Picture Music (ReIssue)

Artist:	Schulze Klaus
Titel:	Picture Music (ReIssue)
Label:	Spalax Music
Cat-no:	SPALAX LP 14123
Stil:	Ambient / IDM
Typ:	LP
Preis:	16 CHF

"Picture Music" LP Reissue

Recorded in 1973 but not released until two years later, Klaus Schulze's Picture Music must be considered one of the more groundbreaking electronic albums of the 1970s. Fully synthesized but with a steady pulse that Tangerine Dream had yet to implement, Picture Music sounds ahead of its time and one can hear large chunks of electronic music's future over the course of its two long tracks. The most forward-looking of the two tracks is "Totem." With a skittery, sequenced bounce programmed throughout the piece, "Totem" sounds startlingly contemporary. Percolating as it does for 24 minutes, it brings to mind the music of The Orb and other ambient-techno artists of the 1990s. Minimalist and sterile, "Totem" is far removed from the goulish space music of Schulze's earlier two albums, as well as from the layered synthesizer atmospheres of his more famous mid-'70s work. The 2005 reissue of Picture Music includes a 33-minute track called "C'est Pas La Meme Chose," which is an alternate version of "Totem." Presaging the more immediate future, "Mental Door" begins with a fairly ominous melody accented by a few swirling, phased effects. It's heavier and more dramatic than "Totem," though for the first 9 minutes it has an understated, machinistic grace. Then drums kick in, a new synthesizer riff is introduced and the piece launches into a driving tempo that surely would have left Klaus Schulze fans scratching their heads had Picture Music been properly released in 1973 as Klaus Schulze's third album.

Side 1:

- "Totem"

Side 2:

- "Mental Door"

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