Klaus Schulze: La Vie Electronique 12 (2012)

La Vie Electronique 12  (1992 to 1993)

Track Listing (CD 1):

1.

Picasso geht spazieren (Teil 1)

78:40

1992

Track Listing (CD 2):

1.	Picasso geht spazieren (Teil 2)	15:36	1992
2.	Picasso geht spazieren (Teil 3)	60:12	1992

Track Listing (CD 3):

1.

The Music Box

79:13

1993

Rating: 4½ Stars

This album contains only studio recordings.

In my review of LVE 11 I said that Klaus Schulze's music was bland in the 1990's. I have to take that back. "Picasso geht spazieren" (engl. "Picasso goes for a walk") is an excellent piece of music. It's eccentric, unnerving at times, but it captures the essence of the eccentric and unnerving artist who inspired the music. "The Music Box" is also very good, more melodic than "Picasso geht spazieren".

The liner notes for LVE 12 are written once more by KDM (Klaus Dieter Müller). As always, he wrote the liner notes in German and translated them into English himself. I wish he'd spoken to me first. The English liner notes are a mess, in part unintelligible. I've quoted them below as closely as I could, correcting the grammar only when necessary, but I was forced to delete one entire paragraph and translate the German myself.

---

La Vie Electronique 12 Liner Notes

LVE 11 as well as LVE 12 are filled with tracks that I put in the very first of my multi-CD sets: SILVER EDITION.

November '93. Our SILVER EDITION is released. I got the 2000 sets with 20,000 CDs on the 2nd of November, and on the 4th and 5th we put the sets together and sent them out to about a thousand customers who had kindly trusted us and had sent their valuable money in advance.

SILVER EDITION was a collection of 10 CDs with ten hours of new and hitherto unreleased music by KS, and two and a half hours of old concert recordings from 1975 to 1977. As the very last bonus track on disc ten I included the collectors item LAND from 1972 in a different longer version. We kept this LAND inclusion secret in our advance promotion. (Everybody is doing promotion the usual way: promising everything, but finally giving just half of it. KS and I, we like to work the other way round).

The stupendous success of the set took me by surprise in early 1994. The reactions were fantastic. (Thanks again, folks!) We'd had very good reviews before, and I remember the overwhelming letters and articles about the last three CDs, the ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL 1 and 2, as well as THE DOME EVENT. But now, the ten-CD set SILVER EDITION topped even this. One fan from Amsterdam, whose opinion I regard very highly, compared KS to God "if he would believe in God". Thanks to the same almighty, this friend is able to express himself so well that it didn't sound embarrassing but just honest. SILVER EDITION is an artistic success. I'm proud of it. Of the idea, of my work. And I'm thankful to Klaus that he did let me do it my way; and last but not least, that he did all that music!

Of course, there are some things which could have been done differently or even better. It's possible to criticise a set, an album, the music, the packaging or a concert recording. It's amusing when critics point at the wrong things and don't notice the real mistakes. I like to hear criticism from those who know what they're talking about. I love and respect those, because they show love and respect to the care and the honest work of others. Thanks, guys.

Time marches on and we have no vision (only our hopes) how the world will judge KS and his music in 50, 100, or 200 years. Was it really "only pop music" as a journalist once told me.

(KDM)