Wenn Der Südwind Weht is the seventh solo album by German keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, best known for his work with Cluster

Cluster (band)

Cluster is a German experimental musical group who influenced the development of contemporary popular electronic and ambient music. They have recorded albums in a wide variety of styles ranging from experimental music to progressive rock, all of which had an avant-garde edge. Cluster has been...

, Harmonia

Harmonia (band)

Harmonia is a Krautrock supergroup from Germany. They formed as a collaboration between Michael Rother of Neu! and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Möbius of Cluster and later included the British musician Brian Eno.-Musical style:...

, and Aquarello

Aquarello

Aquarello was a musical group which blended ambient music and jazz. The trio included keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, based in Austria, and two Italian musicians, multi-instrumentalist Fabio Capanni, and saxophonist Nicola Alesini...

. All the pieces on the album were composed by Roedelius. 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 and has been reissued on CD by Sky Records in Germany by the Gyroscope label in the United States in 1996. The Bureau B label reissued Wenn Der Südwind Weht in the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 on both CD and 180 gram vinyl LP in 2010.

The music of Wenn Der Südwind Weht is a series of ambient pieces for synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

 and organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

. Joe McGlinchey, writing a review for the Ground and Sky website, describes the music, in part:

These are mostly made up of a percussive bed of keyboards that gently pulsate in an obsessive fashion, while over these a melodic lead solos lackadaisically. This album is one of Roedelius' more homogeneous in terms of both texture and composition. Almost all of the pieces on here remain quite static in development, so what you hear in the first 20 seconds of a piece is most likely what you will be hearing by the closing 20 seconds.

The title is German for "When the South Wind Blows."

Track listing

1. "Wenn der Südwind weht" - 4:11
2. "Veilchenwurzeln " - 5:01
3. "Mein Freund Farouk " - 4:14
4. "Mutee" - 4:11
5. "Freudentanz" - 2:00
6. "Goldregen" - 1:00
7. "Auf leisen Sohlen " - 3:47
8. "Saumpfad" - 8:30
9. "Sonnengeflecht" - 3:25
10. "Felix Austria" - 4:21

Personnel

• Hans-Joachim Roedelius - Synthesizer, keyboards, music by, interpretation, recorded by, producer, cover