Material is the second full-length album by German electronic music duo of Dieter Moebius

Dieter Moebius

Dieter Moebius is a German/Swiss experimental/krautrock/ambient/electronic musician.Moebius studied art in Brussels and Berlin and met there Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Conrad Schnitzler . They founded a band Kluster in 1969. After the departure of Schnitzler, they changed their name to Cluster...

 and Conny Plank

Conny Plank

Konrad "Conny" Plank was a German record producer and musician. He was born in Hütschenhausen. His creativity as a sound engineer and producer helped to shape some of the most important and innovative recordings of postwar European popular music, covering a wide range of genres including...

. Material was recorded in July, 1981 at Conny's Studio outside of Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

. It was released by Sky Records

Sky Records

Sky Records was a Hamburg, Germany based independent record label specializing in Krautrock/Kosmische Musik and electronic music. Some of their releases could be classified as progressive rock or art rock, experimental music, industrial, ambient, or New Age...

 in 1981.
Steven and Alan Freeman, writing in The Crack In The Cosmic Egg describe Material and the 1980 Moebius & Plank

Moebius & Plank

The duo of Dieter Moebius and Conny Plank recorded three albums between 1979 and 1986. Plank died of cancer in 1987. Their final album and an album with Mayo Thompson were released posthumously in 1995 and 1998 respectively...

 debut album Rastakraut Pasta

Rastakraut Pasta

Rastakraut Pasta is the first full-length album by German electronic music duo of Dieter Moebius and Conny Plank.Rastakraut Pasta was recorded in September, 1979 at Conny's Studio outside of Cologne. It was released by Sky Records in 1980. Instrumentation on the album includes electronics, voice,...

, in part, this way: "Their early albums as a duo were revelations of innovation, bringing unlikely combinations of industrial rock, cosmic and even dub music

Dub music

Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...

 (on Rastakraut Pasta) together in a hybrid of genres. A reborn spirit of Krautrock that played recklessly with offbeat forms..." The incessant, forceful beat on "Conditionierer", the opening track of Material, could easily have been suitable for club dance music if not for all the odd electronic sounds added on top.

Both Rastakraut Pasta and Material were reissued in their entirety on a single CD on the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Gyroscope label on April 16, 1996, marking the first U.S. release for both albums. Material was reissued separately on CD in a digitally remastered, 1000 copy limited edition by the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese Captain Trip label on February 25, 2007.

Track listing

1. "Conditionierer" - 8:46
2. "Infiltration" - 7:40
3. "Tollkühn" - 6:11
4. "Osmo-Fantor" - 4:27
5. "Nordöstliches Gefühl" -7:13

External links

• Anonymous Random Writings on Music and Other Things: German Rock Retrieved September 7, 2007.