Klaus Schulze - Moondawn (1976)

Klaus Schulze es un compositor alemán nacido en Berlín en 1947.

Sus inicios en la música comienzan de muy joven, con varios años de estudio de guitarra clásica y la participación al bajo en un grupo de Düsseldorf llamado Les Barons. Durante sus estudios de filología alemana se demuestra como un compositor moderno y músico cercano a las teorías de la Universidad de Berlín. Es aquí en Berlín donde inicia su carrera como músico profesional, formando parte de grupos pertenecientes a la escena alternativa berlinesa de finales de los años 60 y principios de los 70: Psy Free (1967-1968), Tangerine Dream (1969-1970), Ash Ra Tempel y The Cosmic Jokers, (sólo grabaciones no serias, sin permiso de los artistas como Harald Grosskopf, Manuel Göttsching, etc, producto de sesiones llenas de LSD con Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser como productor), además de comenzar una carrera discográfica dentro del ámbito electrónico que llega a nuestros días y que abarca más de cien títulos propios, colaboraciones, conciertos y producciones.

Con Tangerine Dream colaboró en un único álbum, Electronic Meditation (1970), tocando la batería, aun cuando permaneció en la formación apenas un año.

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Klaus Schulze (born August 4, 1947) is a German electronic music composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before launching a solo career consisting of more than 40 albums (more than 110 CDs) lasting over 3 decades.

In 1969, Klaus Schulze was the drummer of one of the early incarnations of Tangerine Dream for their debut album Electronic Meditation. In 1970 he left this group to form Ash Ra Tempel with Manuel Göttsching. In 1971, he chose again to leave a newly-formed group after only one album, this time to mount a solo career. In 1972, Schulze released his debut album Irrlicht with organ and a recording of an orchestra filtered almost beyond recognition. Despite the lack of synthesizers, this proto-ambient work is regarded as a milestone in electronic music. The follow up, Cyborg, was similar but added the EMS Synthi A synthesizer.

Since this point, Schulze's career has been most prolific, and he can now claim more than 40 original albums to his name since Irrlicht. Highlights of these include 1976's Moondawn (his first album to feature the Moog modular synthesizer), 1979's Dune, and 1995's double-album In Blue (which featured one long track with electric guitar contributions from his friend Manuel Göttsching of Ash Ra Tempel). Schulze often takes German events as a starting point for his compositions, a notable example being on his 1978 album "X" (the title signifying it was his tenth album), subtitled "Six Musical Biographies", a reference to such notables as Ludwig II of Bavaria, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. His use of the pseudonym Richard Wahnfried is indicative of his interest in Richard Wagner, a clear influence on other albums, such as Timewind.

Throughout the 1970s he followed closely in the footsteps of Tangerine Dream, albeit with far lighter sequencer lines and a more reflective, dreamy edge, not unlike the ambient music of his contemporary Brian Eno. It is to be noted that some of his lighter albums are appreciated by new age music fans, despite the fact that Schulze has always denied connections to this genre.

Klaus Schulze had a more organic sound than other electronic artists of the time. Often he would throw in decidedly non-electronic sounds such as acoustic guitar and a male operatic voice in Blackdance, or a cello in Dune and Trancefer. Schulze developed a Minimoog technique that sounds uncannily like an electric guitar, which is quite impressive in concert... (more here)

Moondawn, the one I talk here, is the sixth album by Klaus Schulze. It is Schulze's first album that was performed in the Berlin School style.

01. Floating (26:53)
02. Mindphaser (25:05)

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