PICTURE MUSIC

I never bought into the idea this was the album Klaus Schulze recorded in 1973, but not released until 1975. In fact the reason for leaving Kosmische Musik (basically, the new name of Ohr that Rolf U. Kaiser came up with) was the Cosmic Jokers controversy, which I won't get into. So it's popularly believed Picture Music was from this era, but not released on that label due to Schulze being upset with Kaiser and instead having it released on Brain in '75, after Blackdance (his first for Brain). I always thought that was fishy, because Picture Music was basically an all-synth album, and Blackdance still stuck to the old Cyborg-era gear of Farfisa organ and EMS Synthi A. Turns out I was correct, Picture Music was indeed recorded late in 1974 and sounded very much in tune with that time, it was obvious after Blackdance, he was able to purchase a bunch of new gear, and it shows. He apparently also acquired a modular Moog that previously belonged to Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh, who had no further interest in synthesizers (after 1972 he switched to piano after going through a spiritual/religious conversion). "Totem" is the opening cut, has that pulsing synth rhythm sounding like proto-techno. "Mental Door" starts of calm (if I remember right, it's been a while since I heard this album, I just need to pull it out), but then the middle part has percussion, which was apparently from Schulze himself, but it actually sounds like Harald Großkopf (a friendship that did stem from the Cosmic Jokers controversy), it has his style written all over it. I could be wrong, and it was Schulze on drums. Basically, this is the beginning of the mid to late '70s sound that made Schulze famous, away from the early more primitive organ/synth experiments of previous albums. It's very much an album I can highly recommend.