Search - Klaus Schulze :: Mirage

Cold, terrifying and yet, ever so beautiful

Rykre | Carson City, Nevada | 02/02/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"1977 was a busy year for Klaus Schulze. I know he's been touring constantly, as he always does, but he sure spent a lot of time in the recording studio. He must of have a whirlwind of ideas in his head because he was so inventive for new sounds back then.



He did two albums for a porn movie called "Body Love". I'm sure that's something to be proud of, and I can understand it too. Believe it or not, Klaus Schulze's music is great background music for large living room orgies. In fact, try "Timewind" when you plan a big get together with your friends and spouses.



But his most cherishable work he's done in 1977 was this album called "Mirage". All of Klaus Schulze's earlier albums offer a dark and moody soundscape but this album can actually make you feel cold and desolate. The mental picture I get with this music when I close my eyes is a blinding white visual instead of the opposite, the warmth of darkness.



I've only learned of this album about 3 years ago. I had no idea it was going to be as good as it is. The appeal of Klaus Schulze albums are a series of "hits and misses" for me. My favorite albums of his are "Irrlicht", "Cyborg", "Timewind", "Dig It", and of course, this album.



"Picture Music" doesn't do much for me. Nor does "Moondawn". And of course, everything he's done during the eighties and beyond just seems way to simplistic and modern day electronic. Lots of artists were doing music like his, so he was no longer the innovator of dark ambient music that he once was. Somehow, the analog approach to sound was just so much more appealing back in the seventies. This happened to Tangerine Dream too. Their albums "Alpha Centauri", "Green Desert", "Phaedra", "Rubycon", "Encore", "Force Majeure", "Logos", "Hyperborea" and "White Eagle" all had these great album long, dark and moody, instrumentation that we Klaus Schulze fans have come to expect from these innovators. It's seems like electronic instrumentation just lost its unique appeal once everybody started using it.



If you like Klaus Schulze, then please check out Jean Michel Jarre. Start with his first three albums starting in 1976 with "Oxygene", then "Equinoxe" and then "Magnetic Fields". "Chronolgie" (from 1992) is pretty good too.

"

Stunningly beautiful

Thomas D. Gulch | Pennsauken, New Jersey United States | 10/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When I first heard this it profoundly affected me.The pure, blue, cold crystalline purity of this movement,is perfect in every way - the timbres, the ambience, the seemingly infinite scope of this music, all these make this cd mesmerising. This was the absolute peak of his career,

the closest Schulze ever got to this perfect place again, was with the

double CD X. Klaus is the absolute undisputed master of Berlin Electronic

Music and music like this is the reason. a masterpiece."