Klaus Schulze

Klaus Schulze

Born in Berlin on August 4th 1947, Klaus Schulze is one of the most important and prolific electronic artists from the 70’s and a true pioneer in the use of the synthesizers.

Klaus Schulze started playing guitar and drums in rock bands during the 60’s. In 1968, he joined the avant-garde free rock trio Psy Free, which was influenced by Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and the American West Coast psychedelic rock scene.

After the split of the band in 1969, Klaus Schulze joined the new incarnation of the experimental band Tangerine Dream, with Edgar Froese and Conrad Schnitzler. This lineup recorded the debut album “Electronic Meditation”, which is considered one of the most advanced experimental works in the history of modern music. One of the peculiarities of this 100% improvised masterwork is that the band didn’t use electronic devices such as synthesizers at the time but conventional rock instruments.

In 1970, Klaus Schulze got married and shortly later he also quit Tangerine Dream to join the krautrock band Ash Ra Tempel with Manuel Göttsching, recording the band’s debut album “Ash Ra Tempel” (1971), which was produced by the legendary German producer Conny Plank. Göttsching would collaborate many years later in Klaus Schulze’s solo album “In Blue” (1995).

In 1971, Schulze left Ash Ra Tempel to pursue a solo career as an electronic musician, though a year later he would still collaborate in the album “Join Inn”. Klaus Schulze released his debut solo album “Irrlitcht” (1972) on Rolf-Urich Kaiser’s Ohr label, where Schulze mainly experimented with the Teisco organ and Solina string keyboard, based on an interpretation by the Colloquium Musica Orchestra. Schulze recalls about his beginnings as a keyboardist: “At the end of ‘71 I didn’t know anything about keyboards, I didn’t know which note was A or E. Remember, that “keyboards” at this time meant either piano, electric piano or organ. I had just an old, small, used, electric Teisco organ. And I had my drumming experiences, and I had a few special ideas: A kind of dream that I couldn’t explain then, or now. So I started something new. And then I developed and improved, because I love to make music. At this time I studied mainly German literature, but I said “forget it. I want to do music”, which was a very emotional decision. A leap in the dark”.

In 1973, Klaus Schulze released the double album “Cyborg”, where he started working with an EMS VCS3 synthesizer, and later “Picture Music”. That same year, he also collaborated in the Ash Ra Tempel’s one night reunion album “Join Inn”, along with Manuel Göttsching, Hartmut Enke, and Rosi Müller.

“Black Dance” (1974) featured the vocal collaboration of Ernst Walter Siemon and was the first Klaus Schulze’s album oriented primarly to synthesizers, featuring an EMS Synthi A, an ARP Odyssey, and ARP 2600.

In 1975, Klaus Schulze embarked in the production of the Japanese progressive rock band Far East Family Band, who’s keyboard player was no other than the later renowned Kitaro. Schulze produced the albums “Nipponjin” (1975) recorded in Tokyo, and “Parallel Worlds” (1976) recorded at Virgin’s Manor studios in Oxfordshire. It was precisely under the influence of Klaus Schulze that Kitaro decided later soon to go on a solo career as a keyboardist and synthesist.

At the same time, Klaus Schulze released the improvised album “Timewind”, which has been widely recognized as a masterpiece of electronic music. At this stage, Schulze had became an expert in analog synthesis and his work was classified by the press as “mathematical” and “scientific” for it’s technical sophistication. The album, which gained the Grand Prix International, was originally inspired by Richard Wagner’s music and featured two tracks of symphonic structures of elaborated rhythms displayed over a continuous base of synth loops that created a dark and gothic atmosphere. During this period, Klaus Schulze became one of the most acclaimed electronic musicians and a pioneer of the space music and kosmiche genres.

Klaus Schulze

In 1974, Schulze also took part in a series of improvised kosmiche albums of Rolf-Urich Kaiser’s Kosmiche project, Cosmic Jokers. From these sesions, Kaiser released in 1974, apparently without the permission of the artists involved, the albums “The Cosmic Jokers”, “Planeten Sit In”, “Galactic Supermarket”, and Sci-Fi Party”. Klaus Schulze denies from these albums and has catalogued them as “not serious”.

