Klaus Schulze Albums (53)
'Rheingold: Live at the Loreley'
Release Date 1/1/2008
Tracks 6
Label Synthetic Symphony
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What The Critics Say
Klaus Schulze and Australian singer Lisa Gerrard (formerly of Dead Can Dance) proved to be an appealing combination on their studio recording Farscape, and they also work well together on Rheingold: Live at the Loreley. Gerrard doesn't appear on all of this release's moody, hypnotic material, but when she is featured, her performances add a lot to this two-DVD set -- which is a live album more than anything. All of DVD one is devoted to a July 18, 2008 concert in St. Goarshausen, Germany, while DVD two contains the 65-minute documentary "The Real World of Klaus Schulze" and a 55-minute interview (the interviewer is singer/guitarist Steven Wilson, a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree). Schulze's hardcore fans will appreciate the documentary and the interview (Wilson discusses, among other things, the contributions and influence of Tangerine Dream), but the concert in St. Goarshausen is Rheingold's main attraction -- and Schulze is in very good form on the songs that feature Gerrard (the 14-minute "Wellgunde" and the 39-minute "Loreley") as well as the instrumentals that don't ("Nothung," "Wotan," and the 24-minute opener "Alberich"). Some viewers may argue that some of the performances drag on longer than they need to and ask, "Did "Loreley" really need to last 39 minutes, and did "Alberich" really need to last 24 minutes?" But considering that Schulze's creativity is at a high level, one can easily live with his excesses (or perhaps even find them enjoyable). Overall, Schulze had a creatively successful night in St. Goarshausen, and the presence of Gerrard on some of the performances is a definite plus. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
On August 4, 2007, Klaus Schulze celebrated his 60th birthday. Most electronica providers of 2007 and 2008 were not as old as Schulze, but then, Schulze is someone who -- like Brian Eno and Kraftwerk -- was using synthesizers before they were truly in vogue and before many of today's electronica artists were even born. Thankfully, Schulze hasn't run out of ideas after all these years, and on Farscape, he fulfills a longtime ambition: collaborating with Australian singer Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance fame). This two-CD set is best described as an extended piece that lasts 153 minutes; that piece, which is titled "Liquid Coincidence," is broken down into seven parts. Schulze handles the electronic programming on this 2008 release, while Gerrard provides all of the vocals -- and all seven parts of "Liquid Coincidence" have a floating, airy, atmospheric quality. Some listeners might find "Liquid Coincidence" to be overly repetitive and argue that the piece drags on too long, but to complain that "Liquid Coincidence" is repetitious sort of misses the point. Farscape is not about showing Schulze's diversity; it is about mood, atmosphere, and ambience. Schulze is going for musical hypnosis, and Gerrard's haunting performances help him to achieve that. Yes, "Liquid Coincidence" is repetitive; it was meant to be, and it is repetitive in a good way. Together, Schulze and Gerrard create a hauntingly attractive mood, and the fact that they maintain that mood for 153 minutes is a plus rather than a minus. That said, Farscape is not among Schulze's essential albums, and Gerrard's performances don't quite rise to the level of her best work with Dead Can Dance. But all things considered, Schulze and Gerrard's collaboration is an appealing, if predictable, success. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The final chapter in Klaus Schulze's four-disc, five-hour tribute to his dead mother (who used to be a ballet dancer before she married) is the set's best movement and a big leap forward from the rather stale Ballett 3. The personnel on Ballett 4 is as on Ballett 2: Wolfgang Tiepold on cello, Thomas Kagermann on flute, wordless singing, and soft-spoken narration, and Tom Dams mixing the beat-driven part of the album. The continuous piece proceeds in three stages. The 14-minute introduction, "Mellowtrone," lacks character and spends too much time featuring Schulze noodling around, as if uncertain about how to proceed. However, when "Soft 'n' Groovy" kicks in, the music takes a turn for the better -- 30 minutes of Schulzian bliss, in fact. The slow buildup is delicate and thoughtful; the beat-driven part is delightfully ambient. This is also where the three guests contribute the most. The third part, "To B Flat," carries on for a while with a similar programmed beat, before boiling down to an understated but befitting conclusion. The slightly Arabian feel heard on previous movements is still strong on Ballett 4, especially through Kagermann's vocalizations. The autonomous reissue of Ballett 4 on Revisited (number 89 in that label's career-encompassing reissue program of Schulze's discography) adds a ten-minute bonus track, "Eleven 2 Eleven," whose mood and beat-programming style are a match to the original music on the album (unlike the bonus track on Ballett 3). The whole Ballett project does not display much progression or change over its four-disc span, so casual listeners may be satisfied with only one volume from the series. