Ulrich Schnauss, Classic or Dud?

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.

I was just listening to this via the Realplayer BBC link, and Shine started up with this lovely little gamelan style intro, and I thought "hey, what an unusual and interesting departure". Then this guy with a boring voice started singing over the top, then the gamelan faded and the standard Schnaussisms started up and I was disappointed.

Then I realised the gamelan was from iTunes which had been playing in the background... :( or maybe :)

It's sounded really good whenever I've played bits of ASIP (On My Own in particular, and Medusa too, I suspect) in clubs.

His two best songs, and the direction I sincerely hope he goes in. You have no idea how much I want this kind of sound and production in dance music.

You have no idea how much I want gamelan sound and production in dance music.

that would also be good, maybe we should collaborate

Ok let me first go on a five year fully immersive retreat to Indonesia in order to truly understand my source material.

after which time you will have renounced all cultural 'entertainment', very sneaky. take a portable disco, however, and you have my blessing.

I don't understand why people find Ulrich's stuff boring ;_;

I've been listening to "Goodbye" a lot since it came out and it is just gorgeous. "Shine" is just so uplifting and beautiful, like Slowdive, like taking off in a plane, like a high.

Because he more or less has a one-trick-pony thing going on. It's a good one, but I can see how it'd get predictable.

Which is why tracks like 'Medusa' are his best, because they take his one trick and add unexpected curveballs to it. I sincerely hope he takes his music into a more dance-oriented format now. Either that, or he goes all progressive on us. :-D

I think "Stars" is the best thing he's done so far, it's the perfection of his current formula & takes it to a new level of intensity. But I dunno if I'd be quite satisfied with another album of sugar-crystal drum machines and all-consuming synth washes and predictable dynamics. Dude has a great ear, so hopefully he'll move onto something different next album and it'll be fantastic.

If he goes too far in that Kraftwerky Medusa direction I am not so sure I'd like it. But who's to say.

listening to this album loud on fancy speakers is pretty amazing. it has so much depth! bits of lush, xymox, vangelis floating up and receding... i absolutely love it.

I'm still angry that the title-track "Goodbye" kicks off with just about the most killer chord-progression imaginable, keeps it up for two or three minutes, but then devolves into crass, substanceless emotional manipulation during the outro. He could have done so much more with that track.

Medusa (album version) might, objectively, be the song of 2007, even though I have a couple of personal preferences above it. It's absolutely unfuckable-with.

No such thing as objectivity, dude.

Dammit you have a point. There's a meaning I'm searching for. This song, then, appeals to me as a construction, as a work of art, more than any other, even if I get a bigger personal reaction out of a few others.

Formalist!

"the formalist Geir"

Well, riffing on a certain theme has done certain posters no harm. You're compression, Geir's melody, I can be formalism! Not that I really want to be squeezed into a box but hey, what can you do?

"Stars" is properly awesome, yeah!

Medusa>>On My Own>>Clear Day>>Stars>>the rest of ASIP>>the rest of Goodbye