In this period, Schulze also collaborated in other projects such as Walter Wegmüller’s “Tarot” (1973), and Sergius Golowin’s “Lord Krishna Von Goloka” (1973). In 1976, Schulze got involved in one of the most interesting projects from the 70’s, the album by the Japanese percussionist Stomu Yamash’ta “Go”, along with other prime figures of the music like Steve Winwood, Al DiMeola, Pat Thrall, Rosko Gee, Michael Shrieve and Michael Quartermain. That same year Schulze also released the albums “Moondown” and “Body Love”, using for the first time his Moog modular system, and he also started touring Europe extensively.

Klaus Schulze set up his own IC label and video studio in 1978 in the woods near the small town of Celle, where he wrote the music for the sci-fi classic “Dune”, released a year later. This was the first of numerous TV and film soundtracks produced throughout his career, including “Angst” (1984), “Havlandet” (1985), “Walk the Edge” (1985) and “Le Moulin de Daudet” (1994).

In 1979, Schulze started a series of more mainstream and dance oriented albums under the moniker of Richard Wahnfried (a mix of Klaus Schulze’s son name and the name of composer Richard Wagner’s house), including “Time Actor” (1979) where he used the G.D.S. synthesizer computer, “Tonwelle” (1981), “Megatone” (1984), “Miditation” (1986), “Trancelation” (1994), “Trance Appeal” (1996), and “Drums ‘n’ Balls” (1997). The first of these albums featured the collaboration of the members from the space rock band Hawkwind, Arthur Brown, Vincent Crane plus cello player Wolfgang Tiepold and Santana’s percussionist Michael Shrieve.

In 1980, Klaus Schulze released the album “Dig it”, which was his first digital music album and was recorded with the collaboration of the precise drummer Fred Severloh, who had also worked with Robert Schroeder. At this stage, Klaus Schulze’s music started moving into the territories of digital and sequential ambient music and acquired a Fairlight synthesizer. He also recorded some avant-garde oriented stuff, such as the album “Audentity” (1983) where collaborated the musicians Rainer Bloss (keyboards), Wolfgang Tiepold (cello) and Michael Shrieve (percussion).

Klaus Schulze

In 1984, Klaus Schulze founded a new electronic music label called INTEAM, where he later soon released the collaborative album “Aphrica” along with Rainer Bloss and Ernest Fluchs, which was later taken from the market because the the record company had forgotten to make a record contract with Fluchs. For the album “Dreams” (1986), Schulze counted with the support of an ensemble of musicians formed by Nunu Isa (acoustic guitar), Ulli Schober (percussion), Ian Wilkinson (vocal), Harald Asmussen (bass) and Andreas Grosser (keyboards). With this last one he also recorded a year later the collaborative album “Babel”.

In 1988, while visiting a technician friend, Schulze met the synth pop band Alphaville at their Lunapark studio and after two hours with the band he decided to repeat his experience as a producer for the band’s album “Breathtaking Blue” (1989).

In 1990, to start a new decade, Klaus Schulze gave another turn in the direction of his music when we embarked into MIDI composition with the release of the album “Miditerranean Pads”, which featured the collaboration of Georg Stettner (keyboards) and Elfi Schulze (vocals). This abstract, beautiful and experimental album is still considered a masterpiece from Schulze’s discography. He later started getting interested in the techniques of sampling, which is noticeable in the album “Beyond Recall” (1991). During the 90’s Klaus Schulze’s name gained respect for the new generations of electronic music lovers after his long-time alliance with ambient artist Pete Namlook with the “Dark Side of the Moog” series, having released up to 10 volumes since 1994. Maybe under the influence of this new collaborative work, Schulze later released under the moniker of Wahnfried the techno and trance oriented albums “Trancelation” (1994), “Trance Appeal” (1996) and “Drums ‘n’ Balls” (1997). That same year, he also released “Goes Classic”, a curious work of electronic interpretations of classical music pieces, including the ones from F. Schubert, J. Brahms, E. Grieg and Beethoven. Following this interest for the classical music he also wrote the opera “Totentag” in 1994.

In 1996, Klaus Schulze rebuilt completely his studio, incorporating new digital technologies but still keeping part of his analog keyboards, including the Alesis Andromeda 6 voice synthesizer, two EMS Synthi A synths, the Memory Moog and two Minimoogs.

Via Intuitive Music