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Recorded in the summer of 1995 and first released in May 1996, Trance Appeal is a curiosity in Klaus Schulze's discography on two counts: its techno leanings and the short duration of its tracks. About the first count, Schulze is unapologetic in his liner notes to the Revisited reissue, stating that he was listening to a lot of good techno music at the time and that the style permeated his own playing (something also obvious on his Are You Sequenced? album). About the short durations, Schulze puts the "blame" entirely on electronic artist Jörg Schaaf, his partner in this collaborative endeavor (originally released, in fact, under the Richard Wahnfried pseudonym/moniker). Indeed, seven out of the original album's 11 tracks are under six minutes, while the remaining four do not cross the ten-minute barrier. As a result, Trance Appeal is a different proposition, for sure, but an enjoyable one, and Schulze fans need not worry too much about it being out of character (less so, in fact, than some of his mid-'80s material). The album is more restless and beat-driven than your average Schulze CD, but even the more outright techno-ish tracks ("Rubbish," "Psychedelic Clubbing") remain tasteful, inventive, and well integrated to the whole -- if tracks are short, they all segue, forming a Schulze-like multi-part suite. And the more ambient or abstract pieces ("Suspense," "Esprit Sans Fronti Res") showcase Schulze's team spirit and flexibility when working with other musicians. The short tracks establish a fast pace early on, later marred (ironically) by a small clutter of longer pieces at the bottom of the album, but that slight conceptual flaw aside, Trance Appeal is a fine, though not essential, effort. The 2007 Revisited reissue adds an interesting 13-minute bonus track, "Marooned," recorded four or five years later by the same two musicians. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Like the other three Ballett albums, Ballett 2 was first released in 2000 as part of the ten-CD box set Contemporary Works 1 and later reissued as a single CD in Revisited's career-encompassing reissue program (number 87 in that series). Klaus Schulze composed the Ballett cycle for his mother, who used to be a ballet dancer. Ballett 2 is a continuous, 74-minute piece in four segueing movements. "Atmosphère Concrète" starts off in a disquieting and rather abstract mood. Schulze has never been known for doing musique concrète -- his first solo LP, Irrlicht, was definitely abstract, and he often pushed his music into experimental territories, but he never openly delved into Pierre Schaeffer's heritage and lineage. However, "Atmosphère Concrète" (at eight minutes) does, indeed, evoke a concrète atmosphere, with lots of textural sounds, found sounds, and the voice and flute of Thomas Kagermann. The piece eventually resolves on the theme of "Kagi's Lament," a slow-paced, introspective dirge. The arpeggiated keyboard arrangements give the piece a certain Jean Michel Jarre feel. The "lament" mood is marvelously pinned down and there is no denying the piece's sorrowful beauty, but it runs out of ideas long before it reaches its 30-minute mark. The same is also true of "Wolf's Ponticelli" (24 minutes). Here, though, the electronics are classic Schulze. Wolfgang Tiepold's cello interventions, along with the scope, breadth and development of the piece, all point to the mastermind's main '70s opuses. This piece also picks up the pace, leading to the final part, "The Smile of Shadows," where the pulse turns into a trance beat, bringing us back into the late '90s, with Kagermann's bamboo flute adding a worldbeat element. This last section was mixed by Tom Dams and it bears his mark. The Revisited reissue adds a short bonus track, "Trance 4 Motion," first released on Essential Extracts, a little-known CD produced to promote the Contemporary Works 1 box set. It provides a nice postlude to "The Smile of Shadows," matching its beat and "chill room" feel. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Ballett 1 is the first of four works to have been composed and recorded by Klaus Schulze after the passing of his mother in 1998. It and the other three volumes in the series were included on the now deleted ten-disc Contemporary Works I box set. It is one of those pieces in which Schulze moves dangerously close to classical music. He's flirted with it before with various qualitative results. There are three pieces -- or movements if you like -- that make up this nearly 77-minute work. Schulze manages all the keyboards, naturally, from sequencers and samplers to multi-chordal synths. Indeed, as the work begins with its use of sampled voices spouting gibberish, one thinks immediately of Jean Michel Jarre's classic Zoolook, but no dice; they pass very quickly and the endless chord patterns begin, accompanied by Wolfgang Tiepold's cello. The entire section (entitled "Getting Near") sounds like an intro whose passages fold in on themselves in order to begin the cycle anew. This is followed by the dramatic shift of "Slightly Touched," which lasts just under half an hour. There is a dynamic shift here as Tiepold's cello becomes the main focus of its beginning, with Schulze playing quietly and purposefully underneath, creating timbres and sonorities for the cellist to work from. The sequencer enters very cautiously at around the four-and-a-half-minute mark and begins to raise the work's tension bar. Tiepold continues his doleful and utterly beautiful playing without being forced to change anything. In fact, he weaves lines around the sequencers and the drum loops; he shimmers around in the middle register of his instrument and literally improvises. It's striking and imaginative. Meanwhile, Schulze stays in hypnosis mode, keeping everything in a taut line around the middle temporally and tonally until it gradually fades. Tiepold introduces "Agony," the third and final part of this monolithic work. He received a co-writing credit for this piece because, simply put, he makes it happen. His soloing comes from the Russian tradition and one can hear the moving drama derived from the Miserere of the Orthodox Church in his playing. Schulze lays back, playing only single chords during the first ten minutes or so. This is a sorrowful song, as Tiepold digs deeply into the cello's very wood for an expression of spiritual grief and human loss. Schulze's chords resemble a female chorus singing single notes behind him. It is dramatic, moving, and stunningly beautiful. Schulze literally stays "out" of the work and allows Tiepold to solo for the entire half-hour the piece lasts. This work is pretentious, but so are all of Schulze's recordings. It is imaginative in its way, and does employ "classical" themes without ever being, really, classical music. There is real emotion in this work, and it's boring in places only to be wonderfully, totally engaging in others -- particularly in "Agony." ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'The Crime of Suspense'
Release Date 5/23/2006
Tracks 5
Label Revisited
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