CONRAD SCHNITZLER

Old Conrad was really adventurous with some of his front covers wasn't he? Happily the sounds within are far more appealing. Proto industrial electronics are at play in this excellent instrumental recording from 1974 which finally saw the light of day in '81.

This is one of his more listener friendly albums if such a thing were possible. There's some sort of semblance of tune and construction on each of the tracks unlike a lot of his recordings which sound quite random in approach and execution. All are entirely electronic in nature, but more than likely, not in the way you've heard electronic music before if you're new to this type of sound.

Things kick off with a heavy and oppressive sequenced bunch of electronics - which pretty much sets out the stall of 'Gelb'. It's surprisingly heavy in atmosphere for a Schnitzler album. Antiquated drum machines phase in and out between tunes. You know the type - those 1973 ones that go: Tip, tip, thump, thump, tip, tip,thump, thump.

'Gelb' reminds me a lot of 'MB' - the Italian industrial artist from the early 80's. It's dark and oppressive throughout it's duration. Fans of Klaus Schulze's 'Cyborg' would do well to check this out.

Don't be put off by the sleeve, this is one of Schnitzler's best recordings amongst his huge catalogue.

There's been quite a dramatic change in Schnitzler's sound by the time this came around. It's all a bit more 'accessible' than previous releases. In fact this sounds very similar in parts to the opening track of 'Throbbing Gristle's' - 20 Jazz Funk Greats which was released one year later.

Electronics abound, as your ears are subjected to stereophonic outbursts of arpeggiated squiggles and all sorts of synthetic misdemeanors.

It's all a bit like looking through one of those mid-70's cardboard kaleidoscope tubes that made you dizzy which you were chuffed to bits on getting your hands on in Primary School. Beatless, bassless, guitarless electronic experimentation is what you'll find here.

Personally I prefer his earlier output, which is more abrasive, dark and unfriendly. 'Ballet Statique is entirely electronic and sounds very cold, alien and non-human. At no point more so than on the freakishly haunted house sound of 'Nuri' where some creepy female vocals are introduced which sounds like some spooky invocation of the beast Gods.

Overall, this is a fairly well constructed electronic album with faint semblances of tune and is probably the best place to start for anyone wondering wondering who the hell this guy was with his multitude of obscure releases all beginning with the pre-fix 'CON'.

Zug is one of Conrad Schnitzler's most compelling works and definitely one of the most completely interesting pieces I've heard from this master. Compared to Gelb or Rot, this album is considerably darker and more abstract in an almost creepy way.

Zug mainly pedals along with a continuous hypnotic pulsing that is similar to an electronic rendering of a train riding along its tracks, never attempting at all to slow down from such dangerously high speed. Flowing atop this pre-industrial pulsing and clicking are Conrad's analog synth sounds ebbing and flowing from far off to the forefront of the soundscape, changing from ethereal soaring to punchy direct synth attacking, Zug is always displaying dynamism to keep the listener's attention from disappearing into the organic hypnotic grinding.

Zug personally kind of reminds me of Bernard Parmegiani's L'oeil Ecoute (especially the first movement) except much more active and hypnotizing.

Explaining music like Zug is a bit difficult, so I feel forced to leave my above description as it is and hope readers understand the gist of this recording, but I'm sure upon actually listening to this album then the intensity and ingenuity of this album become more understandable.

Grun seems much more polished that Schnitzler's previous color-related albums, and maybe more accessible too. Grun starts where Gelb left off - experimental electronic music only slightly influenced by the '80s in finer production quality. The tracks on this album are a bit more accessible in that they each follow a clearly established percussive beat steadily throughout, but still remain experimental at their core, thus being much more interesting than nearly all of the electronic artists active during the '80s.

"Der Riese Und Seine Frau" utilized the techno-tribal percussive elements from earlier albums, but is coupled with glistening, shiny cascades of beautifully polished sounding synth melodies. Very spacey and celebratory.

"Bis Die Blaue Blume Blüht" is the more experimental of the two tracks. The percussive elements are kept to a minimum, using mostly subdued bassy thumps instead of full on percussive assault. Abstract space sounds and zapping frequencies in a kind of Jamaican dub rhythm are the main focus of this track. It's very relaxed, but also optimistic and fun.

Compared to nearly anything else from the '80s, Conrad Schnitzler reigns supreme. His work is much more consistent than many similar artists, and he seems to show much more integrity in his work. Grun is a great album, but not quite as wonderful as Blau or Rot.

Much more challenging than the other electronic music of this era (except anything by Stockhausen or Nono), Rot is meditation music for the mentally deranged. The music on this album consists entirely of abstract experimental electronic manipulations that have been recorded in the form of 2 long tracks, each hypnotizing and confusing abstract. Cosmic beeping, percussive sequencing, and variating frequencies make up the electro-tribal landscape that can only be described as primitive other-worldly ritual music. "Meditation" is a soundscape of buzzing that induces both tenseness and relaxation somehow - a calm before the storm. "Krautrock" seems to me like a pre-battle ritual song for angry extra-terrestrials from the core of the red(rot)-planet.

