The short version
- April 1976, Schulze's sixth solo album, on Brain. The first one with a Moog.
- The Moog was a modular system bought from Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh on 22 December 1975.
- Harald Grosskopf plays drums. It was his first appearance on a Schulze record.
- The early-1990s CDs had Mellotron laid over them and the pieces cut short. The original sound is on the reissues from 1995 on.
22 December 1975, three days before Christmas. Klaus Schulze bought a Moog modular. The seller was Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh, very possibly the first German musician ever to own one, who had stopped playing it in 1972 and gone back to the piano. It is the same Moog you hear on Tangerine Dream's Zeit. A month later, in January 1976, it was being recorded at the Panne-Paulsen studio in Frankfurt, and the drummer Harald Grosskopf was in the room. That February Schulze wrote that this recording had opened a door he had wanted to go through for years. The door was rock music.
Where it sits in the history of music
Timewind was one sequencer and one man. Its sound was ARP, EMS and organ, with no Moog anywhere. On this record two things arrive at once: the Moog and a drummer. English Wikipedia calls Moondawn the first album Schulze performed in a full Berlin School style. One more machine and one more person, and the centre of gravity moves.
Grosskopf had been the drummer in Wallenstein. German Wikipedia points out that the roles were swapped on this record. Schulze lays down the rhythmic floor on organ, string keyboard and synthesizer, and Grosskopf uses the kit to give the pieces their shape and their surprises. The man who had been Tangerine Dream's first drummer keeps time from behind the keyboards, and the real drummer plays over the top.
- Recorded
- January 1976, Studio Panne-Paulsen, Frankfurt
- Released
- 16 April 1976, Brain 1088
- Line-up
- Klaus Schulze, Harald Grosskopf (drums)
- Instruments
- Big Moog, ARP 2600, ARP Odyssey, EMS Synthi A, Farfisa Syntorchestra, Farfisa Professional organ, Crumar keyboards, Synthanorma 3-12 sequencer
- Length
- 27:15 + 25:22
Tracklist
| A | Floating · Schulze | 27:15 |
| B | Mindphaser · Schulze | 25:22 |
Two pieces, one per side, timed from the German first LP. Both came out of the same January session, and other takes left on those tapes later turned up as reissue bonuses: "Floating Sequence", a different version of "Floating", and "Supplement", a different version of "Mindphaser".
Listening through "Floating"
The first sound is a human voice. Head Heritage's review identifies it as the Lord's Prayer recited in Arabic. When the voice falls away, clusters of sequenced notes begin to turn, and the repetition slowly gathers force over long synthesizer chords. Grosskopf's drums slip in once that repetition has built up some weight, and at first they play around the edges rather than the middle. That is the moment to listen for. A human hand attaches itself to the machine's pulse, and a piece that was floating finds somewhere to stand. The same review puts a Moog surge at around 24:22, rolling in like a tidal wave and covering everything. Those few minutes are what keep you listening to the end.
"Mindphaser", twenty-five minutes
Side two starts loose, in a stillness close to sleep, until a great sweep of white noise clears it away. Then the drums and the Moog step forward, and from there it speeds up. In Head Heritage's account Grosskopf keeps raising the tempo while Schulze goes for broke on the Moog. The piece swells almost to chaos and never comes apart. If side one rises, side two runs.
How to listen
- Side one first. Waiting for the drums to come in is half the pleasure of this record.
- A little louder than usual. At low volume the Moog surge just slides past.
- If what you own is an early-1990s Brain CD, find another edition. That one has Mellotron on top and the endings cut.
What happened next
Later in 1976 Schulze was drafted into Go, the group Stomu Yamashta put together. The next year he worked with Grosskopf again on the film score Body Love. Then, in April 1977, came Mirage. The drums are gone, and the driving sequencers stop. A year after Moondawn gave him a beat, he set it down.
The one track to send a friend
Send "Floating". Warn them it runs twenty-seven minutes. Then add one line: the voice at the start is the Lord's Prayer in Arabic, and the Moog behind it was a second-hand machine bought three days before Christmas.
Where to get it
On CD, choose the edition carefully. The early-1990s CDs on Brain, and on Thunderbolt and Magnum in Britain, were made from treated masters. According to Schulze's official site he added Mellotron and reverb and made the pieces a little shorter. German Wikipedia says the Mellotron was there to cover noise and crackle on the original tape. The original version came back on the 1995 Manikin CD and the 2005 Revisited CD. The 2005 edition adds "Floating Sequence" (21:11), taken from the same session tapes, and the 2016 MIG CD has the same contents. On vinyl there is the 2017 Brain/Universal pressing, remastered by Eroc.