[2] Born from the earlier Berlin-based group Kluster, they relocated in 1971 into the countryside village of Forst, Lower Saxony, where they built a studio and collaborated with musicians such as Conny Plank, Brian Eno, and Michael Rother; with the latter, they formed the influential side-project Harmonia.

[5] Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Conrad Schnitzler formed Kluster in 1969 after the three had met at the Zodiak Free Arts Lab.

Previous Kluster works had been small or private label releases with no more than 300 copies pressed and sold.

Allmusic review describes it, in part as "...a dislocating, disorienting meld of random space music, industrial noise, proto-ambient atmospherics, feedback, and soundwash..."[7] The first album is also the only Cluster release on which Conny Plank is listed as a full third member of the band.

In 1971 the duo moved to the rural village of Forst, West Germany to live in several Renaissance-era farmhouses and build their own studio.

After the release of the first Harmonia album and a period on tour, Rother returned to working with Klaus Dinger and an expanded Neu!

Their first release for Sky was Sowiesoso, a highly creative album of gentler melodies recorded in just two days.

[11] Roedelius also began releasing solo material during this period, beginning with Durch die Wüste for Sky in 1978.

[6] Cluster's 1979 release Grosses Wasser was produced by ex-Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann and once again featured a wide variety of styles, including some of the most avant-garde material since the demise of Kluster, particularly during the middle section of the title track, which occupied all of side two.

The style of the music is highly experimental and discordant and very reminiscent of Moebius and Roedelius' early work with Conrad Schnitzler in Kluster.

That same year, Dieter Moebius teamed with former Cluster member, engineer and producer Conny Plank on the album Rastakraut Pasta, released on Sky.

Apropos Cluster is musically and structurally similar to Grosses Wasser, with four short tracks followed by the nearly 22 minute long, more experimental title piece.

This album featured a single, long musical piece, the longest ever recorded by Cluster, divided into 11 tracks on the CD.

They also performed at the opening of documenta 12 on 15 June 2007 in Kassel, Germany and the fourth annual More Ohr Less festival in Lunz, Austria on 10 August 2007.

From September to November 2007 Cluster had additional concert performances in Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Estonia, and the Netherlands.

Moebius and Roedelius have also reunited with Michael Rother and the first Harmonia concert in more than 30 years took place in Berlin on 27 November 2007.

[3] They performed at the opening of documenta 12, a major exhibition of modern and contemporary art held every five years in Kassel, Germany on 15 June 2007.

[14] Cluster performed in the United States for the first time since 1996 at the Detroit Institute of Arts on 16 May 2008 and for the No Fun Fest at the Knitting Factory in New York City on 17 May 2008.

[16] The first Cluster album since 1997 drawn from their live performance in Berlin on 14 September 2007 was released on Important Records in Spring, 2008.

AllMusic described them as "the most important and consistently underrated space rock unit of the '70s," noting that they first began as "an improv group that used everything from synthesizers to alarm clocks and kitchen utensils in their performances" and later transitioned to produce "many landmark LPs in the field of German space music often termed kosmische.

"[2] On 1974's Zuckerzeit, the group shifted to a more accessible sound that "combined trippy drum machine rhythms with woozy, pastoral melodies, resulting in a skewed, playful vision of futuristic pop.

Artists and groups whose music has been influenced by Cluster include David Bowie, Robert Rich, John Foxx (formerly of Ultravox), Alex Paterson of The Orb,[21] Coil,[22] Oval, To Rococo Rot, and Mouse on Mars.