# RIP Klaus Schulze



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Klaus Schulze died April 26, 2022.

He was a big influence in my life. I bought Timewind when I was about 15. I looked at the object of the LP like it was priceless from antiquity. It had so much power in my mind (I was already playing synths by that time). 

I didn't follow his career that closely after I discovered my own muse, and saw him and Tangerine Dream as on the same level as far as compositions, with some TD probably higher for my own tastes. In fact, to be honest, I didn't buy a lot of his albums and now I will revisit him to see what I missed. 

But he was a major player in the music of the last 50 years, and was surprised to see he was in a band with Steve Winwood, was referenced in the recent Dune movie, and so on.

RIP


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Schulze released literally HUNDREDS of albums, and I thought most of them were pretty thin on inspiration. But he was definitely an icon of EM and will be missed. As a friend of mine pointed out, the original lineup of TD is finally reunited: Schulze (1947-2022), Conrad Schnitzler (1937-2011) and Edgar Froese (1944-2015). Let's hope they have electricity in heaven.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

Very talented, original composer. His _Contemporary Works_ projects (~ 1998 - 2013) and 2000-2014 live gigs were, IMO, his best output.


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

Timewind is one of a select handful* of classic 'Berlin School' electronic albums which, imho, transcend what most people think of as 'electronic music'. The inspiration is more Wagnerian.

I don't really mind how many average albums he made after this.

RIP.
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*The pantheon of Berlin School albums:


Tangerine Dream: Phaedra
Tangerine Dream: Rubycon
Ashra: New Age of Earth
Klaus Schulze: Timewind


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

RogerWaters said:


> The pantheon of Berlin School albums:
> 
> 
> Tangerine Dream: Phaedra
> ...


Your choice. Mine would be different.

Tangerine Dream: Ricochet
Schaltkreis Wasserman: Psychotron
Rüdiger Lorenz: Wonderflower
Rupert Randall Chapelle: Ozone Music
Cybotron: Cybotron
Peter Baumann: Trans-Harmonic Nights
Nightcrawlers: Nightcrawlers
Michael Hoenig: Departure from the Northern Wasteland


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

NoCoPilot said:


> Your choice. Mine would be different.
> 
> Tangerine Dream: Ricochet
> Schaltkreis Wasserman: Psychotron
> ...


I had a listen to some of these and some don't sound squarely in the berlin school to me, although they are obviously influenced by it:



> A genre of electronic music which originated in West Berlin in the 1970s. (At the time, the city of Berlin was politically and physically partitioned by the Berlin Wall.) The sound consists basically of ambient elements combined with short, repeating sequenced runs of notes, which gives the music a rhythmic element, and (in the earlier music) heavy use of Mellotron.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

I forgot Michael Rother. Not sequencer based but the motorik beat is influenced by.

The "Berlin sound," like the "Canterbury sound," is often best expressed by progenitors outside the geographical origin.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

RIP
Love his '70s classics.
I like Timewind as well, but I prefer both Mirage and Moondawn.
Crystal Lake, Floating and Friedrich Nietzsche from "X" are my top 3 tracks.

Seems like he released pretty much everything he's ever made.

He usually had some nice ideas, but a lot of his longwinded tracks resort to endless noodling without any direction. I know that's kind of his style, but those long tracks from the 70s simply feel more inspired than his later stuff, with at least some sense of direction.
A good example would be the track "The Rhodes Elegy" from Contemporary Works 2, which has a very beautiful and moody intro, but after a while it just goes on and on without anything interesting happening and with an annoying beat.
Fortunately, even among his later music there is some good stuff to be found. I generally like the Dark Side of the Moog series with Pete Namlook. His collaborations with Manuel Göttsching are also nice.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist (1973), stated he would have used Tangerine Dream to score the movie had he heard them first. I believe the group would have provided better music than the mishmash ultimately used.

Friedkin made amends (somewhat) by using Tangerine Dream for the soundtrack for Sorcerer (1977), although much of the music was unuused in the movie.


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## CatchARisingStar (7 mo ago)

I'm late to the Berlin School because most of my life was spent banging away on my guitars and it's only recently I started taking ambient seriously. I compose it now, so I've been diving headfirst into artists I should know backwards, like Klaus Schulze, Brian Eno, Suzanne Ciani, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Martin Sturtzer, Tangerine Dream, etc.


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