The Krautrock supergroup’s shimmering peak. Deluxe is the second and final album by Harmonia, one of Krautrock’s great supergroups: Neu!’s Michael Rother joined with Cluster’s Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. With legendary producer Conny Plank at the desk and Guru Guru’s Mani Neumeier guesting on drums, several tracks gain a propulsive motorik backbone that recalls Neu! itself. It balances Rother’s tightly structured guitar anthems with the Cluster duo’s shimmering synth textures.

The short version

Harmonia’s second studio album, recorded in June 1975 at the band’s own rural studio in Forst and released that August on Brain; six tracks, around forty-two minutes. The core trio is Michael Rother on guitar and keyboards, Dieter Moebius on synthesizer and Hans-Joachim Roedelius on keyboards, joined by two crucial collaborators: producer Conny Plank and, on drums, Guru Guru’s Mani Neumeier. A milestone of Krautrock and kosmische electronic music, it is more focused and band-like than their debut, and stands as one of the finest German albums of its era. It was the last record Harmonia would make in their original run.

A Krautrock supergroup

Harmonia came together in 1973 as a meeting of two of Krautrock’s most important camps. Cluster’s Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius had settled into a farmhouse in the rural village of Forst, and when Neu! guitarist Michael Rother visited to recruit them for live shows, the chemistry was so immediate that they formed a new band instead. Their debut, Musik von Harmonia, leaned toward Cluster’s dreamy electronics, and so impressed Brian Eno that he later called them the most important rock group in the world and came to record with them. For Deluxe, the trio brought in producer Conny Plank, who had worked with both Cluster and Neu! and arrived with a sixteen-track machine for their country studio, and invited Guru Guru drummer Mani Neumeier to play. Those two additions gave the record a fuller, more propulsive, more song-like shape.

The sound

Shimmering, transcendent electronic Krautrock, poised between two sensibilities. On one hand there is Michael Rother’s guitar, tightly structured and anthemic, driven by Mani Neumeier’s propulsive motorik drumming into passages that can sound strikingly like Neu!; on the other, the more unpredictable, textural world of Moebius and Roedelius, all whispering melodies, synth-string washes, austere drones and ghost-in-the-machine noises. Conny Plank’s meticulous engineering binds it into a single, glowing whole, more polished and accessible than the debut without losing any of its strangeness. The result is dreamy yet driving, melodic yet experimental, and remarkably forward-looking — a record that anticipated ambient music and even post-punk years before either had a name. It is warm, hypnotic and quietly beautiful throughout.

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The songs

The album opens with its title track, Deluxe (Immer Wieder), a near-ten-minute highlight that rides Neumeier’s motorik pulse into shimmering, anthemic territory and was issued as a single. The long Walky-Talky stretches out further in the same propulsive vein, and Monza (Rauf Und Runter) keeps the momentum with a driving, guitar-led feel. The second half leans toward the Cluster axis: the delicate Notre Dame, the eerie Gollum and the closing Kekse trade motorik drive for whispering melody, texture and drifting electronic atmosphere. Across the six pieces the album moves gracefully between its two poles, Rother’s structured anthems and the duo’s more abstract soundworlds, without ever losing its shimmer.

Reception and legacy

Deluxe is widely regarded as one of the finest German albums of its era and, together with the debut, one of two essential Harmonia records. Critics praise the leap in production and command it shows over the first album, the effectiveness of Mani Neumeier’s guest drumming, and the way it fuses Rother’s guitar with the Cluster duo’s electronics into a single sound. Its influence runs deep: it helped point the way toward ambient music and post-punk, and left a lasting mark on admirers such as Brian Eno. Harmonia made only these two albums before going their separate ways, into Neu!, Cluster, Eno collaborations and Rother’s solo career, which makes Deluxe feel all the more precious — a brief, brilliant meeting of great talents.

The verdict

Essential for lovers of Krautrock, kosmische electronics and early ambient — shimmering, hypnotic and quietly ahead of its time, with motorik drive and dreamy texture in perfect balance. Come to it for Rother’s guitar anthems, Neumeier’s motorik drumming and the Cluster duo’s electronic shimmer, rather than for songs in any conventional sense. Play Deluxe (Immer Wieder) and Walky-Talky. Then Harmonia’s debut, Neu! and Cluster for the bands that formed it, and Guru Guru for the drummer who drives it. A shimmering, forward-looking classic — and one of German music’s great supergroup moments.

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