Electronique S

Klaus Schulze: It all started about 40 years ago. I suppose you could call it an accident. In the years before, when I still went to school, I had some guitar training. And then I played acoustic guitar for about six years. Also I fooled around with the electric guitar, playing music of The Shadows or The Spotnicks. Then I started with drums. My brother was a drummer with a jazz band, so l thought that drumming would be more pleasant than playing guitar. After that l was drumming in the avantgarde/free rock trio PSY FREE, then Tangerine Dream, and in August 1970 l founded Ash Ra Tempel. One day I said to myself Okay, lt s all pretty and normal music, but I want to do something special. I should change instruments.

Volume Two (three CDs) in this series reissuing all the material found on the long out of print Ultimate Edition box sets (for more background on the series as a whole, see La Vie Electronique 1) is much more interesting than volume one, and the pick of the first six volumes. The music comes from 1972-1975 (but mostly 1972-1973), a rich period of experimentation, as Schulze was gradually forging what would be known as his "classic" sound, nearly palpable by "Blaue Stunde," the 38-minute piece from 1975 concluding the set. This second installment contains more finished works than the drafts-and-jams-packed volume one. "Das große Identifikationsspiel" (42 minutes) is a very good suite of rather experimental music written for a science fiction radio drama by Alfred Behrens. The 27-minute "Titanensee" was done with a ballet in mind, never to be produced; again, it is a strong work in Schulze's experimental vein. However, the undisputed highlight of volume two is a whole album's worth of collaborations with Hans-Jörg Stahlschmidt, a project that had been brought to completion, only to gather dust on a record company's shelves.

The limited-edition box sets in the Edition series (Silver Edition, 1993, ten CDs; Historic Edition, 1995, ten CDs; Jubilee Edition, 1997, 25 CDs; all gathered [with extra material added] in Ultimate Edition, 2000, 50 CDs) are the most sought-after items in Klaus Schulze collectors' circles, exchanging hands at outrageous prices. In 2009, Klaus D. Mueller and Schulze began releasing La Vie Electronique ("The Electronic Life"), a series of three-CD sets that reissued all the material previously released in these long-deleted box sets, plus a few unreleased tracks, with all the material put back in chronological sequence (the Edition sets mixed things up, time line-wise). Volume 1 covers the years 1968-1972 and is mainly very interesting. One highlight is "I Was Dreaming I Was Awake and Then I Woke Up and Found Myself Asleep," a previously unreleased 25-minute piece that, is stronger than Irrlicht, Schulze's debut LP. "Cyborgs Traum" is also major Schulze material.

La Vie Electronique is a series of 3-disc CD releases by Klaus Schulze, reissuing material from his limited edition 50-disc CD box set The Ultimate Edition (2000), which itself collected the previously released limited edition multi-disc box sets Silver Edition (1993, 10 discs), Historic Edition (1995, 10 discs), and Jubilee Edition (1997, 25 discs), along with an additional 5 discs. The series began in 2009 with a plan to release all the music from The Ultimate Edition in chronological order. Four volumes were released in 2009, and four more were released in 2010. The next two volumes were released in 2011, with the next two following in 2012. The thirteenth volume was released in 2013, and the fourteenth and fifteenth volumes in 2014. The sixteenth and final volume, containing five CDs rather than the usual three, was released on May 29th, 2015.