“If digit EM did not take a lot of time to unite its tones with the analog ones, it's thanks to geniuses like Klaus Schulze”
CD1
1.1 Cellistica 24:31 1.2 Spielglocken 21:24 1.3 Sebastian im Traum 28:21 2.1 Tango-Saty 5:47 2.2 Amourage 10:37 2.3 Opheylissem 5:11
Bonus Track
2.4 Gem 57:44 a) Tiptoe on the Misty Mountain Tops b) Sink or Swim c) At the angle of an Angel
d) Of White Night
Innovative Communication – KS 80025-26 (1983- 2LP)
REVISITED RECORDS 2005 SPV 089-304132 DCD - REV 017
(2 CD 154:19) (V.F.)
(New Berlin School, minimalist and symphonic EM)
Here's an album that I had difficulty to tame and whose review was difficult to give birth. Not because it's not good, but because it's different. Quietly, Klaus Schulze brings us into his digital universe of fairy tales that he adorns of metallic tones and synth riffs which glide in glockenspiel tones and of orchestral flights that will lead us to his operas. AUDENTITY is a double album of the most eclectic, where we can clearly feel Schulze's break with his introductory works. And at the time I was wondering where the line of fanaticism wiil stopped so much we were far from works as deep and floating such as Mirage, Blackdance or Body Love. But it was the current of the 80's, the MIDI took the ascendancy on the old equipment always very delicate to handle of the analog era. Except that with the subsequent years of musical discoveries that by ricochet led to AUDENTITY, one has to admit that this album is a precursor one and that it has opened a breach in the always effervescent universe of the contemporary EM. This new edition from Revisited Records, always presented in a beautiful digipack box with a nice booklet and with almost 50 minutes of new music, accentuates the perception of a very cold and metallic universe that we could have of AUDENTITY. And this cooler tone, almost detached from the original version, enhances the original vision of this double vinyl album released in 1983 on Innovative Communication.
At the time I had no trouble taming CD 1 and the long colorful intro of Cellistica where the sounds are fluttering around in an indiscipline of the great improvisations by Klaus Schulze. The mold is quietly taking shape with echo riffs waving awkwardly on the strings of a cello slowly caressed by Wolfgang Tiepold's bow. Brilliant and punchy, pulsations and percussions, played by Michael Shrieve, are added to support this convoluted symbiosis that follows a surprising harmonic tangent to reach a tasty ending. In the meantime, it's a soften rhythm that pulsates on the charms of Wolfgang Tiepold's cello. It's minimalist and hypnotic with variances in harmonies but not in the form. This is a very nice title which requires more than one listening because the ingenuity of Schulze to structure the instructurable is as amazing as charming. There is also this little earworm with this Arabian scent, we remember Dune, which survives this long musical tirade. It will haunt the rhythms and the catchy passages that will draw the musical structures of Schulze's European tour in 1983. Spielglocken is my favorite song. It's like hearing old Schulze with the new technology of the 80's. The rhythm is soft and drawn in a superb play of Rainer Bloss with the glockenspiels which sparkle on hypnotic pulsations while the harmonies, sculpted in the analog flavors of the synth , are ghostly. It's a very good title that will also serve as a skeleton tone for this tour.
Now, Sebastian im Traum! I know it's one of the favorite pieces of Klaus Schulze's fans and, honestly and after many attempts, I never understood why. It's 30 minutes of cold delirium. A digital psychedelic ode that I have never entered the parameters, let alone its definition. Certainly, there is a beautiful melody turning around on carillon tones, like Freeze, which floats in this anarchy of chords. She leaves and comes back gently, but on short segments and gradually spacing. Still today I am trying to understand the craze, the interest behind this title. I love Schulze, and I think you know it, but I have never been able to understand the emotions of Sebastian im Traum. CD 2 opens with Tango-Saty which seems to come out of the Dig It sessions, so much the sounds and rhythms are related to it just like in Opheylissem. Before reaching the softness of Amourage, you have to go through its intro. But once the minute has passed, we become overwhelmed by the appeal of the synths that wake up the heats of Body Love and of Mirage. The price of beauty what! The bonus track, Gem, is a title divided into 5 segments that served as the basis for writing the soundtrack of Next of Kin, an Australian horror film that won the grand prize of the Paris Film Festival in 1983. Its introduction is a long and powerful buzzing where deformed streaks mutate into a lugubrious timbre. An ambience that sticks to the realism of a horror film, albeit a bit long. Tiptoe on the Misty Mountain Tops explodes with an old tone and a curly sequence. A galloping title where the eclectic crosses the authentic genius of Schulze in a whirlwind of sound that are sometimes scattered. A very good movement that captures the interest of our hearing by modulations and variances that only Schulze can put on his minimalism rhythms. Some great Klaus Schulze who continues these hopping rhythms until the finale of Of White Nights Audentity which is a little masterpiece. Am I too thrill? Possible! But if digital music took so little time to reach a uniformity with the analog tone is thanks to geniuses like Klaus Schulze who knew how to adapt this technological breakthrough to their visions and not the opposite. And I know many people, including me, who have listened to this work to return repentant after hearing its intonations elsewhere, as on Depeche Mode among others. Even today, Sebastian im Traum doesn't pass. But the rest flows with excessive pleasure. Because the active listening on a good sound system, with a good volume, is infernal for the neighbors but enjoyable for the listener. I do wish you as much with this great reissue and its nice booklet that contains gossip about the habits of Stomu Yamashta!
Sylvain Lupari (February 15th, 2006) ****¼*