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AUDENTITY

Klaus Schulze

Progressive Electronic


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Klaus Schulze Audentity album cover
3.31 | 101 ratings | 5 reviews | 24% 5 stars

Good, but non-essential

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Studio Album, released in 1983

Songs / Tracks Listing

Disc 1 (46:06)
1. Cellistica (24:31)
2. Tango-Saty (5:47)
3. Amourage (10:37)
4. Opheylissem (5:11)

Disc 2 (49:45)
5. Spielglocken (21:24)
6. Sebastian Im Traum (28:21)

Total Time: 95:51

Bonus track on 2005 reissue:
- Gem (58:10) :
7. Gem (11:41)
8. Tiptoe On The Misty Mountain Tops (14:43)
9. Sink Or Swim (10:02)
10. At The Angle Of An Angel (15:44)
11. Of White Nights (6:00)

Line-up / Musicians

- Klaus Schulze / keyboards, computer, programming, arrangemments, producer

With:
- Rainer Bloss / glockenspiel, sounds
- Wolfgang Tiepold / cello
- Michael Shrieve / Simmons percussion, EEH computer

Releases information

Inspired by the novel 'Sebastian im Traum' by Georg Trakl.

Artwork: Mediagraphics, Melbourne

2xLP Innovative Communication ‎- KS 80025-26 (1983, Germany)

2xCD Brain ‎- 817 196-2 (1983, Germany)
2xCD Revisited Rec. - REV 017 (2005, Germany) With a bonus track (5 parts), the prototype recording for the soundtrack to the Australian movie "Next Of Kin"

Thanks to for the addition
and to Quinino for the last updates
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KLAUS SCHULZE Audentity ratings distribution


3.31
(101 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(24%)
24%
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(32%)
32%
Good, but non-essential (32%)
32%
Collectors/fans only (12%)
12%
Poor. Only for completionists (1%)
1%

KLAUS SCHULZE Audentity reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by ZowieZiggy
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars "Audentity" rimes with "Authencity".

Dear friend Klaus got back indeed to some of sublime seventies act. We are used by now to have the very good Tiepold on the cello and the great Mike Shrieve (from the great "Santana") on percussions.

Still, during the opener of this double set, I wouldn't tell that they are here for the best. I quite rather preferred the ambient and desolated start than the more upbeat second half from "Cellistica". The short "Tango-Saty" and "Opheylissem" are only worth thanks to the great percussion work from Mike. But these cold and passionless synthetic sounds are not my cup of tea. The only funny point is that the latter is the name of a small town not too far from where I live. But this is not an excuse?

"Amourage" holds some far Eastern intro which is quite welcome even if not awaited. The beautiful keyboards lines that follow are just brilliant and should reconcile us with the great man. This is another wonderful track full of tact and beauty: a formidable yet accessible trip to eternal tranquillity, peace of mind and sublime prog act. The (only) highlight.

So far, this album leaves me with ambiguous feeling. Both remaining epics will decide whether or not we are confronted with a very good or decent Schultze album.

"Spielglocken" (and not glockenspiel as some Oldfield fan could have reminded) is a song built on a crescendo mood. Needless to say that I like the scheme. It is quite hypnotic and desperately cold and feeling less. But very effective in terms of melody, attraction and result.

One just need to be conquered and join for the ride which turns out to be more upbeat after a while (some six minutes). Dear friend Mike is of course not alien to this. What a great man! The second part though is too repetitive and lacks of good moments. It is actually quite a deception. But it was good to see a collaboration between two great musicians I profoundly respect.

The closing track starts with a violin/keys duet which culminates in some powerful "end of the world" tendency. It calms down a little to leave the place to Tiepold as a solo artist. He delivers some respectful chords but again, but there is too little manoeuvring space I guess to be really catchy.

The second half of this piece of music definitely reaches boundaries that are too far from my reach. I never could go in there. These improvisation textures with no melody are too alien from my genuine perception to be appealing. Brutally avant-garde; that's all.

In all, this album is quite hermetic, long and offers little harmonious moments: "Amourage" being the best track of the whole as far as I am concerned. It is impossible for me to go over the three stars rating for this "Audentity" that started better that it ended. It is the most experimental work of the man so far and I far much preferred his superb and melodic work from the previous decade.

Three stars (but this is rounded up really).

Review by Mellotron Storm
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars "Audentity" is a double album released by Klaus in 1983. It's not a concept album as some think but a collection of pieces that aren't related. Some guests here on keyboards and cello while Michael Shrieve (SANTANA) adds some percussion.

"Cellistica" is a great way to start with those sounds that come and go. It's louder 2 minutes in. An electronic beat before 3 minutes and some cello too. Drums before 4 1/2 minutes. The beat continues as the music changes and evolves. Cello is back around 15 minutes. "Tango- Saty" features this catchy beat with horn-like sounds. I can't help but laugh. Sorry this just sounds bad to me. "Amourage" is much better. A melancholic tune overall that starts out with pings and pulses. Then sounds cry out 1 1/2 minutes in and come and go throughout. Spacey synths too. Piano joins in around 4 1/2 minutes. "Opheylissem" features lots of beats.

