Klaus Schulze: Blackdance (1974)

Klaus Schulze - Blackdance

KS Canon 4

Track Listing:

1.	Ways of Changes	17:14
2.	Some Velvet Phasing	08:24
3.	Voices of Syn	22:40

Bonus Tracks:

4.	Foreplay	10:33
5.	Synthies have no balls?	14:42

Notes: The opera singer Ernst Walter Siemon sings on the track "Voices of Syn".

Rating: 4½ Stars
Bonus Tracks: 5 Stars

If you've been paying attention you'll notice that I've skipped a number in the canon. That's not a mistake, or at least it's not my mistake. The canon numbers have been assigned by KDM (Klaus Schulze's publisher, Klaus Dieter Müller), but I'm reviewing the albums in the order that they were released. "Blackdance" was the third album that Klaus Schulze released, but KDM gave it the number 4 because he believed that his fourth album, "Picture Music", was recorded earlier. When I was a subscriber to KDM's monthly newsletter, "The KS Circle", KDM was still puzzling over which of the two albums was recorded first. That was in the early 2000's. Klaus himself doesn't know, because it was 30 years ago. KDM was trying to decide based on the sound of the synthesizers used. The last I heard was that KDM changed his mind and decided that "Blackdance" was earlier. For me, as a music fan, it doesn't really matter. If KDM says something I'll believe him.

This was a significant album in Klaus Schulze's career. His first two albums were released on the German record label Ohr, meaning that they were only available in England and other countries as German imports. They could only be bought from specialist shops. "Blackdance" was released on Virgin Records, which made it available throughout the UK. This led to an increase in Klaus Schulze's popularity.

For me personally, this album meant a change in my listening habits. I used to listen to "Irrlicht" and "Cyborg" from beginning to end, because I liked all the tracks equally. "Blackdance" was different. I loved "Voices of Syn" most, and "Ways of Changes" almost as much. I liked "Some Velvet Phasing", the second track on the first side of the LP, but I found it boring if I listened to it too often. For this reason I mostly listened to the second side of the LP, and if I listened to the first side I often left out the second track. Listening to the album today, for the first time since I returned to Germany in 2016, I loved all the tracks, but I can see that if I listened to it every day I would make preferences again.

The bonus tracks were found on a tape that was labelled "38 cm/sec Stereo, Chor/Mellotron (Manor March 1976)". This tape sounds like it was an unmixed studio recording made in one session. Klaus put it in a box, where it lay until KDM discovered it in 2006.

I'm sure he's too modest to admit it, but in my opinion there would be no Klaus Schulze without KDM. Klaus is an artist, brilliant but chaotic. After recording a piece of music, that's that, it's done with, and he moves on to the next piece. KDM is the one who picks up what Klaus has recorded and saves it for posterity. KDM's official job description is publisher, but he does more than that. He's an archivist. He sorts out the random tapes that have piled up over the years, and he decides which ones are of sufficient quality that they should be made public.

I used to be in frequent contact with KDM, by telephone in the 1990's and by email in the 2000's. I probably annoyed him by ringing too often. We argued a few times, but even if he made me angry by contradicting me when I was sure I was right, I always had the greatest respect for him. I still do.

Just one small example of an argument: When I first re-bought "Cyborg" on CD in the early 1990's it sounded wrong. I compared it with my LP, and it seemed that one of the stereo channels was too quiet throughout the album. I rang KDM to ask him about it, and he immediately flew into a rage. He denied anything was wrong with it and refused to discuss it with me. Case closed. A couple of years later there was a post on the official Klaus Schulze website in which someone named the same problem that I'd noticed first. Don't worry, the new version of the CD that was released in 2006 is perfect.

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Klaus Schulze also appeared on five other albums in 1974, all of them as a member of the group called the Cosmic Jokers. This was one of the most embarrassing parts of Klaus Schulze's career.

Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser and his girlfriend Gille Lettman had formed a record label that they called Kosmische Kuriere, engl. Cosmic Couriers, to cash in on the new popularity of electronic music in Germany. In 1973 he held parties in a recording studio that belonged to Dieter Dierks. He gave the musicians LSD, some of them allegedly without their knowledge, and invited them to play together. A year later five albums were released with music mixed from these sessions without the prior knowledge of the musicians. Manuel Göttsching, for instance, only found out about the albums when he heard one of them playing in a record store. Klaus was so angry that he sued Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser, who reacted by leaving Germany and letting his record label collapse.

If you listen to the albums in order – I used to own them all on LP – it's obvious what happened. The best music from the sessions was released on the first album. It was a commercial success, so a couple of months later another album was released with the second best music. Then a third album was released with the leftovers. By the time it got to the fifth album the music was dreadful.

I owned all five albums on LP. Somehow the court cases against Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser didn't prevent them being re-released on CD in the 1990's. I re-bought the first three albums but hardly listened to them. They were stolen by Thomas Kuzilla of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, but I didn't think they were good enough for me to buy them a third time. They're no longer available. Good riddance!

Cosmic Jokers - Cosmic Jokers (1974)

Jürgen Dollase (guitar)
Harald Grosskopf (drums)
Manuel Göttsching (guitar)
Klaus Schulze (keyboards)
Dieter Dierks (mixing)

Rating: 3 Stars

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Cosmic Jokers - Galactic Supermarket (1974)

Jürgen Dollase (guitar)
Harald Grosskopf (drums)
Manuel Göttsching (guitar)
Klaus Schulze (keyboards)
Gille Lettmann (vocals)
Dieter Dierks (mixing)

Rating: 3 Stars

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Cosmic Jokers - Planeten Sit-In (1974)

Jürgen Dollase (guitar)
Harald Grosskopf (drums)
Manuel Göttsching (guitar)
Klaus Schulze (keyboards)
Gille Lettmann (vocals)
Dieter Dierks (mixing)

Rating: 2 Stars

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Cosmic Jokers - Sci Fi Party (1974)

Jürgen Dollase (guitar)
Harald Grosskopf (drums)
Manuel Göttsching (guitar)
Klaus Schulze (keyboards)
Gille Lettmann (vocals)
Dieter Dierks (mixing)

Rating: 2 Stars

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Cosmic Jokers - Gilles Zeitschiff (1974)

Jürgen Dollase (guitar)
Harald Grosskopf (drums)
Manuel Göttsching (guitar)
Klaus Schulze (keyboards)
Gille Lettmann (vocals)
Dieter Dierks (mixing)
and various other artists.

Rating: 1 Star

This is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's a sampler that contains various tracks from the previous Cosmic Jokers albums, Ash Ra Tempel's third album "Seven Up" and Walter Wegmüller's "Tarot". I have nothing against samplers in principle, but the songs are mixed together into two long tracks and have Gille Lettmann talking over them, making banal comments about how everything is so beautiful, so cosmic, etc. Music like this makes me wish I had a zero star rating.