The short version
- Klaus Schulze's first solo album, released on Ohr in August 1972 and recorded in Berlin that April.
- He had no synthesizer yet. He used a doctored electric organ, an amplifier and a tape of a university orchestra.
- He asked the orchestra to hold one note for a long time, ran the recording through his gear and played it backwards.
- The subtitle promises a quadraphonic symphony. The first pressing says it plays in stereo and mono only.
Spring 1972, the music room of the Free University in Berlin. A 24-year-old drummer stands in front of the student orchestra and asks for one note. Not a piece. One note, held for as long as they can hold it. Klaus Schulze told the story in a 1988 interview. The players did not ask to be paid, and he could not have paid them if they had. Holding a single note that long was harder than it sounds, but they managed it. Schulze had come with a small tape recorder.
Where it sits
Our Klaus Schulze starting guide left this record out of the five. It put it among the albums for later: before the sequencer, strange and slow. This piece takes it off that shelf.
Schulze had drummed on Tangerine Dream's first album and then with Ash Ra Tempel. Then he left and made a record on his own, this one, recorded in Berlin in April 1972. English Wikipedia describes it as built from an orchestra rehearsal and a damaged amplifier, and in 2005 Schulze said he still did not own a synthesizer at the time. His official biography lists 1972 as the year he bought his first small synthesizer and the year of his first solo LP. On the record, the word synthesizer never appears. The sleeve says "E-Maschinen", electronic machines.
Edgar Froese read that and asked what he meant. A coffee machine? A fridge? Schulze told him that was more or less the idea. The story is Schulze's own, from 1988. His electronic machines were a modified electric organ and an amplifier with its input wired to its output, tremolo and reverb switched on. In 1993 he added that the organ was a Teisco and that he had opened it up and moved a few wires on the oscillators. He had no idea about technology, he said.
- Released
- August 1972, Ohr OMM 556.022 (West German LP, gatefold)
- Recorded
- April 1972, Berlin. The music room of the Free University and Schulze's own studio
- Players
- Klaus Schulze (organ, electronic machines); orchestra of 27 (8 violins, 3 violas, 8 cellos, 1 double bass, 2 horns, 2 flutes, 3 oboes)
- Producer
- Klaus Schulze
- Cover
- Klaus Schulze
- Subtitle
- Quadrophonische Symphonie für Orchester und E-Maschinen
Tracklist
| A | 1. Satz: Ebene / 2. Satz: Gewitter (Energy Rise - Energy Collaps) | 29:00 |
| B | 3. Satz: Exil Sils Maria | 21:27 |
Timings are as printed on the first pressing, where the first two movements run together as a single 29-minute side. The 2006 Revisited Records CD splits side one into "Ebene" (23:23) and "Gewitter" (5:39), gives "Exil Sils Maria" as 21:25, and adds "Dungeon", a 24-minute piece recorded in the early seventies.
The three movements
- "Ebene", the plain. The organ and the orchestra's long note pile up in layers. Do not listen for strings. Follow the rate at which the sound swells and sinks, and let your breathing fall in with it.
- "Gewitter", the thunderstorm. In 1993 Schulze said he made the storm with a spring reverb pulled out of a Hammond organ, plucked from above with his fingers. Listen knowing the thunder is a metal spring.
- "Exil Sils Maria", all of side two. In 2015 Schulze said the backwards playback happened by accident first, but he liked the effect and kept it for the master. Listen for the places where a sound grows toward you instead of fading away.
How to listen
- One side at a time, without stopping: 29 minutes, then 21.
- Keep the volume low so it sits in the room, until the held note sounds like the air in there.
- On the second pass, look for the orchestra. Knowing that 27 players are in there, you start to hear bows moving inside the drone.
What happened next
Not much, at first. In 1998 Schulze said the "success" of such crazy music was not very big. Some people did hear it. In the Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger on 15 August 1973, Peter Schwaar called it music that takes its time, and wrote that this was not superficial pop music.
In 1975 Brain reissued the album with a new cover, a painting by Urs Amann. The 2006 Revisited edition added "Dungeon".
In 1988 Schulze called it his most radical album so far. In 1997 he said it was still a very irritating and fresh album, and at least still daring. The orchestra came back in 1978 on X. English Wikipedia says its strings were recorded the same way, but this time not filtered past recognition.
One track to send a friend
Send "Exil Sils Maria", 21:25, with one fact attached. It plays backwards, and that started as a mistake. The cover calls the album a quadraphonic symphony, and the first pressing says it plays only in stereo and mono.
Where to get it
The 1972 Ohr pressing, OMM 556.022, is the record as it first appeared: the red planet on blue. From the 1975 Brain reissue on, Urs Amann's painting is on the front, and the 2006 Revisited CD adds "Dungeon". Turn the lights off and put on side two. A single note rises out of the dark, back to front.