The best CD ever!!
07/20/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I think this is a masterpiece. A dark joy behind the mist. You have to get this CD"
Klaus Schulze expands his horizons!!
Louie Bourland | Garden Grove CA | 05/13/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"1974's "Blackdance" is Klaus Schulze's third or fourth album depending on which was you look at it. "Picture Music" was recorded first but was released after "Blackdance" for contractual reasons.
With this album, Klaus expands his musical horizons abundantly. Besides his usual array of synthesizers and organs, Klaus shows off his versatility on 12-string acoustic guitar, trumpet, piano and percussion instruments. This gives "Blackdance" a more varied sound than previous albums but still provokes the same dark atmosphere as heard on "Irrlicht" and "Cyborg".
The opening track "Ways of Changes" begins with a quiet organ intro followed by a quiet 12-string guitar. This shifts into the main section of the piece consisting of a fast-paced rhythm box pattern accompanied by congas, organ and spaced-out synth oscilations.
The next track, "Some Velvet Phasing", is a lush orchestrated piece much like "Synphara" from the "Cyborg" album but with less emphasis on weirdness. It is quite possible that an orchestra was used on this track although it's not credited on the cover. The strings almost sound like a mellotron. This is a very peaceful track with a lullaby-like quality to it.
The closing piece, "Voices of Syn", is a long epic which opens with an opera singer. Klaus sets up the mood for the piece while the singer does his thing out front. Another primitive rhythmbox pattern enters as the vocals fade out and this carries the piece the rest of the way. The majority of this piece sounds like an improvised jam as opposed to a fully realized piece of music. Klaus is heard mostly jamming on his electric organ with the drum machine. It does get rather tedious after awhile but it still is an amazing listen.
"Blackdance" appears to be a bit more low-key than titles like "Irrlicht", "Cyborg" or even his later works like "Timewind" or "Moondawn". This is not his greatest album but it is still quite good and innovative. It's worth checking out."
Schulze delivers yet another fine album
BENJAMIN MILER | Veneta, Oregon | 09/13/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Blackdance was offically Schulze's first album for Brain (Picture Music, allegedly recorded in 1973 - although that sounds a bit fishy to my ears - was not released until the beginning of 1975). Schulze moved to Brain from Kosmische Musik (formerly Ohr) because of the Cosmic Jokers albums. The Cosmic Jokers were basically Schulze with members of Ash Ra Tempel and Wallenstein (Manuel Göttsching, Dieter Dierks, Jürgen Dollase, Harald Großkopf) doing late-night jam sessions in which Rolf Ulrich Kaiser (head of Kosmische Musik) released those albums behind everyone's back, and did not pay royalties. That caused lawsuits against Kaiser, which drove him out of Germany and Kosmische Musik to go under. That gave Schulze a chance to move to a more reputable label, and he started recording for Brain. Blackdance sound to me like a continuation of Cyborg, although the music is now tighter, and not going for as far off the deep-end experiments like he did on Cyborg. Pretty much he still stuck with the Farfisa Organ and EMS Synthi "A", but there are a few surprises. For example, the opening cut, "Ways of Changes" features the rare time you hear acoustic guitar on a Schulze album! Mainly this is an extended piece consisting of percussion and lengthy synth and organ drones. Somewhere you also hear some spacy electronic effects. "Some Velvet Phasing" is a nice spacy piece where Schulze experiments with phasing, hence the song title (of course, the song title is a pun on "Some Velvet Morning", as in the Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood song, of course "Some Velvet Phasing" hardly resembles that song, as it sound as you expect Schulze to be doing in the early '70s). The final cut is the side-length "Voices of Syn". I really loved how this piece opens up with this spooky voice with Schulze's droning organ. After that it's mainly lengthy droning organs and synths. Blackdance is Schulze's last album like this, before he started purchasing many more synthesizers and going for straight-up electronic music. Another great album from him."
Track Listings (3) - Disc #1