Monday, December 6, 2010

Klaus Schulze - Mirage (1977)

A stunning piece from a still underrated pioneer. Beginning his career as drummer for Tangerine Dream and leaving in 1970 to found Ash Ra Tempel, Schulze has made an indelible mark on Ambient and synth based music in general. Everyone in these genres has been incredibly influenced by his work. With over 60 solo albums he still strikes an occasional chord with me on albums to this day.

Utilizing analog synth, non-modular Moog, Farfisa and Mellotron and experimenting with strange electronic samples accompanied by a doom-like bassline, this is easily his darkest and best album. Lush atmospheres created here are reminiscent of Eno's Ambient 1 or Apollo. A warm and hypnotizing journey through 70's avant keyboard dreaminess.

The liner notes say it all:

"Music is a dream without the isolation of sleep. In fact whilst listening to music, your ego is living. But your universal ego, your principle watchs of your self ego is taking a new level of participation, the dream is reality because your are living the dream and your dreams control your reality. The supreme reality is creativity (all kinds of art) which takes you back to your mental origins. The musical theory is perfection, sometimes never obtained. The concept is a mental reaction, the process of movement and change, the basis of mankind. Music is the background to a mental picture, but the exact interpretation must be made by the listener, hence the music is only half composed and the listener himself should attack the composition to gain a mental repercussion. The listener has to add the meaning. The principles of music are to make the listener powerful and happy to endure our dying planet like by using their own creativity and being aware of emotion."

Schulze is a god. Eno got most of the credit.

Get It Here

Or: Mirage - Klaus Schulze

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