Klaus Schulze
Berlin Synthesist
BORN 1947
Creator of forward-looking electronic sounds of prodigious length, space, texture and interpretive fluidity, Klaus Schulze was unimpressed with critics’ use of terms such as kosmische music or Krautrock. But he admitted he liked a description his output had received in France – ‘Musique
Planante,’ or floating music.
To float was in his nature. Born in Berlin, as a teenager he was a fan of instrumental guitar bands such as The Shadows and The Ventures. After playing with experimental outfits Eruption and Psy-Free, he later served time in two legendary experimental German groups: after attending Kreuzberg’s Zodiak Free Arts Lab, he joined Tangerine Dream on drums for 1970’s debut Electronic Meditation. Speaking to MOJO in 2010, he likened the LP to
“electronic punk. We wanted to kill every music we had done and heard before, to make ourselves free from the tradition of the past.” After just eight months, he jumped ship to become keyboardist/ drummer for Ash Ra Tempel, playing on 1971’s self-titled debut. Again, he left after just one album.
With 1972’s haunting, alien solo debut Irrlicht, he began working with synthesizers, and for almost five decades, he did not stop. The following years would include more than 50 solo LPs, including such ‘Berlin School’ classics as Cyborg and Timewind; collaborations with The Cosmic Jokers, Lisa Gerrard, Steve Winwood and Stomu Yamashta, and others; music for film and dramatic productions; and 16 volumes of his La Vie Electronique series. He also released music as Richard Wahnfried, recorded interpretations of Wagner and Pink Floyd, and, on his Inteam label, gave his Ash Ra Tempel bandmate Manuel Göttsching’s electronic classic E2-E4 its first release in 1984. Regarding the advent of techno and ambient music in the ’90s, he mischievously declared it brought, “fresh air into this already smelly electronic music scene.”
Apart from an Ash Ra Tempel reunion in 2000, he was uninterested in looking back, and his final album, Deus Arrakis, will be released in June. Further archival releases are to be hoped for, to further mark a creative life lived on its own terms. ”I’ve always done,” said Schulze, “what I found beautiful.”
Ian Harrison