Side two starts with "Spielglocken" and again I feel the first track is the best one. Electronic beats build as spacey synths join in. A change after 5 1/2 minutes as the spacey sounds leave and drums join in. Spacey sounds are back around 7 1/2 minutes. A great sounding track. "Sebastian Im Traum" is an interesting track. I can't say I like it much but the way Klaus keeps bringing back certain sound on and off throughout this over 28 minute track is very cool. The cello, the door opening, the loud sound that seems to pass by all are repeated in this long track.

A good recording, but i'm hard on double albums and I don't think this deserves the fourth star. Many will disagree.

Review by Bonnek
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars With Audentity Schulze incorporated avant-garde elements in his sound. I've always been only mildly enthused by this, but the current re-issue series offers real value for money. Nice packaging, good sound and always interesting bonus material from what must be immense vaults of unreleased Schulze gems!

Cellistica is interesting for the cello contributions from Wolfgang Tiepold. Schulze withdraws to a background of minimal sound effects and a 4/4 mid-paced dance beat. Every few minutes, the melodic main theme helps us to digest this extended piece. It is done very subtle and the result is adequate but never overwhelming.

Spielglocken is similarly minimalist and cold. I think the clinical 80's sound doesn't work well for Schulze, at least not in my ears. Either that or there was a lack of inspiration on Schulze's part. Usually he has that magic touch that breathes live into his machinery but I don't feel that here.

Sebastian Im Traum however is a beautiful piece. It starts with a very noisy and dissonant modernist part before it gives way to a charming sequence of synth vibes. The atmosphere is still chillingly cold and distant but somehow the beauty of the music shines through this.

The second CD of the 2005 reissue starts with the short Tango-Saty, a rather unusual piece for Schulze. It's like an avant-garde version of Kraftwerk's synth pop. Amourage is more typical Schulze, a laid-back ambient piece with slowly spinning melodies and gentle dots of piano. Romantic, sad and harmonious, one of the album's highlights. It is followed by another short avant-garde synth pop piece Ophelylissem. It's not really memorable again. I can't say I'm very impressed with the computer drum sounds used on this album.

At this point the original album's track list would be over. The reissue however adds another 58 minutes of music, split into 5 separate tracks. This bonus material sure equals the overall quality of this release. It has a Tangerine Dream kind of quality to it. The sequences and synth melodies on wouldn't be out of place on TD's Hyperborea album of the same year. It's a bit too long but it's a nice treat for fans.

Audentity is an unusual Schulze album that you should not skip as a fan. Together with the preceding Dig It and Trancefer, it's one of his best albums of the 80's. 3.5 stars

Review by patrickq
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars Three songs on Audentity portend the future of Klaus Schulze's music, while three recall the past. (There's also a bonus track in the 2005 and subsequent CD reissues.*) The first two tracks on the reissue, "Spielglocken" and "Cellistica," are an indication of the streamlined, sequenced sound Schulze would pursue with Angst, his next studio album. The brief (5:48) "Tango-Saty," originally the album's second song, would also have fit on Angst.**

Meanwhile, "Sebastian im Traum" is a bit of a return to Moondawn-era Schulze (i.e., 1976); it sounds like "Mindphaser" to me. The pulsing "Opheylissem" and "Amourage," with its synth noodling over a rhythmless atmosphere, are throwbacks to Schulze's mid-1970s output. "Opheylissem," apparently named after the Belgian town, bears more than a passing resemblance to "Frank Herbert" (from X, 1978) and "Stardancer II" (Body Love 2, 1977). But none of these three really compares to those classics. First of all, Schulze had already produced plenty of music that sounded similar to "Sebastian im Traum," "Opheylissem," and "Amourage." Secondly, the sequencing seems to undergird and ground these pieces; earlier in his career, Schulze would trigger preprogrammed sequences during his longer pieces, making the sequencing appear secondary to the work as a whole.

It should also be pointed out that a drum machine is nothing more than a specialized sequencer. Whereas much of Angst works well with a drum machine, Schulze's 1970s work was designed with a live drummer in mind (excepting those songs without percussion). So the drum machine on a track like "Opheylissem" seems out of place. Indeed, Harald Großkopf, the drummer on many Schulze's best works is missed on Angst, although percussionist Michael Shrieve accompanies the drum machine on four of the tracks here.

So Audentity is a mixed bag. Roughly half of the pieces represent kind of a dry run for Angst, while the other half document several aspects of the artist's transition from analog to digital. I generally don't criticize the length of Schulze's albums, but here's a case where a single album would've almost certainly been better than a double. And oddly enough, it's also a case where Schulze took his time - - he recorded his prior album, Trancefer, in the summer of 1981, and did not begin recording Audentity until the fall of 1982.

Anyway, not a bad album, but an inconsistent one.

___

*The hourlong bonus track "Gem," which is comprised of four parts, is pretty good, especially the "Tiptoe on the Misty Mountain Tops" section, which is somewhat Angst-like.

**It's interesting, and beyond the scope of this review, that the sequence Schulze uses in the latter part of "Sebastian im Traum" is recycled as "Freeze" on Angst.

Latest members reviews

2 stars With "Dune" I concluded that 80's work of Klaus Schulze might be worth listening to. So I picked up this "Audentity" which contains almost 100 minutes of synthesizer music on a double vinyl, containing three side long tracks and one side filled with three shorter tracks. Klaus Schulze still coll ... (read more)

Report this review (#938376) | Posted by the philosopher | Tuesday, April 2, 2013 | Review Permanlink

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