ROT

This is officially the first Schnitzler's album in solo. « Schwarz » was originally released under the name Eruption during recordings with ex-Cluster Roedelius & Moebius. Inovative from start to the end, "Rot" is the pearl of German early days in electronic / avant progressive music. The ambiences created are really haunted, soaring and weird. Globally we can considered this work as an original mixture between German's spacey (synth) rock music (in the genre of Schulze on his two first solo efforts) and contemporary electro- acoustic music of Tod Dockstader, Morton Subotnick. Difficult to describe in correct form the materials used here, probably a variety of electronic sources, notably from magnetic tapes but also a lot of feeback and amplifiers. Very cerebral, sometimes meditative and scary, this musical adventure is still modern. Each listening delivers new elements that we can't hear in one playing. Absolutely non mainstream, this music is not evident for everyone. However I highly recommend it for those who are familiar with experimental electronic music and RIO / avant prog. This is Schnitzler's first masterpiece.

I didn't really like this one. To me it was just a bunch of bleeps and blops much like an old school videogame with a repetitive drone in the background. Furthermore, this isn't even ambient like a lot of the 70s electronic I have grown to love. Instead it is rather unsettling to my nerves. Granted this is innovative but what came after only improved on what Conrad started and leaves ROT in the dust. This is my first Conrad cd and I will give him the benefit of the doubt, but please avoid this unless you want a freakout version of all those retro videogames.

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

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.