“Body Love is a must-have in any electronic music collection of the Berlin School genre from the 70s, or of progressive music”
1 Stardancer (13:38)
2 Blanche (11:44)
3 P.T.O. (27:12)
BONUS TRACK
4 Lasse Braun (22:26)
SPV 085-304112 CD - REV 015
(CD 75:10) (V.F.)
(Floating Berlin School)
BODY LOVE is the 7th opus in the chronology of Klaus Schulze’s albums. And the big question was; how an artist can survive to an album such as Moondawn? Schulze didn't really find the question quite difficult. His answer? BODY LOVE! And it's quite an epic musical journey that Klaus Schulze has concocted us at this time. It's an unexpected work that has took down our pants! And still it does ome 30 years later. It's a brilliant work where Schulze shows his control of physical movements and the sensual fluids that gets free of it.
Stardancer begins with a soft synth line which makes shimmering its arpeggios in the weak murmurs of a choral that is experimenting orgasms in a galactic universe. Analog cosmic sound effects, disorderly drum which strikes fall with fierceness, sonorous gases which perfume a drifting atmosphere. Stardancer's intro is gargantuan. From everywhere fuse hallucinating sound effects of a cosmic psychedelic era. And the rhythm topples over in the dementia that surrounded Moondawn. Because BODY LOVE really sounds like a suite to Moondawn. Lasse Braun, director of the porn movie Body Love had used the music of Timewind and Moondawn as his first soundtrack for his movie. Braun tried songs a bit more pop but that didn’t stick to the spirit of his film, even less to the sinuous and languishing movements of the actors. So, Lasse Braun contacted Klaus Schulze so that he would write a soundtrack with Moondawn influences and essences. What Schulze did admirably well indeed. Stardancer is completely in compliance with the unbridled sequences of Floating that we find on Moondawn with its huge twisted and spectral synth solos and the drum which strikes from all over with grace and pragmatism. That's a great track which follows the path of Floating.
Blanche was written for Klaus Schulze's girlfriend at that time. It's a superb electronic ballad where piano notes are muting into chords of a synth and its shrilling flying over a good bass line. The solos are of a sensual slowness as they are dawdling with nonchalance, giving to Blanche a unique nostalgic depth. P.T.O. ah … P.T.O! What a lovely musical piece! From a simple breath, Schulze develops a line in suspension that progresses on pulsations that gather some silky hypnotic percussions. It's a long musical Mass which advances on a minimalist tempo mounted on a sequence of seven ascending sequences where Schulze still goes with beautiful solos and orchestral arrangements always filled of those astral choruses whispering in silence. The structure evolves with an intensity that is linked to this complicity between Harald Grosskopf, who is rolling his drums on a changing rhythm, and Klaus Schulze's very convoluted synth solos. A title as intense as Stardancer, the frantic pace of P.T.O. hit its wall around the 22nd minute to embrace a long, a far more ethereal, more astral finale. This new reissue of SVP offers a bonus track. Recorded at the same time, this title tribute to Lasse Braun actually has the same essence. Notes fall with resonance in an atonal atmosphere. Quietly, this sonic litany forms a sequence that moves with flexibility, on soft synth solos. A very familiar soundscape from the Picture Music and Timewind period.
BODY LOVE is a must-have in any electronic music collection of the Berlin School genre from the 70s, or of progressive music. It's an intense work, deep and without weakness where the synths are exhilarating as I have rarely heard. A synthesized orgy dome with good taste and which is very suggestive. There is just Klaus Schulze to do that. And, there is a sequel ... Apart from the additional bonus track and a superb booklet, this new edition brings nothing better in mixing and remastering. So the possibility of finding this used title, the Thunderbolt editions, which I own and which I find even better, and Magnum America are pretty good. Enjoy it, it's another (yes, yes) masterpiece of vintage EM. Berlin School or not!
Sylvain Lupari (August 26th, 2006) *****