La Vie Electronique 15 (1997 to 1999)
Track Listing (CD 1):
| 1. | Nuff Said | 79:06 | 1997 |
Track Listing (CD 2):
| 1. | L'Opera Aperta | 49:43 | 1998 Live |
| 2. | La Tolleranza | 15:24 | 1998 Live |
| 3. | Time goes by | 12:22 | 1999 |
Track Listing (CD 3):
| 1. | Cum Cello Spiritu | 26:40 | 1999 |
| 2. | Cellingua | 27:40 | 1999 |
| 3. | Cello Cum Laude | 24:18 | 1999 |
Notes: Wolfgang Tiepold plays cello on all tracks on the third CD.
Rating: 4½ Stars
"L'Opera Arerta" and "La Tolleranza" were recorded at a concert in Bologna,
Italy on 15th December 1998.
"Nuff Said" is a magnificent piece of music, despite random words spoken late
in the piece. This is something that would be typical for Karlheinz
Stockhausen, whose influence Klaus fervently denies. Does the track's title
mean that Klaus is a Stan Lee fan? Maybe not, but I like to think of all my
heroes together in a group.
"L'Opera Aperta" begins slowly, but after the first 15 minutes it develops
into a powerful piece of music. "La Tolleranza" starts at a faster pace which
it maintains throughout. There's little to say about "Time goes by", except
that it's a perfect Schulze track.
The three tracks on the third CD are edited together into a single piece of
music. I'm so happy that Wolfgang Tiepold has reunited with Klaus, 16 years
after AUDENTITY. His participation on Klaus Schulze's past solo albums was
subtle, but on these tracks he takes the lead. Klaus supplies the sequences,
while Wolfgang plays the melody. This CD stands out from all of Klaus
Schulze's music. In a way it's different to his other music, but in another
way it's typical Schulze brilliance. The CD is an excellent piece of music
that I've already listened to many times over.
The liner notes contain a collection of questions answered by Klaus Schulze.
The questions are in a mix of English and German, so I took the liberty of
translating them all into English.
La Vie Electronique 15 Liner Notes
Q: Do you think there's a new electronic sound in Germany?
KS: Yes, I think so. But the power of electronic music isn't limited to a
country. It has its effect on people, so I believe this music can develop in
every country, not just Germany.
(radio interview after an Ash Ra Tempel concert, December 1970)
Q: Were things more difficult early on?
KS: I was often called an idiot because of my electronics, and so I had to run
from house to house on my own initiative. Then I slowly became popular in
France.
(1976)
Q: Computers?
KS: Anyone who's afraid of computers or even fights them will never
understand. Fear is no excuse for ignorance. We're in the computer age, it's
useless to fight against these tools, we have to use them . The era of
analogue wheelchair electronics is over.
(September 1980)
Q: What's the most important thing for you in IC (Innovative Communication)?
KS: It has to be fun. If it stops being fun for me I'll give Müller (KDM) the
whole business and leave. That's for sure.
(1981)
Q: A question about IRRLICHT. What are the E-Machines that are mentioned in
the title?
KS: By that I mean everything such as the echo chambers, microphones, the echo
mixer and my Fender guitar amplifier. I connected it to my mixer , and then I
sent the output from the amplifier into another microchannel of the same
mixer. If I turned up the volume the thing began to whistle terribly with
feedback. But if I turned the Tremolo button on the Fender it began to
modulate. That's how I made the twittering sounds, which I later created with
the VCS3 of the EMS. When the record was finished, the thing was already
broken. And then I had my Teisco organ, which had a pitsch wheel. Apart from
that, I opened it up and changed the cable connections of the oscillators. I
didn't understand the technology, but it sounded different, and I liked it.
(March 1993)
Q: What are your interests outside music?
KS: Is there something outside music?
(September 1993)
Q: Your music is built around rhythmical structures and sound patterns more
than melodies. Is this due to the fact that you aren't a keyboard player by
origin?
KS: You're right. I started as a drummer. I'm still not a keyboard player. In
comparison with Oscar Peterson and Svjatoslav Richter I'm an amateur. My craft
is not playing the keyboard, but finding and combining sounds, building and
using the structure to create emotions with sounds.
(1994)
Q: Was the mythical Karlheinz Stockhausen influential to you?
KS: When I started 25 years ago with wild and weird sounds in the Berlin
underground, we all listened to Pink Floyd, to some American West Coast bands,
and of course to Jimi Hendrix but not to any dry, serious German theoretic
composers. An Italian friend recently told me there are many journalists who
don't know much about a certain new music, but they write about it. These
people always mention "Stockhausen" as kind of code for a music they neither
understand nor like. (November 1994)
Q: Do you listen to or like Techno, Ambient, Hip Hop, etc?
KS: I feel closer to a singer like Willie Nelson, to a guitar picker like J.J.
Cale, or to a violin player like Izak Perlman, and of course to men like
Mozart and Wagner, than to any of the genres that you mention.