This, like Blau, I would recommend to any fan of space music of progressive electronic, but this is much more abstract and experimental.

Blau is some of the best and most hypnotic electronic music around. It's not accessible at all, but I feel that anyone would find this album to be completely engaging.

"Die Rebellen haben sich in den Bergen versteckt" begins with the synthesized sounds of honking horns of cars in a congested city, but later on incorporates thought-consuming and hypnotizing space-like tribal percussive elements that progress throughout the track and become more dominant.

"Jupiter" is similar to what you'd expect satellites caught in the gravitational pull and the great storm of Jupiter to replay back on Earth's receiving computers. It's a very "confusing" sounding track with sequenced resonances and very thin-sounding percussive elements, and eventually the ghostly voices of a ravaged planet.

It's hard for me to explain this album, really. It's both spacey and mechanical, but utilizing a feel for possible alien mechanics rather than human-made mechanics, and the spacey elements seem closer to home that being deep-space. This is a definite must for fans of space music and progressive electronic music.

Gelb by the electronic kosmische master, Conrad Schnitzler, is 12 parts of various atmospheres all strung together to form a very eclectic album. Gelb is purely progressive experimental electronic music, but it all has a very krautrock kind of attitude to it.

A few of these tracks include acoustic samples from birds and ocean waves, but they are sparse in the music, and because of these samples some of the tracks have a very earthy feel. Some tracks have a metallic resonating and piercing alarm sounds that make the music sound like a soundtrack to an active factory full of working machinery, while some have a deep- space atmosphere with droning electronics and hypnotic pulses. All of these imaginary settings and different sounds make this one of the more eclectic sounding prog electronic albums I've heard, which is great, because I personally love some variation. In addition to great atmosphere, the melodies and beats that are created on the synthesizer on this album are kind of catchy, but remain untainted by poppiness like some of Schnitzler's contemporaries at around this time, which makes this album a bit accessible and situationally important.

Highly recommended.

Pre-historic bloops, bleeps and squeaks all round for this 1973 album. It's funny to compare Schnitzler with Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze from the same period considering all 3 were together for Tangerine Dream's 'Electronic Meditation' in 1970. Schnitzler's is undoubtedly the most difficult music, Shulze's the most tuneful and Tangerine Dream's the most accomplished and complete. 'Rot' is pretty hard to take in one sitting. It's a weird album which on first listen sounds very repetitive until you realise that basically no two immediate sounds repeat themselves as he's constantly twiddling knobs, pulling levers and pumping pedals while pushing buttons! This sounds far more "Kluster' than 'Cluster' ever did, reminding me of Tod Dockstader in parts.

For the record and as a mathmatical equation - (as it's too difficult too explain in longhand):

Cluster=Kluster(-Schnitzler)

Which is greater than:

Harmonia=Cluster+Neu(-Dinger)

because that leaves leaves a vulgar fraction

Very strange and simplistic electronic music on this CS album! To be sincere, this is my first and only CS album by now in my whole progressive music collection. The album doesn't require many auditions to understand it. All the 9 tracks are composed on the same framework: pure rhythmic electro-pop drums and repetitive keyboards themes. The voice keeps speaking and speaking again as the rhythm is flowing.

There is no complex music signatures, no chords, no atmospheric landscapes. There are some similarities between this album and Kraftwerk's Radioactivity, especially on the last 2 songs; however the album is, IMO, very simple and weak. I admire the idea of CS to develop this kind of experimental electronic music ( I mean the electro-pop style), but there must be left an open door to the ingenuity and complexity in this kind of music.

Hardly, I can find a favourite song. The last 2 tracks, especially the last one Tanze Im Regen, are a little bit interesting and representative for the electronic music scene. Recommended only for Conny fans!!!

Notorious figure in psych-acoustic-electronica and in kosmische music, Conrad Schnitzler is certainly less known than his old partners from Tangerine Dream (Edgard Froese and Klaus Schulze during the recording sessions of electronic meditation). His work is underestimated if we compare it with the fruitful career of Klaus Schulze. Nevertheless when Schulze didn't success to renew his own genre, Conrad Schnitzler always published albums with new compostional ideas, new sounds and with a strong respect for Art as a freedom of creation and a way to transcend the human soul. Grun is among my favourite Schnitzler's albums from the 70's / 80's era (next to Rot, Blaud, Gelb and Swharz). It contains two intriguing spaced out minimal epics with catchy electro-hypno rhythms and circular, droning melodical fragments. Der Reise Und Seine Frau is a neurotic soundscape featuring ghostly, oppressively dark atmospheres and a nice orchestration of electronic, almost groovy pulsations. Bis Die Blaue Blume Bluht is a micro-tonal, minimal electronic epic that sounds like a semi-ambient version of Kraftwerk's urbanistic-electro pop. It also admits a comparison with late 70's gentle, melodic electronic essays from Cluster. This is almost a classic. It represents a great facet of Schnitzler's musical personality.