Ulrich Schnauss, Classic or Dud?

For all the greatness that his current work is -- Herr Schnauss likely ain't hit his zenith yet -- his early work is its yang of yawn. A Schaussophile pal gave me a ton of early rips and boots and I dunno whatall, but it's just kinda formulaic as far as my ears have a say innit. I guess I'm bound to be castigated for saying that by folks who know a lot more about EM than myself, but eh.

Sorry to check some of the posters further up this thread, but how can you dislike this stuff (A Strangely Isolated Place)? There's no way this is anything other than utterly brilliant. EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SONG. I can't decide which one to put on a compilation for my friend, although it's been narrowed down to 'On My Own', 'Letter From Home' or 'Clear Day'.

Early days yet, but this might be top 5 for the decade so far.

I will have to second that the new album is a total fucking mind-blower. It gets a little too MBV sometimes, but seriously it is just owning me. Warm fuzzies all day long.

I put up an MP3 at PTW: http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=846

It gets a little too MBV sometimes

You're fired.

That said, I think me now looking for the new MBV would be like me looking for 'the new Tolkien' or whatever.

If it's a literary masterpiece you're after, you could do worse than reading/re-reading Tristram Shandy. Meanwhile, Ulrich Schnauss, whilst not a master of the crossed-wires feedback storm like Shields (a method that has perhaps a more mysterious, subliminal effect upon the listener), is approximating the dream-pop ideal in a more convincing manner than almost anyone I've ever heard. It mines a different, less kinetic/dancy seam to WFANFC, for instance, but Schnauss' music uses its extended length to reach and then sustain ever-higher plateaux of micro-managed sonic bliss.

Underwhelmed by the new one - just more of the same, and I think two was enough for me. The vocals don't add enough, in fact there's something about the tone and the processing that makes them sound really insipid.

The "Little 15" mix might be my favourite thing of his.

Louis to what extent do you think that the music that most transports you to plateaux of sonic bliss conforms to a certain style - not genre, but at a lower level. Do you think there might be certain styles of melody or chord progression, say, that intrinsically appeal to you? That there might be other bands engaged in micro-management and all the other things that you're after, but who are working with melodic forms that don't push your buttons?

Now THAT'S an interesting question.

ok i'll give it its own thread...

First, to answer your question re: Schnauss,

Ledge, I really do think there might be certain ways of progressing chord structure that appeal to me more than others. The confluence of different chords atop one another is even more interesting; this is what Schnauss does brilliantly. Differently melodic and textural synth lines create sonic richness, and this sonic richness is progressed in a very satisfying manner; the progressions and flow often pertain to a major/minor/suspended chord confusion (there's a method to it I'm sure, but one I can't describe), and this emotional fragility is, I find, highly stimulating for the responsive mind. There might well be other bands engaged in micro-management whose concerns are more rhythmical or minimalist, whom I might like less, but I'd need to hear more. You say you're an Autechre fanboy; they're an act I'd really like to check out.

WHO MAKES THE NAZIS?

The "Little 15" mix might be my favourite thing of his.

^^ I like it a lot too, mostly because the "Little 15" instrumentation is probably the weakest spot on Music for the Masses and Ulrich's mix makes it fantastic. I wouldn't call it my favorite thing he's done, though.

I have a really hard time describing his music in terms of emotion. He doesn't do many songs that I feel like I can describe with emotional adjectives. Words like "pretty" even "beautiful" come to mind, but only a few of his tracks get described as "sad" or "joyful".

His music brings to mind sort of a druggy breaking-free-of. I wouldn't call it happy (A Strangely Isolated Place is vaguely a concept record about a breakup and descent into loneliness/ascent to freedom innit), but it does seem like the music itself is a soundtrack to looking around and noticing beauty around you (not to get all LJ about the matter) even if it's not explicitly joyous or emotional. I hesitate to say it's "spiritual" because it's pretty well grounded in convention wrt pop beats/harmonies; there's no real mind-bending going on that I feel happens (intentionally or unintentionally) with certain IDM artists. It's just nice fuzzy warm electronic waves with lots of layers and space.