(November 1994)
Q. During the course of time, how have you changed as a composer?
KS: Of course I've changed over the years, since I do solo albums. Just listen
to my older and my newer music, there is a development. In each era everything
is different: me, my instruments, the audience, the circumstances, the
fashions. It's a normal thing that an artist grows and changes; at least, it
should be.
(January 1996)
Q: How do you view the current new music/electronic music scene, and which
direction it will go in the next ten years?
KS: Most of today's music is wholly or in parts "electronic". There is nothing
sensational any more with "electronic" as it was when I started to play this
crazy new music. I remember that I had more than once to answer the question
of journalists: "What is a synthesizer?" Many people laughed then, and thought
that this new tool would never be successful. I can only say that I don't know
too much about the "current new music/electronic music scene", as 1 don't know
much about any music scene. In my humble opinion, the recent
Techno/Trance/Ambient fashion brings some fresh air. But, oh my God, how
should I know what will be in ten years from now?
(January 1996)
Q: Is there anything else you want to add?
KS: I did my music when "electronics", "synthesizer", "computers", "trance"
and "techno" didn't exist and weren't fashionable, and I will still do it when
the recent vogue is gone. At last, my music is now accepted by a new
generation which does not have the prejudice of their parents; these kids grew
up with electronic music of all sorts. It's normal that listeners, artists and
journalists look for the roots of this music. And what do they see? Kraftwerk,
Tangerine Dream and me. We are indeed the only few who did our modern music
consistently very early on, with exotic electronic equipment, against a lot of
opposition and laughter, but with no compromise. We paved the way, if I may
say so.
(January 1996)
Q: As your solo career went on, did you feel as if you were experimenting on
your own or as part of a movement? If so, was it a rock, or classical, or what
other kind of movement, involving which musicians?
KS: Movement? I was my own movement. I was pretty much alone. When you listen
to my albums, you'll quickly notice, that I play neither rock nor classical
music. This doesn't make my artistic life any easier. Most people prefer what
they already know.
(October 1996)
Q: TIMEWIND was dedicated to Richard Wagner. Was he an influence on you?
KS: I dig Wagner, but I also dig J. J. Cale.
(April 1997)
Q: It's been suggested that John Cage, Terry Riley and Karlheinz Stockhausen
influenced your work. Is this fair?
KS: Fair? Neither fair nor unfair. Better words would be nonsense, absurd,
false. Every time a journalist cannot cope with a certain type of music he
mentions "Stockhausen" as a kind of synonym. Have you ever checked
Stockhausen's output? About five of his compositions could be called
electronic, and they were done 30 to 40 years ago, made with an oscillator or
something like that. He did over a hundred other compositions that have no
relation whatsoever to electronic music.
(April 1997)
Q: There are also harsher forms of electronic music. Have you heard such music
and do you like it?
KS: I prefer beauty. I always have. Of course I also use brutal or unpleasant
sounds sometimes, but only to show the variety. I use it for musical contrast
in a composition. Beauty is beautiful only because there is ugliness. Beauty
is more beautiful to a listener if I also show him the ugliness that exists. I
use it as part of the drama of a composition. But I'm not interested in music
that shows only ugliness. Also I believe that ugliness in music is more easy
to achieve than - excuse the expression - "real music". What happened to harsh
music such as Punk? First it was a revolt, then a fashion, and now it's
old-fashioned.
(September 1997)
Q: Do you have images in your mind while playing?
KS: No, I don't have images in mind when I play my music. Not in the studio
and not during a concert. I know that this happens with some listeners, at
least with those who've told us, but not with me when I actually do the music.
(September 1997)
Q: It is curious to see that you do not listen to electronic musicians
nowadays, but you listen to pop, rock or classical.
KS: Yes, but please understand that I do not sit the whole day in my room and
listen carefully to pop, rock or classical music. No, I don't. It's just
because you asked me about this trivial thing and I wanted to be polite and to
give an honest answer. If I listen, sometimes, then I listen to the normal pop
or rock or classical music that comes from the radio. I hope I could make this
clear. And if I listen to some modern pop music, it's the quality of the sound
that interests me, sometimes, but not so much the song or a new musical
fashion.
(June 1998)
Q: I mean, music is an universal language. Many artists transmit feelings with
it, they actually want to say something.
KS: Legends, myths and silly stories are easier to understand than all the
words about the structure of a piece of music, about its roots and relations,
about the technical side of composing, playing and recording it, and all the
other many little and bigger musical things, which most people don't know a
thing about, anyway. Back to "the artist wants to say something": The Wilhelm
Tell overture by Rossini was used many times in Hollywood cowboy movies, and
so we imagine galloping horses when listening to this overture. But Rossini
and Switzerland's Wilhelm Tell have nothing to do with cowboys, horses and
Hollywood. Or, take "Peer Gynt" by Grieg. Record covers of "Peer Gynt" show
mostly a cold winter landscape, and people hear it this way, as I also did for
a long time. But "Peer Gynt" opus 46 is mainly located in hot northern Africa!
