Two hours of appreciation for one of the giants of Berlin school electronic music.
| Irrlict was the first solo album by Klaus Schulze after stints in Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel. On this album he uses mostly an organ, a recording of an orchestra played backwards, and an amplifier to create an atmospheric space music. Apparently he and Edgar Froese had a similar idea at the same time; Froese's realization, released the same month, was Zeit, played last program. Schulze produced a second (double) album of atmospheric experimental work, this time using a real orchestra on one side. This album was called Cyborg. |
| Satz Ebene (excerpt) Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht - Magnum |
| After these two albums, Schulze produced his first albums with a synthesizer, Blackdance and Picture Music. On the latter album he also drummed. This is a rarity on Schulze albums, as his subsequent albums with drumming generally employed Harald Grosskopf (Wallenstein, Ash Ra Tempel) in the role.
His fifth album, Timewind, was the first to employ sequencing. Released the year after Phaedra and the same year as Rubycon, it was the only Schulze album available in America for many years, and became one of his most beloved there. The album was dedicated to Richard Wagner. |
| Bayreuth Return Klaus Schulze - Timewind - Virgin |
| Schulze's longtime business manager, Klaus D. Mueller, cites three albums as Schulze's "masterpieces" of the 1970s, and they are the three that remain. Moondawn is cited as Schulze's first "full Berlin school" release. Whether one agrees with this or sides with the album I just played, Moondawn is pretty incredible (my personal favorite by Schulze, for what it's worth).
I am going to play the second side of this album, which has a similar structure to many Schulze pieces, beginning with a fairly slow, ambient, atmospheric section, and then emerging with a more active, sequenced, freakout second half. |
| Mindphaser Klaus Schulze - Moondawn - Magnum |
| Mirage is another classic album and is more in the atmospheric vein. Unfortunately with a two hour show and a musician who likes half-hour pieces, it is impossible to get everything in, but I should be able to squeeze about 20 minutes of it in :). |
| Crystal Lake (excerpt) Klaus Schulze - Mirage - Magnum |
| Schulze's tenth album, called X (as in the Roman numeral), was his first double album since Cyborg, and is in his now fully realized style. The original album has a five-and-a-half minute track called George Trakl that I have played on the show before. In 1999 Manikin released the 50 CD box set "Ultimate Edition", featuring unreleased material to that point spanning Schulze's career (much of it was reissuing other box sets of the 90s which were now out of print and being re-sold at high prices). Disc 47 of the box set features the track "Discover Trakl", which is the 28-minute full version of the piece from X. In later years, the definitive CD reissue of X was expanded to include this full version as well. So here is something pretty cool to close with, that maybe some people with the vinyl have never heard. |
| Discover Trakl Klaus Schulze - The Ultimate Edition - Manikin |
Subscribe to Electronic Meditation
Loving the Schulze tunes!
12:18 AM, February 12th, 2015