Ulrich Schnauss, Classic or Dud?

US is insanely dudtastic.

In hindsight, both of those labels turned into monsters. I will stick up for the two records that turned me on to CCO. Tides by Arovane has not dated well and was a harbinger of the lukewarm IDM-hop that CCO would promote. At the time it I saw it as a way out for the tyranny of the predictable that 4/4 floor tracks were becoming. It was a massive technical step up from the work he was doing for DIN (even if I like Atol Scrap and his EP's better than Tides.)

The record he did with Phonem for Vertical Form was a letdown, and I really have not investigated his work any further. Oddly enough, I totally disliked the early Phonem material, but he has really come into his own in the last few years. A friend of mine played a recent LP on Morr and I was pleasantly surprised.

The other was Christian Kleine, who would also go on to disappoint me as well. The Minus Time/Quadringa 7" he did for CCO is one of my favorite records of all time. It is a shame that the Hermann and Kleine material and his solo albums never lived up to the glory of that first single. He has released good material, but the quality is very uneven. You need to put more than one good track on your album if you want any of my record money.

http://www.city-centre-offices.de/
http://www.morrmusic.com/

i agree, but can anyone REALLY explain why this is such a crime?

BoC's last album was painfully dull, imo.

i dont get how 'Geogaddi' could be 'duller' than the new Schnauss tho

ulrich though breathed a bit of lie into the CCO/Morr scene which was getting a bit dull and derivative at the time. none of the artists had moved on in the slightest. he also played a great set at the Big Chill last year despite being some german with dodgy hair and his laptop. BoC live??? Don't be silly.

artists should do whatever satisfies them, not you ;)

...and we should feel free to criticise them if we believe they (a) indulge themselves wantonly or (b) do the same old thing time after time. Not that I'm levelling either accusation against the Boards (although I do wonder if they reached their peak with the "Beautiful place" ep), but I don't buy Steve's line as an riposte to Mr Fister's views.

Back on topic. I love Ulrich and I'm a bit bewildered by level of dislike he seems to have attracted here. As far as I'm concerned "Far away trains" may not be particularly groundbreaking, but it's a lovely, lush melodic record and what I've heard of the new one sounds just as good. Then again, I don't pay the slightest bit of attention to hype nor do I blindly shell out money for a record I've not heard, then complain that I've been somehow ripped off.

Nothing sounds like BoC, they have a sound all their own, and why they are even in a discussion about cco/morr acts is a mystery. It's like comparing White Stripes to The Strokes.

Sure, there aren't a lot of album on either CCO or Morr that I play with regularity, but if you're expecting any of this type of stuff to be Album of the Year material, you're hoping for a bit much.

A couple fantastic albums I've heard recently are:
Digital Jockey - Paradise & Fragment
Nova June - Ground

It's hardly IDM, it's more like MBV or someone but also quite dancey with that little breakbeat in the background. I'd definitely like to hear the album.

I am surprised that Andy K disagrees with me because I find that our tastes are very similar and that Omar agrees with me because I do not think we have previously agreed on anything ever.

I think he's he's awesome! I am really suprised how many people here dislike this kind of thing.

It's much better than that. I love this guy so much. I think I prefer his sound to that of his influences.

A side-by-side song comparison will reveal that he's much farther away from his influences than the haters make him out to be.

Yeah, yeah, I need to get this. Or I'll be excluded from Sonic Cathedral, they'll never let me in the door again if I can't prove my shoegaze credentials.

The title track of the new one is possibly the most gorgeous thing he's ever done.

The title track of the new one is possibly the most gorgeous thing he's ever done.

^
^
^

For all the greatness that his current work is -- Herr Schnauss likely ain't hit his zenith yet -- his early work is its yang of yawn. A Schaussophile pal gave me a ton of early rips and boots and I dunno whatall, but it's just kinda formulaic as far as my ears have a say innit. I guess I'm bound to be castigated for saying that by folks who know a lot more about EM than myself, but eh.

Sorry to check some of the posters further up this thread, but how can you dislike this stuff (A Strangely Isolated Place)? There's no way this is anything other than utterly brilliant. EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SONG. I can't decide which one to put on a compilation for my friend, although it's been narrowed down to 'On My Own', 'Letter From Home' or 'Clear Day'.

Early days yet, but this might be top 5 for the decade so far.

I will have to second that the new album is a total fucking mind-blower. It gets a little too MBV sometimes, but seriously it is just owning me. Warm fuzzies all day long.