This shows that you can put many different images on a pure and innocent piece
of music, especially with words and pictures about its meaning. But what music
can do on its own is just one thing: to show emotions. Just emotions. Sadness,
joy, silence, excitement, ttension. This is not something I must say many
words about, because this is a universal language.
(June 1998)
Q: What's the difference between a hobby musician on his PC and a real
musician?
KS: The creative spark? Hard work? Courage? Experience? It's a matter of your
determination to really make music, not just at the weekend, not in a parallel
existence to your normal job. I decided early on to give up my studies and get
a job delivering letters or working at Aldi so I could make music. I never had
a day job or a career alongside my music. As far as creativity is concerned,
that all came about by itself. When I started I made different music to what I
do today. There's only one thing that's remained the same: the music's soul.
(April 2005)
Q: What inspires you as a musician?
KS: Sorry, this is the question that everybody has been asking me all my life,
and I still don't have an answer.
(October 2005)
Q: What are, in your opinion, the main attributes of the third millennium
artist in the context of the pop culture acquiring new dimensions as
digital-virtual culture?
KS: Sorry, I'm not a scientist, a historian, a philosopher or a prophet. I'm
just a musician. I find it remarkable that journalists think that an artist
must answer all kinds of questions which have nothing to do with what the
artist is doing, and that he should have answers and solutions for all
problems, happenings and fashions in the world, even about the future.
(October 2005)
Q: What do you connect with the words "Berlin School"?
KS: Lots of articles in music magazines.
(July 2007)
Q: What fascinates you about Wagner so much that you've made music as
Wahnfried?
KS: I like him. I like Richard, his music, the way he lived his life to the
extreme, and the way he did his own thing. His music also fascinates me with
its soundscapes and the chords which were revolutionary in their day.
(July 2007)
Q: What other musicians would you like to work with, and why?
KS: I tried to work with J. J. Cale, but he didn't want to. Seriously. I'm not
joking.
(July 2007)
Q: After the long series of rereleases of your albums the music of the
ULTIMATE EDITION is now going to be rereleased, a bit at a time. What is your
interest in this material?
KS: My friend and publisher Klaus Dieter Müller has selected everything. He
knows better than me. They're things that he's done for me. It was all
recorded over the years, and I have nothing more to do with it. If I want to
know anything about a particular time, I look it up in "The Works". It's
incredible how much work Müller has done. I'd forgotten most of it. I manage
to name my solo albums, but I'm often a year or two wrong.
(2008)
Q: You have said that you do not deliver a message in your music. But are
there other ideas that shape records like IRRLICHT, CYBORG and MOONDAWN? A
desire to transport the listener, perhaps?
KS: "Music is just notes. Whatever you speculate beyond that, is pure
nonsense". That's from Igor Stravinsky, and even if it's not always true it
has a great meaning. People often tend to read too much into music. They seem
to like this game much more than to learn some rules about music. It's easier,
but I won't judge if it's good or bad.
(February 2012)
Q: Today electronic music is everywhere, cheap and accessible. Not like in the
1970s! What were some of the practical difficulties?
KS: To get good equipment. And to get the money to pay for it. And to answer
journalists their question "What is a synthesizer?" And on concert venues
there was the problem that the sensitive new equipment needed a steady
temperature, which meant that it had to be connected to power and switched on
at least three hours before the concert. Sometimes this wasn't possible: I
remember the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, where Karajan and the Berlin
Philharmonics were still rehearsing on stage at 7 o'clock in the evening, and
our concert on that same stage was announced for 8 o'clock.
(February 2012)
Q: What are the characteristics of Klaus Schulze's fans all over the world,
culturally and demographically?
KS: I have no idea. But the question is interesting. After forty years it's
the first time that someone from the press has asked me this.
(April 2013)
Q: In a 1994 interview you said, "The way I present my music has been always
classical", and you pointed to the length and structure of a piece. Are your
shorter pieces considered interludes and your longer ones sonata or symphony?
Or by classical, do you mean a harmonic way in the start and then a harmonic
development of Baroque, classical and romantic music in the middle in your
very personal way? Or is this classical approach related to your orchestral
approach like what we see in Beethoven, Brahms or Wagner's symphonies?
KS: Don't take a sentence that I said once so many years ago as serious and
important. As said often before, I don't like to and I don't want to explain
my music.
(April 2013)
Q: What were your feelings when you realised your work, misunderstood and
neglected in its own time, would be so influential? Did you expect that?
KS: I didn't expect anything. I was young, I played and recorded my music, a
progressive label wanted it and released it, later another label, followed by
an international release. So, it was normal to me, from the very beginning,
that I could do my own music, and that some people wanted to buy it. In
addition, I did successful concert tours in the seventies, and finally I
earned enough to live from it for the rest of my life.
(2013)
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