Klaus Schulze: La Vie Electronique 11 (2012)

La Vie Electronique 11  (1992 to 1993)

Track Listing (CD 1):

1.

Film Musik

75:26

1993

Track Listing (CD 2):

1.

Narren des Schicksals

71:13

1992-93

Track Listing (CD 3):

1.	Der Schönheit Spur	37:36	1993
2.	Ein schönes Autodafé	21:24	1993
3.	Return in Happy Plight	19:08	1993

Rating: 3½ Stars

This is the first LVE album since LVE 2 that consists entirely of studio recordings. It's probably because Klaus performed less concerts after being very active in the 1980's.

"Film Musik" – shouldn't that be written as one word? – is the soundtrack for the German documentary "Spurensicherung: Baudenkmäler". It's pleasant easy listening music, but totally forgettable.

Klaus called "Narren des Schicksals" his first symphony. The use of sampled vocals makes it sound more like an opera.

Of the three tracks on the third CD, "Return in Happy Plight" is the best.

None of the tracks on the album are bad, but they're not good either. Klaus Schulze's music in the 1990's was more bland than his earlier music. This isn't an album I'll listen to again soon. Don't worry, I have a hundred other albums by him to listen to.

The liner notes for LVE 11 are written by Klaus Schulze's publisher, the one and only KDM (Klaus Dieter Müller). As always, his English is written awkwardly, but I've made as few corrections as possible.

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La Vie Electronique 11 Liner Notes

In 1992 and 1993 Klaus Schulze recorded circa ten hours of music, actually not intended for record release, but as so often he had sent me the results on many DAT tapes. I had an idea and told Klaus about it: maybe we could make a set with five CDs? With his usual verve Klaus claimed ten CDs, and I started to work. Together with the newly recorded but unreleased music and with two-and-a-half hours of historic recordings I conceived the first of our multi-CD sets, not knowing if and how many will buy it and how they will like it. This first set of ten CDs, SILVER EDITION, was released on the 4th of November 1993, and the praise it received immediately was overwhelming. One year later the two thousand sets were sold out.

I realized that the fans also loved the few historic concert recordings that I had put in SILVER EDITION, and as a result I planned the release of another set with just historic music, played by Klaus long ago in his studio and in his concerts (mostly I speak of "our" concerts, because so often I was present and responsible for many things on tour and stage). The result of my search among all the old recordings was a second ten-CD set, HISTORIC EDITION, which came out two years after SILVER EDITION. This outcome was another if not larger success.

 

Both of these sets we did (and we sold) on our own, without any record company and not through shops. I forgot how we reached our customers: after all, SILVER EDITION was three years before any fan could read about it in an issue of "The KS Circle" and even HISTORIC EDITION was out five months before any "Circle". The official KS website started only in late August 1996, which was also too late to announce those first two important sets. So how we reached the listeners? Probably I sent out personal letters to all the many kind people who had written letters to KS during the last one or two years. I collected these letters from the first day I worked with Klaus Schulze. Luckily I had also collected all those old tapes!

Such a set with a 48-page booklet cannot easily re-pressed and re-printed, therefore we made them limited editions of 2000 copies each. It sounds crazy today, but for both sets we really had some trouble to get rid of the last one hundred sets each. Today they are collectors items, and some people are willing to pay a fortune for a complete set. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

During my research among the old tapes I found many other unreleased good recordings, hence we did a third set, again after two years, in the year 1997. This time we made it a package of 25 CDs with a thick booklet of 84 pages. We love to do things that were not done before, at least not in "our" music; but I was thoroughly familiar with big sets, thanks to my long-time interest in collecting jazz LPs.

(KDM, May 2009)