded the Zodiak Free Arts Lab in fresh Sixties West Berlin, a seminal venue for advanced kosmische experimenters, playing host to bands like Tangerine Illusion, Ash Ra Tempel, and Cluster - his own pioneering space-rock constituent. Over the decades, both with Dieter Moebius in Cluster and in his solo drudgery, Roedelius’ output has shifted from amplified, atonal theatrics to electronic tranquillity – he's been riding the ambient tip for a long time now. To Rococo Rot bassist and synth wizard Stefan Schneider also knows this bailiwick well; even if his To Rococo Rot work sometimes veers towards post-rock, his on one's own work as Mapstation and collaborations with pianist Bill Wells corroborate that he's equally at home making the mellowest of music, too.

Source: Drowned In Sound