Blau - Conrad Schnitzler

'Blau' is the colour-coded 1974 follow-up to Konrad Schnitzler's solo debut album after working on the first albums from Tangerine Dream and Kluster. With it, he effectively continues the motorik trajectory of his momentous debut, instinctively mainlining his beguiling logic further into an inverted abyss where harmony and melody are rejected in favour of synthetic expression and the joy of revelling in pure electronic timbre. Inspired by the contemporary avant-garde - most specifically the Fluxus actions of his former tutor Joseph Beuys - and with a staunchly Berlin-like attitude towards rhythm, Schnitzler detached himself from tradition, from successive waves of Anglo-American pop music, and from the minimalist musics of new American composers like Steve Reich. Instead, he found his own elemental form of music with emphasis on rhythmic linearity and a taste for metallic electronic dissonance which warrants his unofficial title as a godfather of Industrial music. As Asmus Titechens points out in the great introduction, strictly speaking this isn't a solo album as there are contributions from his Kluster bandmates Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, but you can definitely tell who's in control. Play loud for maximum effect. Highly recommended!

Tracks
00:00:00 Die Rebellen haben sich in den Bergen versteckt
00:18:47 Jupiter
00:38:13 Wild Space 1
00:42:35 Wild Space 2
00:47:06 Wild Space 3
00:50:33 Wild Space 4
00:53:30 Wild Space 5
00:56:15 Wild Space 6