Klaus Schulze: La Vie Electronique 13 (2013)

La Vie Electronique 13  (1993 to 1994)

Track Listing (CD 1):

1.

Machine de Plaisir

78:32

1993

Track Listing (CD 2):

1.	Tag des Offenen Denkmals	00:30	1993
2.	Himmel und Erde (Remix)	07:07	1993
3.	Vas Insigne Electionis	09:47	1993
4.	Arthur Stanley Jefferson	56:56	1993

Track Listing (CD 3):

1.

Borrowed Time

77:12

1994

Rating: 4½ Stars

This album contains only studio recordings.

"Machine de plaisir" is a very pompous track. Maybe too pompous.

The surprisingly short track "Tag des Offenen Denkmals" was the music used in a trailer for a television documentary. I was curious who Arthur Stanley Jefferson is, so I checked. The Internet knows everything. It's the real name of Stan Laurel. This is also the best track on the album. In fact, it's his best musical biography since "X".

My rating of four and a half stars is the average of four stars for "Machine de plaisir" and five stars for the rest.

The liner notes for LVE 13 are an article by KDM (Klaus Dieter Müller) from his monthly magazine, the KS Circle, in 1999.

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La Vie Electronique 13 Liner Notes

I read in a magazine: "The impact of movies is invariably linked to the progress of the prevailing cinematographic technology". This is quite true. It also applies similarly to music, particularly in the 20th century where musico-technological progress has been stronger than in the past. Previous to this, I can only think of the pianoforte and the saxophone as true newcomers.

 

The music of the 20th Century has profited from a number of important technical innovations, and most musicians of this era have gladly embraced every useful one. Needless to say, KS has always fought on the front lines for the acceptance of useful new musical ideas. Of course, there will always be those stick-in-the-muds who live their lives in the past, finding fault with his striving, claiming that the music he produces is only good and new because it is supported by the latest hardware, or some such gossip. Oh well.....

Chronology: The 1920's and 1930's saw the introduction of a variety of novel instruments from the Trautonium to the Theremin, and other instruments (with a similar aura and success like the Musical Saw for example). The mid-30's saw the introduction of the electric guitar, an innovation which paraded in a triumphal procession through the following four decades. Think of the Hammond organ (introduced 1934/35, actively used into the 60s but used primarily in the movie houses of the 30's and 40's), magnetic tape recorders (introduced in the mid-40's and actively used more than 50 years later, until the digital revolution), and the associated multichannel recording technique (although the Beatles recorded the Sgt. Pepper album with a grand total of 3 tracks). At the end of the 1960's came the revolution of complete sound-synthesis: first synthesizers, and shortly thereafter drum machines (the first chip memory), and then MIDI and samplers. Finally, the use of computers and complete digitalization brings us to the present.

Indeed, as remarked by Steve Reich, an age of folk music has come about once again; many kids are tinkering with their home computers and software to produce their own modern music. I'm still not sure whether this is easier than actually learning how to play the trumpet, flute, piano or guitar, but whatever the case may be, it's happening, it's today's pop music. 

Parallel to these developments, it must also be noted that there's a retro movement afoot that consciously employs the first useable synthesizers of the 1970's, and even considers these machines historical. Perhaps this makes a trumpet or an electric guitar prehistorical. As with many old things, like the LP, these antique synthesizers are often surrounded by a mysterious aura which completely belies reality. As amusing as all of this is, it does seem a bit dogmatic.

I knew then and I still remember how KS worked in the 1970's. After all, I was there. I assembled and disassembled his hardware at home and at concerts, including all of the associated cables. I even fixed the stuff when needed (my specialty was a good swift kick in the appropriate spot, which usually helped). But during the 1980's, the technology became a little more nebulous for me. As is evident from photos of this era, Klaus had acquired quite a mountain of hardware. It was the chaotic transitional period from analog to digital. The manufacturers were still messing around trying this and that, throwing all kinds of new machines onto the market, since they were unsure what the future held. A few multifunction effects machines were available (I remember the Publison Infernal Machine) at astronomical prices (starting at $ 7000). Today such machines don't cost much more than the average video recorder or a better CD player.

 

And then there were the first computerised synthesizers. These were programmable boxes that came with a keyboard, usually had 8 tracks or channels, and also functioned as a mixer. Klaus' G.D.S. very quickly achieved dinosaur status, along with many others of this sort like the Fairlight. 

There were rhythm machines that were far more complicated to program than a video recorder of that era, and that's saying something! But the resulting music produced by these machines and the added effects were still mixed down using a multichannel mixing board and were recorded on a conventional 8, 16, or 24 channel recorder. After a short intermediate period in which video recorders were used as digital audio recorders (PCM), the Digital Audio Tape (DAT) format was introduced. DAT cassettes and DAT recorders and players function like a conventional cassette player, but record and play back using digital video recorder technology. In other words, they do not employ fixed heads, but rather use a head attached to a rapidly rapidly rotating cylinder which scans the tape in long diagonal slashes. This digital technology was soon available in an 8-track DAT version that rapidly became the standard in small and medium-sized studios. It was also possible to couple two or more 8-track DATs together, and besides, they were much smaller than the conventional multitrack tape machines.

Computers, first the Commodores and Ataris, then also the Macintoshes and PCs, could be found in more and more homes. For quite some time, the best musical software was available only for the Atari, and KS worked exclusively using this machine for a long time, right up until about the mid-1990's. Unfortunately, the tiny 12" monitor got on his nerves, but it was not possible to get a larger one. It was with heavy heart that Klaus was finally forced to switch. Unfortunately, really good music software was still not available for the PC (which dominates about 90% of the market here in Germany), but only for the Macintosh, which is not widely available here. But at last Klaus could have larger monitors: 17", 19" and then even 21". He still uses the small old Atari for his stage shows, primarily to control some of the rhythm sections.

The hard drive in Klaus' first Mac crashed catastrophically in early 1997, taking a few weeks work with it. I reported this in the Circle at that time. Today, Klaus uses the big G3 Apple Macintosh to run Steinberg software (Cubase) and Logic 4.0 by Emagic. Klaus still replaces and renews the computers and software regularly. 

(KDM, summer 1999)