It's more than that, Curtis! I find it to be at its best when at its densest, an integrating set of disparate textural layers which interweave and augment simple harmonic patterns with polyphony and minor diminished fifths.

Also, in all seriousness, I find it to be pretty psychedelic and affecting, although it must be said, I DID receive the album twenty minutes after breaking up w/girlfriend, so the themes you deem as being present were particularly evocative for me.

Curt1s OTM, esp about it being a druggy breaking-free-of. I find I most get deep into the mindset of this music when I'm stoned, tbh; the layers and the chord changes and the rising and falling, it is like being carried in waves or something. I get a real emotional response from it too, but thats more because of who I am as a person and what *gives* me an emotional response to begin with.

Is the new album out yet? I wasn't sure I liked "Stars" as much as his earlier stuff, and I want to hear the rest.

It took me a LOT of listens, but I've noticed that the methods employed on just about every single track of 'ASIP' aspire towards an identical end. The one (partial) exception, the final track, is (surprisingly) my least favourite. Every song begins with a certain, anticipatory musical pattern, which is then usurped in the 'chorus' by a revelatory, orgasmic one. The music then shifts between the two states before finding terminal bliss in a gorgeous outro that combines both elements. Normally, I'd hate such lack of ideological variation, but Schnauss pulls it off incredibly, every single bloody time. It's a very, very effective musical trick. Trayce's point about 'waves' is very appropriate; each new plateau of musical bliss laps beautifully and seamlessly over the old one. Now, should I applaud the use of this trick, or should I feel angry at having been 'duped'? Well, when it comes down to it, I'll just stick 'On My Own' on again. I mean, that song is inescapably brilliant. Should have been a massive, massive club hit. Wasn't.

WHy would you feel duped by it? He does something that resonates beautifully if you like that kind of thing (and I sure as hell do). "On my Own" stands er... on its own, as it were, by dint of being not at all shoegazy, but yeah I love it too.

I'm saying I could feel duped, but I don't, because the quality of the music is so good, and the method is so desirable. It resonates amazingly; I've found it quite difficult to listen to anything else recently because Schnauss has single-handedly turned me into an electro-shoegaze audio junkie. I just...want...more!

On Your Own has some VERY blatant shoegaze derivations. The distorted vocals during the verse! I mean, come ON! The pre-chorus! Above all, the chorus itself, with those high wavering synth tones creating merry havoc in the background! I'll admit that some of the other tracks are probably purer in their shoegazeness (Clear Day is MBV reincarnate), but you can't say that OYO isn't 'at all shoegazey'.

clear day reminds me of seefeel, a kind of driving in a snowstorm song, which i guess eventually leads back to MBV but like schnauss, seefeel clearly bring something else to the table which endures, as demonstrated by the recently rereleased and splendid quique.

i still hear more mark van hoen and global communication on ASIP than MBV, also stuff like the first spacetime continuum album (sea biscuit), but the new album has moments that seem to channel the shimmery guitar you'd hear in early lush records and it works great.

quicksand memory is out now, and apparently the leaked mp3s of goodbye were taken from a version that had more compression than schnauss wanted so the actual CD won't sound the same.

The discussion at the start of this thread is the most interesting, in retrospect, so I'm glad f.hazel and others are bringing it back to something more grounded in electronic roots because frankly I'm getting bored with the Cocteau/MBV invocations. Global Communication is a more deft comparison than I'd guessed. (No, I have not heard anything off the new one yet.)

and apparently the leaked mp3s of goodbye were taken from a version that had more compression than schnauss wanted so the actual CD won't sound the same.

Thank god, cos the version of "Stars" Ive heard is horribly amped up and trebly.

ASIP is too loud; it clips, which is fucking criminal in a minor-interest artist whose focus is sound.

Creative use of tinny noise: it is time.

'medusa' might be better than anything by any other shoegaze artist ever, and that includes MBV. it is next-level.

The new one's noticably quieter and better-mastered than Strangely Isolated Place. Hmmm.

'medusa' might be better than anything by any other shoegaze artist ever, and that includes MBV. it is next-level.

Word.

