Live 1974 cover

Live 1974

Recorded
Released

There are no screaming audiences for live albums with this cohort. It is not even immediately clear that this is live (though there is some coughing). Early drum machines had no better friend than Harmonia, who made it part of their credo to let those machines rip, and work with the primitive sequencers and arpeggiators available to them. For “Arabesque,” though, Rother and Moebius get their guitars ripping and we get something very much like what Robert Fripp will bring out soon as Frippertronics. “Holta-Polta” sounds a lot like Cabaret Voltaire. There’s only solid gold in this hour of live Harmonia.

Sasha Frere-Jones

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