I put up an MP3 at PTW: http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=846

It gets a little too MBV sometimes

You're fired.

That said, I think me now looking for the new MBV would be like me looking for 'the new Tolkien' or whatever.

If it's a literary masterpiece you're after, you could do worse than reading/re-reading Tristram Shandy. Meanwhile, Ulrich Schnauss, whilst not a master of the crossed-wires feedback storm like Shields (a method that has perhaps a more mysterious, subliminal effect upon the listener), is approximating the dream-pop ideal in a more convincing manner than almost anyone I've ever heard. It mines a different, less kinetic/dancy seam to WFANFC, for instance, but Schnauss' music uses its extended length to reach and then sustain ever-higher plateaux of micro-managed sonic bliss.

Underwhelmed by the new one - just more of the same, and I think two was enough for me. The vocals don't add enough, in fact there's something about the tone and the processing that makes them sound really insipid.

The "Little 15" mix might be my favourite thing of his.

Louis to what extent do you think that the music that most transports you to plateaux of sonic bliss conforms to a certain style - not genre, but at a lower level. Do you think there might be certain styles of melody or chord progression, say, that intrinsically appeal to you? That there might be other bands engaged in micro-management and all the other things that you're after, but who are working with melodic forms that don't push your buttons?

Now THAT'S an interesting question.

ok i'll give it its own thread...

First, to answer your question re: Schnauss,

Ledge, I really do think there might be certain ways of progressing chord structure that appeal to me more than others. The confluence of different chords atop one another is even more interesting; this is what Schnauss does brilliantly. Differently melodic and textural synth lines create sonic richness, and this sonic richness is progressed in a very satisfying manner; the progressions and flow often pertain to a major/minor/suspended chord confusion (there's a method to it I'm sure, but one I can't describe), and this emotional fragility is, I find, highly stimulating for the responsive mind. There might well be other bands engaged in micro-management whose concerns are more rhythmical or minimalist, whom I might like less, but I'd need to hear more. You say you're an Autechre fanboy; they're an act I'd really like to check out.

WHO MAKES THE NAZIS?

The "Little 15" mix might be my favourite thing of his.

^^ I like it a lot too, mostly because the "Little 15" instrumentation is probably the weakest spot on Music for the Masses and Ulrich's mix makes it fantastic. I wouldn't call it my favorite thing he's done, though.

I have a really hard time describing his music in terms of emotion. He doesn't do many songs that I feel like I can describe with emotional adjectives. Words like "pretty" even "beautiful" come to mind, but only a few of his tracks get described as "sad" or "joyful".

His music brings to mind sort of a druggy breaking-free-of. I wouldn't call it happy (A Strangely Isolated Place is vaguely a concept record about a breakup and descent into loneliness/ascent to freedom innit), but it does seem like the music itself is a soundtrack to looking around and noticing beauty around you (not to get all LJ about the matter) even if it's not explicitly joyous or emotional. I hesitate to say it's "spiritual" because it's pretty well grounded in convention wrt pop beats/harmonies; there's no real mind-bending going on that I feel happens (intentionally or unintentionally) with certain IDM artists. It's just nice fuzzy warm electronic waves with lots of layers and space.

It's more than that, Curtis! I find it to be at its best when at its densest, an integrating set of disparate textural layers which interweave and augment simple harmonic patterns with polyphony and minor diminished fifths.

Also, in all seriousness, I find it to be pretty psychedelic and affecting, although it must be said, I DID receive the album twenty minutes after breaking up w/girlfriend, so the themes you deem as being present were particularly evocative for me.

Curt1s OTM, esp about it being a druggy breaking-free-of. I find I most get deep into the mindset of this music when I'm stoned, tbh; the layers and the chord changes and the rising and falling, it is like being carried in waves or something. I get a real emotional response from it too, but thats more because of who I am as a person and what *gives* me an emotional response to begin with.

Is the new album out yet? I wasn't sure I liked "Stars" as much as his earlier stuff, and I want to hear the rest.

