KLAUS SCHULZE & ANDREAS GROSSER: BABEL

Released in 1987 in collaboration with Andreas Grosser, "Babel" is constituted of one long atmospheric synth piece, secondarily divided into several chapters. This is a concept album around the mythical Biblical passage of the Babel's tower edification. The composition is built around different sorts of Roland synth equipments, the piano and massive sampled choirs. The first half of the album combined floating synth experiences with Andreas Grosse's light, rhythmical, repetitive piano playing. The atmosphere is quite grandiose, epic but tends to be boring. The second part of the album follows the evolution of the story, delivering a consistent musical evocation of ascension to heaven and the fall that accompanied the dream. This is the most emotional, interesting dimension of the project. Klaus Schulze explores one more time the use of synth choir (previously illustrated in his "Moondawn" or "X" album). The choirs are obtained by a digital processor. The voices in the background are accompanied by a monotonous piano part. The mood reaches you into a deep, sinister, funeral atmosphere. The final section contains concrete noises, "bells", metallic sounds delivered in a rather chaotic, apocalyptic atmosphere. Not KS best effort but a memorable heroic/ funeral synth symphony.

The common language of the instrumental

With the prolific Klaus Schulze (or Richard Wahnfried as he is sometimes known) releasing albums with the frequency of a daily newspaper, this 1987 album represents approximately his 20th album in 15 years. Here he collaborates with pianist Andreas Grosser, but although Grosser's is present throughout his contribution is noticeably secondary to that of Schulze.

The album consists of a single track running to around an hour, this sometimes being broken down for convenience into 13 or so sections. Entirely instrumental of course, the music is intended to represent the biblical story of Babel (or Babylon as it is more commonly known).

Much of the album to these ears indicates a rather lazy auto-pilot approach to the composition, with ambient synth sounds which move on every so often to different ambient synth sounds. It is only towards the end when sampled chorale effects join in that the music becomes reasonably interesting. The over-riding impression I was left with was of a downbeat Mike Oldfield album but with less in the way of variety of tones, moods and styles.

Had this been a one off project, it would have represented something a bit special and different. As one of the mass of output from the former Tang, "Babel" is a credible but unremarkable addition to the huge discography.