CD Review: Leon Alvarado’s The Future Left Behind (2016)

Lest one thinks that rock ‘n’ roll left behind the glorious ‘concept album’ when the clock struck midnight on January 31st, 1979 then look no further than Leon Alvarado’s magnificent The Future Left Behind to refute that misbegotten theory! A fourteen-song concept album with narration interspersed between the gorgeous instrumentation, Alvarado spins a dystopian sci-fi tale of a barren Earth and subsequent emigration to new planets not unlike the European exodus of the late 1700s. A visionary songwriter and keyboardist and a wizard with a synthesizer, Alvarado also has good-enough-for-rockin’ percussion skills that he puts to good use.

Leon Alvarado’s The Future Left Behind

For The Future Left Behind, the follow-up to his 2014 album Music From An Expanded Universe, Alvarado enlisted the help of a couple of Yes alumni and prog-rock fellow travelers in guitarist Billy Sherwood and keyboardist Rick Wakeman. While the musical brilliance that runs like a river throughout the songs on The Future Left Behind display more than a little Yes and Genesis influence, as well as a healthy dose of Wakeman’s epic Journey To The Centre of The Earth, there’s also a little 1970s-style jazz-fusion creeping in around the edges as every influential key-basher from Keith Emerson to Chick Corea is thrown into the musical gumbo pot.

Although Steve Thamer brings an undeniable gravitas to his succinct narration and his role as the story’s protagonist, Alvarado lets the music do the talking on this mostly instrumental song-cycle. “Launch Overture” is reminiscent of Keith Emerson’s early ELP flights of fancy, the music full of hope and brightness, guest Rick Wakeman’s synth solo whizzing and humming like stream-of-consciousness throughout the performance. “Journey Into Space” finds Alvarado and his cohorts in pure ‘70s-era prog-rock mode, soaring synths and blustery drumbeats providing the backbone for an exhilarating instrumental flight through the cosmos worthy of obscure, albeit talented space music composers like Tony Gerber and Giles Reaves.

By contrast, “The Ones Left Behind” is darker, more strident, haunting synthesizer runs and tumbling percussion echoing the emotion and reality of those too impoverished to make the journey to a new life. Sherwood’s piercing fretwork battles with Alvarado’s sonic tsunami to create a powerful, provocative musical moment. The new worlds are no utopia, though, and “Among The Stars” reflects both the promise and the hardship of starting life anew with swells of instrumentation overwhelming the senses while sporadic drumbeats march at a lonely place. The Future Left Behind reasserts the narrator’s belief in the fundamental ability to triumph over adversity, “The Star Seekers” ending the album on as similarly an upbeat note as it began. With hints of ELP and King Crimson lying beneath the surface, Alvarado’s synth-driven score mimics the energy and vitality of mankind’s future saviors...those of us left behind.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

If it sounds like the ol’ Reverend is quite smitten with Leon Alvarado’s The Future Left Behind, well, it’s because I am. Seldom have these ears heard as fresh and creative a concept as Alvarado unfolds in his song cycle here, a dreamlike tale obviously inspired by the modern world but daring to take us, as humans, to the next level of evolution. It’s an ambitious album, with fantastical instrumentation and although dominated by Alvarado’s keyboards and synthesizers, never gets tedious or falls to the level of the mundane. I know that a lot of you don’t like any music without a lot of shredding guitars, but fans of prog-rock, jazz fusion and/or avant-garde electronic music will find a lot to love about The Future Left Behind. Grade: A- (Melodic Revolution Records, released July 30, 2016)

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CD Review: Klaus Schulze's Picture Music (1975)

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, reissued 2005)

Related content: Klaus Schulze's Mirage CD review

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Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2005 

CD Review: Klaus Schulze's Mirage (1977)

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 and 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, reissued 2005)

Related content: Klaus Schulze's Picture Music CD review

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Klaus Schulze's Mirage

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2005