It took me a LOT of listens, but I've noticed that the methods employed on just about every single track of 'ASIP' aspire towards an identical end. The one (partial) exception, the final track, is (surprisingly) my least favourite. Every song begins with a certain, anticipatory musical pattern, which is then usurped in the 'chorus' by a revelatory, orgasmic one. The music then shifts between the two states before finding terminal bliss in a gorgeous outro that combines both elements. Normally, I'd hate such lack of ideological variation, but Schnauss pulls it off incredibly, every single bloody time. It's a very, very effective musical trick. Trayce's point about 'waves' is very appropriate; each new plateau of musical bliss laps beautifully and seamlessly over the old one. Now, should I applaud the use of this trick, or should I feel angry at having been 'duped'? Well, when it comes down to it, I'll just stick 'On My Own' on again. I mean, that song is inescapably brilliant. Should have been a massive, massive club hit. Wasn't.

WHy would you feel duped by it? He does something that resonates beautifully if you like that kind of thing (and I sure as hell do). "On my Own" stands er... on its own, as it were, by dint of being not at all shoegazy, but yeah I love it too.

I'm saying I could feel duped, but I don't, because the quality of the music is so good, and the method is so desirable. It resonates amazingly; I've found it quite difficult to listen to anything else recently because Schnauss has single-handedly turned me into an electro-shoegaze audio junkie. I just...want...more!

On Your Own has some VERY blatant shoegaze derivations. The distorted vocals during the verse! I mean, come ON! The pre-chorus! Above all, the chorus itself, with those high wavering synth tones creating merry havoc in the background! I'll admit that some of the other tracks are probably purer in their shoegazeness (Clear Day is MBV reincarnate), but you can't say that OYO isn't 'at all shoegazey'.

clear day reminds me of seefeel, a kind of driving in a snowstorm song, which i guess eventually leads back to MBV but like schnauss, seefeel clearly bring something else to the table which endures, as demonstrated by the recently rereleased and splendid quique.

i still hear more mark van hoen and global communication on ASIP than MBV, also stuff like the first spacetime continuum album (sea biscuit), but the new album has moments that seem to channel the shimmery guitar you'd hear in early lush records and it works great.

quicksand memory is out now, and apparently the leaked mp3s of goodbye were taken from a version that had more compression than schnauss wanted so the actual CD won't sound the same.

The discussion at the start of this thread is the most interesting, in retrospect, so I'm glad f.hazel and others are bringing it back to something more grounded in electronic roots because frankly I'm getting bored with the Cocteau/MBV invocations. Global Communication is a more deft comparison than I'd guessed. (No, I have not heard anything off the new one yet.)

and apparently the leaked mp3s of goodbye were taken from a version that had more compression than schnauss wanted so the actual CD won't sound the same.

Thank god, cos the version of "Stars" Ive heard is horribly amped up and trebly.

ASIP is too loud; it clips, which is fucking criminal in a minor-interest artist whose focus is sound.

Creative use of tinny noise: it is time.

'medusa' might be better than anything by any other shoegaze artist ever, and that includes MBV. it is next-level.

The new one's noticably quieter and better-mastered than Strangely Isolated Place. Hmmm.

'medusa' might be better than anything by any other shoegaze artist ever, and that includes MBV. it is next-level.

Word.

I wonder if this is on emusic, considering they took ASIP *off* emusic not long after I managed to snaffle it (for some weird reason - label I guess).

Whole album is freely downloadable on the BBC collective webpage. You have little idea of how happy this makes me (even if I am just listening to Medusa over and over again).

I mean, the song itself...it's got about 4 different killer hooks, incredible sound, electronic bleeps to die for, an amazing Orbital-esque organ noise, progression, build, and suspense, pianos, and something that resembles a heavily-treated guitar solo. Oh, and when the final section with the three-note keyboard fanfare breaks through, the emotional plane is warped 90 degrees into something not just foreboding but totally victorious.

HERE

Bugger, it isn't on emusic

xpost oooh. AWESOME! Thanks L!

Ah fuck, RAM files, I dont have the RM player. Grr.

download realplayer for systems thinking results, PLANK wmp cannot operate under PRESSURE

I doan wanna stream it though I want a copy! How to shot. Maybe is available at shops.

God the intarwebs have made me lazy. I'm all "oh god, do I have to go to a SHOP to buy this? I am already in my pyjamas!"

hahaha, i was looking through the new releases at work monday night and came across this! i forgot it was coming out! then i got pissed off because the manager wouldn't let me buy it after we closed because it was still before midnight. i had put aside the new album of nick drake demos too.

you know what medusa sounds like? CURVE!

how do i shot curve

No it doesn't. It's just a bit... "meh". It's nice, but it's not mind-blowing or earthshattering or anything.

