Klaus Schulze - Mirage (2005)

Twenty-eight years ago, they didn’t really even have a name for this stuff. “Space Music” wouldn’t enter into the shared consciousness of the music world until the mid-to-late-80s and although it has since branched out into various sub-genres of the electronic music tree, it remains a decidedly cult phenomenon. Although musician/producer Brian Eno is often mistakenly considered the father of space music due to his tonal experimentation in “ambient” music, the truth is that electronic music pioneers like Kraftwerk, Cluster, Edgar Froese and Tangerine Dream and Faust cleared the path for Eno years before.

Of the many musicians whose work would further the evolution of electronic music, perhaps none were as adventuresome or tireless as Germany’s Klaus Schulze. Schulze recorded with both the seminal Tangerine Dream and the psych-rock collective Ash Ra Tempel before abandoning the band format in favor of a solo career in 1971. To say that his subsequent output was prolific would be understating the truth – Schulze released an amazing fourteen albums in the first ten years of his solo career. Even more incredible is that Schulze has released over 80 albums in the thirty years since he broke from his previous bands, each one a significant work of composition and style.

Released in 1977, Mirage was Schulze’s eighth album and what many critics and fans consider to be his best. Schulze had mastered the possibilities provided by synthesizers and studio technology with a trio of early-70s albums – Cyborg, Picture Music and Blackdance – and would go on to experiment more with tone and emotion on future releases. With Mirage, Schulze attempted to create a “winter landscape,” recreating the bleak white and gray tones of the season with the instruments at hand. The resulting album is sparse, eerie, meditative and a masterpiece of form and performance in every aspect.

The original 1977 release of Mirage, restricted by the vinyl LP format, featured two extended cuts, one on either side of the album. Each composition consists of several passages, which often change the direction of the piece. The first, “Velvet Voyage,” is a hypnotic twenty-eight minute essay, subdued in nature and playing to the listener’s sub-conscious. It is minimalist and quite beautiful, if challenging. The second track, “Crystal Lake,” clocks in at slightly more than twenty-nine minutes. Embellishing the basic underlying track with chimes, synth washes and other electronic wizardry, Schulze creates a breathtaking musical soundscape that is both ambitious and thought provoking.

The Inside Out Music reissue of Mirage includes deluxe packaging, liner notes, photos and an additional bonus track, “In Cosa Crede Chi Non Crede?” The nineteen-minute coda extends the sonic soundtrack of the first two tracks, its subdued electronic instrumentation causing one to strain to take it all in. With a myriad of colors and sounds, however, it is well worth the effort. A journey, of sorts, inspired by Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco, the song’s title translates, roughly, as “in what it believes who does not believe?” The composition is every bit as daunting as its title; Schulze composing music much the same way as Eco composes literature.

For music fans inquisitive enough to want to discover more about electronic music, the work of Klaus Schulze is essential. Although I personally would not recommend Mirage as a starting point – Picture Music may be less challenging an introduction – I would heartily recommend it as your second or third dalliance with Schulze, if only to experience what can be done by a master painting with notes instead of colors. (Inside Out Music)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Mirage from Amazon.com)

Klaus Schulze - Picture Music (2005)

One of the godfathers of contemporary “space music,” composer, musician and visionary Klaus Schulze was experimenting with electronic tones, synthesized music and ambient sounds while Eno was still playing the role of rock star. One of the leading lights of the late-60s/early-70s “krautrock” movement, Schulze was a member of the seminal German outfit Tangerine Dream, playing drums on the band’s influential debut album, Electronic Meditations. Schulze went on to form the psych-rock collective Ash Ra Tempel with Manuel Göttsching, recording a single album with that band before striking out on a successful solo career that is now in its fourth decade.

Recorded in 1973, but not released until 1975, Picture Music was actually the third album recorded by Schulze, although it would be the fourth solo album to be released. Some have said that this is Schulze’s first true “synthesizer” album and I would have to concur. While Schulze’s contemporary Walter/Wendy Carlos used Robert Moog’s pioneering technology to dabble in pop music and film scores, Schulze’s muse took him down an entirely different path. Schulze envisioned sounds as an expression of emotion and thought, using a battery of synthesizers – along with whatever studio wizardry was available in 1973 – to rewrite the rules of musical composition with Picture Music.

While others were content to remain earthbound and chase after traditional musical forms, Schulze had his eyes on the stars with Picture Music. Predicting Brian Eno’s ambitious experimentation in ambient music by a half-decade, and furthering the trailblazing work of his sophomore effort Cyborg, Schulze would tinker with tone, rhythm and the concept of spaciousness on Picture Music.

The album opens with the almost twenty-four minute piece “Totem,” a subdued meditative piece that shows Schulze tentatively incorporating the abilities of the synthesizer into his work. Fragments of rhythm and melody swirl in and out of the piece, lost beneath bubbling electronics and a fragile painting of distance. “Totem” acts as ‘ying’ to its companion song’s ‘yang,’ the twenty-three minute “Mental Door” a more aggressive, percussive piece. The composition starts out dark and quiet, before building to a crescendo of Baroque keyboard riffing, clashing cymbals and jazzy, often tribal drumming. It is a breathtaking piece, as invigorating and energetic as “Totem” is contemplative and introspective.

Due to Schulze’s importance in the field of electronic music, Picture Music has been reissued countless times, mostly by various European labels and often with different cover art and song indexing. This American reissue, by the exemplary prog-rock label Inside Out Music, offers deluxe packaging, rare photos, informative liner notes and best of all, a thirty-three minute, previously unreleased bonus track. “C’est Pas La Meme Chose,” according to Schulze, is actually an extended, more involved reading of “Totem,” taking the original song’s meditative theme and extending it towards a new horizon. It is a fitting bookend to Picture Music, punctuating Schulze’s influence in the genre and providing a fitting coda to this important and often overlooked entry in the canon of electronic music. (Inside Out Music)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Picture Music from Amazon.com)