I wonder if this is on emusic, considering they took ASIP *off* emusic not long after I managed to snaffle it (for some weird reason - label I guess).

Whole album is freely downloadable on the BBC collective webpage. You have little idea of how happy this makes me (even if I am just listening to Medusa over and over again).

I mean, the song itself...it's got about 4 different killer hooks, incredible sound, electronic bleeps to die for, an amazing Orbital-esque organ noise, progression, build, and suspense, pianos, and something that resembles a heavily-treated guitar solo. Oh, and when the final section with the three-note keyboard fanfare breaks through, the emotional plane is warped 90 degrees into something not just foreboding but totally victorious.

HERE

Bugger, it isn't on emusic

xpost oooh. AWESOME! Thanks L!

Ah fuck, RAM files, I dont have the RM player. Grr.

download realplayer for systems thinking results, PLANK wmp cannot operate under PRESSURE

I doan wanna stream it though I want a copy! How to shot. Maybe is available at shops.

God the intarwebs have made me lazy. I'm all "oh god, do I have to go to a SHOP to buy this? I am already in my pyjamas!"

hahaha, i was looking through the new releases at work monday night and came across this! i forgot it was coming out! then i got pissed off because the manager wouldn't let me buy it after we closed because it was still before midnight. i had put aside the new album of nick drake demos too.

you know what medusa sounds like? CURVE!

how do i shot curve

No it doesn't. It's just a bit... "meh". It's nice, but it's not mind-blowing or earthshattering or anything.

And the rest of the album is kind of a let-down by comparison.

oh like you don't wish every night that ulrich schnauss will do a remix of die like a dog or ten little girls.

both of you!

Curve eh? Hmmm.

i like how medusa has the echo-y choir at the end, it will make it easy to segue into the clientele on my super awesome mix tape.

i want ulrich schnauss to remix 'so' by working for a nuclear free city

Some of the tones he uses reminds me of soap opera theme songs from the 80s or something.

I don't see how anyone could get super passionate about his older work. I liked Between Us and Them from Far Away Trains, but most of his stuff seems like futuristic elevator music. There's no teeth.

I first found out about Ulrich Schnauss on boomkat, I believe, and the reviewer had such an orgasm over this album that I had no choice but to seek it out. On paper Ulrich Schnauss is right up my alley, so when I finally tracked down ASIP and sonically it sounded close enough to how it was described, I think I forced myself to be more passionate about it than I really was. Plus I liked the idea of being a fan of something obscure and German :) But what folks above have been said about it being elevator music is probably what I've felt to a degree since the beginning. I think it'd be a perfect choice for music to play during a slideshow at a wedding or reunion or something, though.

I could see that might be true of the first album, but ASIP and the new one work so well when cranked up. It's music that's 'designed' to be played really loud, I think. It's sounded really good whenever I've played bits of ASIP (On My Own in particular, and Medusa too, I suspect) in clubs.

You people.

You love it.

Actually I've been thinking about shoegaze and electronic variants in general lately and for me the form isn't about surprise but comfort food. As a result it's not going to give me anything revelatory anytime soon -- hoping for 'the new MBV' in my brain is a bit like an earlier version of me hoping for 'the new Tolkien.' Ain't gonna happen, both because of the specific circumstances of its creation and also how my own interests and foci have shifted. Perhaps extending the cooking metaphor a bit but the creation of a really good dish (for instance a new tomato soup recipe I tried last night) has more of an immediate emotional hold on my brain right now than chasing after another sonic revelation, partially because there's more room for honest surprise. (On this level I'm kinda glad for my piece on Loveless in Marooned in that it is a good summation of things for now, not a final word per se but I don't think I need to actively consider a lot of what's talked in there at present -- the future may yet bring a reconsideration, but Schnauss isn't the one to do it for me anymore than M83 was.)

Everything I though that Ulrich Schnauss was gonna be and wasn't, A Sunny Day In Glasgow turned out to be.

It's weird that. People describe bands to me, and I get this idea in my head of what they should sound like, and then they just don't. And then a few years later, another band comes along that sounds just like that mental picture in my head.