And the rest of the album is kind of a let-down by comparison.

oh like you don't wish every night that ulrich schnauss will do a remix of die like a dog or ten little girls.

both of you!

Curve eh? Hmmm.

i like how medusa has the echo-y choir at the end, it will make it easy to segue into the clientele on my super awesome mix tape.

i want ulrich schnauss to remix 'so' by working for a nuclear free city

Some of the tones he uses reminds me of soap opera theme songs from the 80s or something.

I don't see how anyone could get super passionate about his older work. I liked Between Us and Them from Far Away Trains, but most of his stuff seems like futuristic elevator music. There's no teeth.

I first found out about Ulrich Schnauss on boomkat, I believe, and the reviewer had such an orgasm over this album that I had no choice but to seek it out. On paper Ulrich Schnauss is right up my alley, so when I finally tracked down ASIP and sonically it sounded close enough to how it was described, I think I forced myself to be more passionate about it than I really was. Plus I liked the idea of being a fan of something obscure and German :) But what folks above have been said about it being elevator music is probably what I've felt to a degree since the beginning. I think it'd be a perfect choice for music to play during a slideshow at a wedding or reunion or something, though.

I could see that might be true of the first album, but ASIP and the new one work so well when cranked up. It's music that's 'designed' to be played really loud, I think. It's sounded really good whenever I've played bits of ASIP (On My Own in particular, and Medusa too, I suspect) in clubs.

You people.

You love it.

Actually I've been thinking about shoegaze and electronic variants in general lately and for me the form isn't about surprise but comfort food. As a result it's not going to give me anything revelatory anytime soon -- hoping for 'the new MBV' in my brain is a bit like an earlier version of me hoping for 'the new Tolkien.' Ain't gonna happen, both because of the specific circumstances of its creation and also how my own interests and foci have shifted. Perhaps extending the cooking metaphor a bit but the creation of a really good dish (for instance a new tomato soup recipe I tried last night) has more of an immediate emotional hold on my brain right now than chasing after another sonic revelation, partially because there's more room for honest surprise. (On this level I'm kinda glad for my piece on Loveless in Marooned in that it is a good summation of things for now, not a final word per se but I don't think I need to actively consider a lot of what's talked in there at present -- the future may yet bring a reconsideration, but Schnauss isn't the one to do it for me anymore than M83 was.)

Everything I though that Ulrich Schnauss was gonna be and wasn't, A Sunny Day In Glasgow turned out to be.

It's weird that. People describe bands to me, and I get this idea in my head of what they should sound like, and then they just don't. And then a few years later, another band comes along that sounds just like that mental picture in my head.

I was just listening to this via the Realplayer BBC link, and Shine started up with this lovely little gamelan style intro, and I thought "hey, what an unusual and interesting departure". Then this guy with a boring voice started singing over the top, then the gamelan faded and the standard Schnaussisms started up and I was disappointed.

Then I realised the gamelan was from iTunes which had been playing in the background... :( or maybe :)

It's sounded really good whenever I've played bits of ASIP (On My Own in particular, and Medusa too, I suspect) in clubs.

His two best songs, and the direction I sincerely hope he goes in. You have no idea how much I want this kind of sound and production in dance music.

You have no idea how much I want gamelan sound and production in dance music.

that would also be good, maybe we should collaborate

Ok let me first go on a five year fully immersive retreat to Indonesia in order to truly understand my source material.

after which time you will have renounced all cultural 'entertainment', very sneaky. take a portable disco, however, and you have my blessing.

I don't understand why people find Ulrich's stuff boring ;_;

I've been listening to "Goodbye" a lot since it came out and it is just gorgeous. "Shine" is just so uplifting and beautiful, like Slowdive, like taking off in a plane, like a high.

Because he more or less has a one-trick-pony thing going on. It's a good one, but I can see how it'd get predictable.

Which is why tracks like 'Medusa' are his best, because they take his one trick and add unexpected curveballs to it. I sincerely hope he takes his music into a more dance-oriented format now. Either that, or he goes all progressive on us. :-D

I think "Stars" is the best thing he's done so far, it's the perfection of his current formula & takes it to a new level of intensity. But I dunno if I'd be quite satisfied with another album of sugar-crystal drum machines and all-consuming synth washes and predictable dynamics. Dude has a great ear, so hopefully he'll move onto something different next album and it'll be fantastic.

