Hans‐Joachim Roedelius

Prolific German Experimental and Ambient Electronic musician, born October 26, 1934 in Berlin-Friedenau, Germany, based in Baden, Austria. He is best known as co-founder of the German Krautrock groups Cluster and Harmonia and his work in the ambient jazz trio Aquarello.
He grew up in Berlin and was forced to join the army as a kid, where he also had to be actor in propaganda movies. He was based after WWII in the GDR and deserted from army service, which braught him to prison. In 1961, he flew to West-Berlin, studied and had a couple of jobs in the 1960's. In the late 1960's, he fully concentrated on music and learned to play various instruments. He co-founded a music community called in 1968 and co-founded the underground music club "Zodiac Free Arts Lab" together with Conrad Schnitzler.
With the latter plus his friend Dieter Moebius, he co-founded the experimental Electronic music group Kluster in 1969. After Schnitzler left the group in 1970, they continued to collaborate as duo, now called Cluster, but also founded the project Harmonia together with Michael Rother. In 1975, he started to work with Conny Plank on his solo debut, which was finally released in 1978. He was through the following years part of more than 100 music publications.
In the early 1980's, Roedelius moved to Austria which led him to temporarily dissolve Cluster. In the 1990's, he was part of the trio Aquarello, later he formed a reincarnation of Cluster, called Qluster.