Klaus Schulze: Aphrica (1984)

Klaus Schulze - Aphrica

Track Listing:

1.	Aphrodite	19:40
2.	Brothers and Sisters	12:20
3.	Africa	06:50

Notes:
(1) Rainer Bloss plays keyboards.
(2) Ernst Fuchs sings.

Rating: 1 Star

Here we have a problem with the numbering of Klaus Schulze's albums. In the biography section of Klaus Schulze's official web site it's listed as his 18th album. I'm including it here as a snapshot, because this information was moved from a prominent position on a former version of the web site to a sub-sub-page, and it might be removed from the site altogether.

KDM has removed "Aphrica" from the Klaus Schulze canon, having relegated it to the category of a "collaboration with other artists". It's the only one of Klaus Schulze's early albums that I didn't buy on LP. It was gone from the shops before I heard about it. According to KDM, "It was immediately taken off the market and off the catalogue. It will never be released again". I bought it a few years later on an unofficial CD, and I was dumbfounded. How could anything made by Klaus possibly be so bad?

These are KDM's thoughts on "Aphrica", quoted from the official web site:

The reason why the album "Aphrica" was taken off the market in 1984 had mainly simple legal reasons. It was Ernst Fuchs who asked the record company to stop it. Accidentally I was present when this phone call from Fuchs' lawyer came in, and I advised the Inteam office worker immediately: "Do it!" Because Inteam had forgotten to make a contract with Mr Fuchs.

Besides, it's an awful album, just because of that silly singing or recitation. Fuchs tries to be serious, but he's only involuntarily funny. In Germany we have the word "peinlich" for it. The best that could happen was this telephone call from Fuchs' lawyer who asked to stop it. Maybe he's a music lover? I don't know anyone (except for one fan from California) who likes the "singing" of this famous painter, especially side 2 of the LP is a bummer.

Shortly after the recording, Mr Fuchs told in a German TV talkshow that he did an LP, that the album is 100% his music, that he did the whole electronic music, yes. And good natured Klaus Schulze was even so kind to make and to give him a playback tape for that TV show, and indeed Fuchs used this Schulze/Bloss tape in the show. Although I liked Fuchs very much as a painter and artist before, all my respect is gone since then. Sadly, there are no recordings of that specific work without the singing.

Today was the first time I've listened to the CD for 20 years. It was every bit as bad as I remembered it. The music on the first side (track one) is passable, but it's ruined by the vocal chants. The music on the second side is almost as bad as the chants, with random tinkering on the keyboards, presumably by Rainer Bloss. It was so difficult to listen to that I watched a YouTube video of Darlene Sid twerking, without sound, while it was playing. That made the CD enjoyable.

When the CD was over I carried on watching Darlene Sid twerking, and it was even better.