If he goes too far in that Kraftwerky Medusa direction I am not so sure I'd like it. But who's to say.

listening to this album loud on fancy speakers is pretty amazing. it has so much depth! bits of lush, xymox, vangelis floating up and receding... i absolutely love it.

I'm still angry that the title-track "Goodbye" kicks off with just about the most killer chord-progression imaginable, keeps it up for two or three minutes, but then devolves into crass, substanceless emotional manipulation during the outro. He could have done so much more with that track.

Medusa (album version) might, objectively, be the song of 2007, even though I have a couple of personal preferences above it. It's absolutely unfuckable-with.

No such thing as objectivity, dude.

Dammit you have a point. There's a meaning I'm searching for. This song, then, appeals to me as a construction, as a work of art, more than any other, even if I get a bigger personal reaction out of a few others.

Formalist!

"the formalist Geir"

Well, riffing on a certain theme has done certain posters no harm. You're compression, Geir's melody, I can be formalism! Not that I really want to be squeezed into a box but hey, what can you do?

"Stars" is properly awesome, yeah!

Medusa>>On My Own>>Clear Day>>Stars>>the rest of ASIP>>the rest of Goodbye

lol early 2007 me

not to get all LJ about the matter

There was a thread at the end of '03 where everyone was asked to recommend a single track to download from an album they felt deserved more attention. I picked "Blumenthal" from ASIP, and I still think it's my favorite song off any of his albums. Don't know if it's a bias I have for all things Cocteau (it can't be, I love shoegaze just as much), but that track is just perfect to me. The second and third chorus repeats still light me up after hundreds of listens.

Had 'In all the Wrong Places' on a loop for the last hour.

Am I
A) Depressed
B) On Crack
C) Pissed
D) Mentally ill
E) In love with the song

It's actually all eight!

When it pulses at around three minutes - search it you music loving freaks

Congratulations, "On My Own", you just became the first song in my iTunes collection to make it to 100 completed plays!!! :D

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^quite possibly, song of the fucking decade

Mark my words, A Strangely Isolated Place will be understood as the seminal work of absolute genius that it is perhaps 10-15 years from now.

― libcrypt, Saturday, 7 April 2007 18:30 (1 year ago)

this post basically justifies everything libcrypt has said or done on ILX

Imagine ASIP *with* Stars, Medusa and Goodbye on it

just imagine

oh shit

ok, have created a playlist

it is ASIP in its entirety with "Stars" inserted after "Letter From Home" and "Medusa" inserted after "Blumenthal"

"Goodbye" couldn't be included thanks to time constraints, and although I was tempted to sub it in for "Monday - Paracetamol", this would have damaged the album's flow, and created sequencing issues near the end, and besides it's not THAT brilliant, so it stayed off

it is a musical monolith

not that ASIP isn't anyway

hmm but I'm having second thoughts now. "Monday - Paracetamol" is the pretty, slightly Xanaxed de-stresser which soothes the listener's brain after the sheer emotional wrangle of "Letter From Home"...shoving a flat-out shoegaze pop song, even a totally brilliant one, in between kinda ruins the flow

am less concerned with "Medusa"'s position, but some things are probably best left as they were intended. as a last resort i'm pushing "Stars" up between "On My Own" and "Letter". but deep down, I know that ASIP's perfectly-sequenced entirety rules supreme

anyway I'm Bimbling, time for bed

You know, I've really gone off this guy, which is odd.

Kind of like eating too many lollies. Very awesome, but made me sick on the gorging too quick.

I think "Goodbye" is like the best song ever written ever whenever I listen to it.

It took me a long time to love Goodbye (the album) compared to his first two and bits of it still never get anything but skipped, especially the godawful Shine. The good tracks are up there with his very best though, esp. Goodbye, Never Be The Same and Medusa.

Any love here for the Guthrie remixes on the Quicksand Memory ep? I like the way that he tries to outgun Ulrich's wall of synths with his own wall of guitars and very nearly succeeds.

Assuming he's working on some new stuff it would be good to hear him step back a bit from the more-is-more approach of Goodbye and revisit the simplicity of ...Trains.

Used to like, but started hating once he became, well, OMNIPRESENT.

I think that the three most PH34RED words in the nu-gaze canon are:

ULRICH. SCHNAUSS. REMIX.

This should be my perfect music, synthesis of shoegaze textures and ambient Germanic electronica, but it just leaves me cold. He just seems to drain the life out of things. Too much midrange.

