Conrad Hock

Bretschneider on his con-struction: I read the name Conrad Schnitzler for the first time in the arti- cle about Tangerine Dream in the Rowohlt Rock Lexicon from 1973 (back then, at 17 in the GDR, an indispensable guide). The first time I heard his music was only in 1980, when his wave track "Auf dem Schwarzen Kanal" was played on the ra- dio, an RCA 12" Super Sound Single in disco remix. Then the man was gone and stayed under the radar again, in spite of his almost inflationary number of releases. Maybe his mate- rial was too obscure or his approach too radical to be noticed by the general public. It wasn't until 1988 that I heard from Schnitzler again, a tape on Jörg Thomasius' East Berlin Kröten Kassetten label. And again almost 10 years later his Plate Lunch CDs "Rot" and "00/106".

Pianist/composer Conrad Tao's third Warner Classics album, entitled American Rage, traces the roots of rebellion from the 1930s Harlan County labor disputes, through the trauma of 9/11, to the deep divisions of the present day. Bookended by two expansive works by Frederic Rzewski - Which Side Are You On?, based on Florence Reece’s 1931 protest song, and Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, an industrial folk song that reflects the unjust factory working conditions - the album centres on Julia Wolfe's Compassion, written in the wake of 9/11, and Aaron Copland's elegiac Piano Sonata.

These entirely instrumental recordings were created in the late 1970s at Peter Baumann’s Paragon Studio. This stellar period gave rise to the finest works: the Con, Consequenz and Con 3albums, featuring such wonderful pieces as Fata Morgana, Coca and Auf dem schwarzen Kanal.These recently discovered pieces take the aforementioned albums a stage further. Sounds complementeach other as they are reprised, whilst continuing to exist in their own cosmos. As you listen, you feel asif you have been transported back into the studio itself while the sessions are happening.