Dieter Moebius and Conny Plank (Moebius & Plank) were an offshoot of Cluster. For those of you who aren’t Krautrock historians, Moebius along with Conrad Schnitzler and Hans-Joachim Roedelius formed the original Kluster (with a K!). Their first two albums, Klopfzeichen and Zwei Osterei were engineered by Plank. Then Schnitzler left to do his own electronic music thing and Plank joined the band which became Cluster (with a C!). Although he’s only credited with playing on the Cluster 71′ record, he composed music on Cluster II and produced Cluster albums from ’71 to ’78. Moebius and Plank recorded their first album in 1979 and their final album in 1985. Then Plank died of cancer in 1987. The duo collaborated with kraut and experimental rock legends like Can’s Holger Czukay, Guru Guru’s Mani Neumeier, and Red Krayola’s Mayo Thompson.
1980 saw the release of the duo’s first album, Rastakraut Pasta. It was recorded in at Plank’s studio outside of Cologne and was released by Sky Records in 1980. Instrumentation on the album includes electronics, voice, guitar, and flute, all of which are credited to both Moebius & Plank. Holger Czukay plays bass on three tracks: “Feedback 66”, “Missi Cacadou”, and “Two Oldtimers”.
In his epic tome Krautrocksampler, Julian Cope wrote of Rastakraut Pasta, “This is an album of slobbering and drooling genius. Seven pieces of empty spacehead on-the-beat Krautfunk. The album opens with “News,” samples of TV news over a heavy bass slide-trombone groove. Actually, there’s no bass slide-trombone at all but that’s the effect created. The title track is the funniest dude-ingest track since the grooves on Lou Reed’s 1978 album Street Hassle, another curve-ball out of nowhere. This inner-city Bavarian reggae loads Lee Perry absurdities on top of Faust absurdities and combines them all with the New York of Dillinger’s Cocaine in my Brain. Huge synthesizer melodies with catchy-as-hell harmonies, some of which make you grit your teeth, over a garagey white There’s A Riot Goin’ On rhythm track. The classic rock’n’roller monster is “Feedback 66”, the title alone would have made Suicide cream. The track itself growls along like electro-Stooges, similar to the machine sounds of Suicide’s second album. And ugly feedback (mike [sic] feedback…not even guitar feedback) all-the-way. If Moebius & Plank were not geniuses of the Teutonic-kind, they could not have attempted such a speculative foray as Rastakrautpasta. But when it falls on its ass it doesn’t matter because, success or failure, it’s always funny. Ha, they had no World Music aspirations, thank fuck.”
Yeah, both albums are that good. You can buy the album from Amazon
Moebius & Plank
Rastakraut Pasta / Material
MediaFire download link – Rastakraut Pasta
MediaFire download link – Material
Track Listing:
01) News
02) Rastakraut Pasta
03) Feedback 66
04) Miss Cacadou
05) Two Oldtimers
06) Solar Plexus
07) Landebahn
&
01) Conditionierer
02) Infiltration
03) Tollkuhn
04) Sosmo-Fantor
05) Dorostliches Gefuhl