I'm not a stan of his remixes in general, and I can see where you are with the midrange crit, but his takes on Justin Robertson and I'm Not A Gun are both awesome.

My main worry with ol' Uli is that he's painted himself into a bit of a corner with this maximalism approach ("more tracks! all playing at once! sonic cathedrals!") and it's at odds with the unshowy melodicism of his earlier stuff.

I found him OK on record, but seeing him live twice kind of made me dislike him... not for the side-on staring at laptop with no audience engagement thing, but just because, y'know, does this guy have anything not found on the cutting room floor after BoC remixed Slag Boom van Loon?

(though first time live was as somewhat inappropriate support for Stars of the Lid in an aggravatingly crammed-with-chatterers Dublin pub where we got stuck right at the top of the stairs to the bar and were constantly elbowed, and second time was in the middle of an all-day nu-gaze snoozefest where every band looked awesome on paper and yet managed to bore me to tears by the sheer sameyness, so, you know)

I tend to prefer him live - UNLESS that twat from Longview is singing in which case KILL KILL KILL.

Seems that Ulrich and his label(s) are now suing Guns n' Roses over samples lifted on for the intro of Riad N' The Bedouins:

Rolling Stone's report

The article seems fundamentally wrongheaded to me; if you listen to the tracks in question and then the GnR song it's 100% obvious that they've used samples of them. The samples aren't in anything but the intro (and certainly doesn't form the body of the song), but if they've not cleared this then surely it's illegal? And bloody stupid too, given how apparent it is.

Agreed! It's not like Chinese Democracy was a haste job either :)

Rolling Stone's reporter having cloth ears shock.

I don't know guys, the first thing I thought when I heard Chinese Democracy was "shit, Axl has been listening to loads of Ulrich Schnauss, hasn't he?".

I just found out about this. Way to keep it a secret, guys!

http://blog.pedigreecuts.com/?p=294

We are proud to announce that this magnificent album, the fruit of a collaboration between Ulrich Schnauss and Jonas Munk is now available to our agents via Harvest Media. This stunning 14 track foray into the world of the emotive and uplifting has already started gathering interest and reactions worldwide. A big thanks to Ulrich & Jonas for their efforts and to everyone else involved in this project.

PED A010 – Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk – “Epic” is available now.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ulrich and Manual? Damn. Has anyone heard it?

Wow, "Chasing Rainbows" streaming on that link above is *immense*. Never heard of this before, and by the look of it they are not even definitely releasing it for sale = insane.

http://astrangelyisolatedplace.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/ulrich-schnauss-jonas-munk/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk552H2SUKY

Wow, Chasing Rainbows doesn't actually suck! I know that's damning with faint praise, I'm surprised to find I like it. I just wish they'd turn that endless Ulrich-verb down a bit.

Actually just discovered that if you scroll through the album covers up in the header like you would in iTunes, and get to the Schnauss & Munk album, you can stream the entire thing.

http://blog.pedigreecuts.com/?cat=16

Hint: go to your left.

mmm

v good job JF. This will be the soundtrack to this morning!

http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/08/engineers-return-in-praise-of-more/

:D

hubba hubba.

did I hear SHOEGAZE SUPERGROUP

this is bigger than Kevin Shields, bigger than religion

Wow. I never did get around to that second Engineers album since I never saw it any shops. Worth looking into?

yes, it's better than the first one

It's as good as the first one was bad. (This doesn't include the first ep, which was quite good in its own right.)

it contains this for a start

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esuEMkGiU8s

Okay, you've convinced me to track it down.

dear school of seven bells street team, your record's good but if I were you I'd be QUAKING IN YOUR BOOTS come the 2010 Shoegaze Album Of The Year award ceremony

"sirocco" off this new schnauss/munk album is....... really good

Yeah, that album has surprised me by how good it is - on first listen it seemed a bit low-key, but Munk seems to have tamed the needles-in-the-red tendencies of Uli's last album and I've enjoyed it more with every play. My favourite Schnauss has always been Trains... and this feels like he's rediscovered some of the unfussy melodicism that he used so well there.

better than school of seven bells? that is setting the bar pretty low.

I think it might be safe to post on this thread now LJ has gone?

Anyway, a YEAR later, I am finally getting around to listening to the Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk album. (I was actually looking for the Robin Guthrie remix of On My Own and this popped up in Spotify, don't ask why.)

Shock, horror, I actually quite like it. I'm not sure if this is because of the beautiful sweeping guitar soundscapes - or because I'm feeling a lot more tolerant towards Schnaussy now I'm not tripping over him every damn week at Sonic Cathedral. (also, finally, he has dumped that pompous twat from Longview and got in a decent collaborator, which definitely helps.)

I just checked out that Robin Guthrie remix...he still has the goods!!

New Schnauss collaboration with Mark Peters from Engineers sounds like it will be fantastic. The couple of songs Ive heard really break away from his syrupy shoegaze and are closer to JMJarre/Krafwerk in ambience.

BUT IT ISNT AVAILABLE ANYWHERE DIGITALLY. Only on CD/vinyl. I wanna listen to it now and I dont want to pyrat it :(

But meantime, some tracks from it are on YT:

Gift Horse's Mouth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuEVOJIhM98

Rosen im Ashphalt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENbbqMl9J4M&feature=related

Pitchfork razzed the new album, but I think the basis of the criticism is nonsense, so I'm disregarding it. Of course I'm a big fan of Enya, too. Anyone heard it yet?

i like the last one w/mark peters a lot, though jessica harvell didn't

I truly cannot make sense of the "begs for a riskier approach" thing that the Pitchfork reviewers are fixated on. I haven't heard the Mark Peters collaboration, but Goodbye and the "album" with Jonas Munk were each an improvement over his previous releases.

Coming to the new one as a long-time fan, I'd say there's lots to recommend it - def. better than Goodbye and it *does* feel like he's trying to do something a bit different, he's certainly got some new gear since his last solo release. Heavy rotation on the title track, the splendidly mid-tempo "Like a Ghost in Your Life" (the snaking melody line on this is vintage Ulrich) and all last week I was hammering "I Take Comfort in Your Ignorance" - the latter has an ace remix by Tycho just out too.

so i'm see Ulrich Schnauss Sunday Night at the world famous Troubadour in West Hollywood. wow, last time i went there i saw Sonic Boom's E.A.R. and meet Timothy Leary (true story) so it has been a few years. so what can i expect is he any good live, has anyone seen him recently?

see seeing

saw him a few years back, and it was pretty interesting... he's got some kind of device that triggers samples and laptops and keyboards, and while your recognize parts of stuff that he does, it's like he is kind of mixing it live? it was fun to dance to, and had good energy.

anyone else seen him? starting to get excited about seeing a show again. it's like two in two months, reminds me of the old days where i saw shows all the time.

so the show was a lot of fun. he had someone with him on stage that looked like Martin Gore, dressed liked him as well. the visuals were about all you could watch. the music is really beautiful and hearing it that loud was neat. i would not really recommend this show but i had a good time.

there was this goth type of band called Nostalghia that opened. they were really cool as well. know nothing about them but she sounded like Bjork at times and really intense. just looked them up and they are a new band from Los Angeles, will keep an eye on them.

new one is a bit dull so far and he's starting to rip himself off something rotten

title-track is golden and lovely though ^_^

I didn't know there was a 2-disc version of Far Away Trains Passing By, the second disc is just as good as the first one

I still don't know that album. Sometimes when you get on the train at the supposed leap forward it's hard to track back

its amusing that the simplest music always seems to be the most polarizing. not that what he's doing is simple-minded or anything, but the music is very overt in what it's trying to do.

it's not like ASIP is particularly obscure in its intentions either!

nah. but I kinda like it, for that reason. like BOC without the whole "oooooo this is spooky tape music, maybe there's a GHOST in the room!" element

it's p much direct shoegazing ecstasy, sunny-day melancholy unfiltered

but then i guess there are songs like 'medusa' that could have sparked entire movements of michael bay electronica on their own (but didn't)

I picked up one of his CDs for a buck at a charity shop and it's really gorgeous

ok I got ASIP now and yeah this is very good, definitely better than Far Away Trains

amazed this man hasn't made a mint in soundtrack work

This reminds me. I bought an album he was involved in recently, played it once, then filed it somewhere. Can't remember who or what it was called though. Shit. Far Away Trains is so good. The rest of his stuff is just rehashing the same feeling. You probably don't need more than 5-10 songs of his to experience the entirety of his range.

and that was easy to find, thanks Discogs. https://www.discogs.com/Ulrich-Schnauss-Jonas-Munk-Passage/release/9725721 - This is the album. It's decent but not great.

Something new on his Bandcamp page

Free?

name your price isn't ... well, if you want, I guess, sure.

this Synthwave thing is pretty okay