A long time ago, Olaf Lux - founder of the "Deutsches Klaus Schulze Forum" and admin of the corresponding Facebook group (which at some point replaced the original forum) and now also author of an impressive biography of this esteemed pioneer of electronic music - well, he and I became close personal friends.
When Olaf had his first ideas for what later was to become his book "VIOLINS DON'T GROW ON TREES - The Life and Work of Klaus Schulze", I was one of a few people he talked it over with, and I had the privilige of witnessing this project grow over a period of more than five years from a close distance, often discussing aspects of the book with him, and - as far as I know - I was the only person to read the first complete version. The final versions (original German and an English translation) can be found here:
olaflux.bandcamp.com/merch
Finally in late 2019, when the publishing of the book was close, Olaf asked for my support and expertise as a graphical designer, which I was happy to provide.
Olaf was going to publish the book himself, and when we talked about possible platforms, it was me who suggested Bandcamp.
At first, Olaf was looking for something better - but in the end came back to the idea a couple of weeks later.
BC seemed like the best platform indeed - however, being a music platform in the first place, there needed to be some music, too, to make it work. I suggested to invite the (many!) musicians who are members of the "Deutsches Klaus Schulze Forum" to submit tracks for a group compilation. But for a couple of reasons, Olaf decided that this would be too complicated...
Instead - and just a few weeks ahead of the planned release day of the book - he asked me if I could provide "some music". I answered that it wasn't easy at such short notice, but I would give it a try. And so I did, recording two new studio tracks (Part 1 and Part 3) and drawing the rest from different recent "live in the studio" sessions.
The result was "Klaustrophilia" (the original version as released on Olaf's BC page, which also came as a free giveaway with the book).
olaflux.bandcamp.com/album/klaustrophilia
The book turned out to be quite a success within the (rather small) scene of Schulze fans (and Berlin School listeners in general).
And there were also a few people who praised the music that came with it, which of course was a nice thing in terms of promotion for me (the album being a free giveaway to the buyers of the book, I didn't actually earn a lot, even though there were a few listeners who even bought the album *without* the book...).
Since it's original release in early November 2020, there was a number of listeners who asked me if it was possible to make a physical edition of the album. Initially, there had not been any such plans, but HEY! Obviously (as You see now) these guys pestered me long enough to make me do it, and here we are! :-)
It was important to me though to not simply put out the same thing again that many people already had.
Plus, due to a little misunderstanding, Olaf had added one track too much to the original album (Part 7 was original meant as a hidden "bonus track") with the result that the material didn't fit on one CD anymore - so a physical release had to be a 2 CD set (but there was still one hour of unused space on disc 2!).
Of course, I had to add new music to the second CD, in similar fashion to CD 1 using one new studio recording combined with a few live sessions.
Also, I took the opportunity to fine-tune the two studio tracks from CD 1 - because I felt I could have achieved a little more than I did in the short time I had for the original album. In the first place, I remixed / remastered them, changed the drums in Part 1 and replaced the intro of Part 3.
One word to the music itself:
Ever since I first discovered Klaus Schulze's music (in 1986, when I was 16 years old) I do adore this great and unique artist and I followed all of his work past and present over the years. I regard so many of his albums as masterpieces and as my favourite music of all time, and any genre. But even those of his album which are less successful are still one thing: they are unique - even if others like Tangerine Dream did similar things already in the 70s, and many have attempted to copy his style, there is something absolutely unique and unmistakably his own about his music. You can always tell when it's Schulze.
For this reason, after starting to dabble in electronic music myself from 1992 on, I rarely ever attempted to copy his style - and when I did, it never sounded like him (but more like TD, usually ;-) ). I tried to adopt some of his virtues or principles though, as far as I could see them. Which meant NOT to try to carbon copy his sound, but included to stay curious, playful, adventurous and never afraid to enter new terretory. It also for me is about how layers of sound and rhythm can be interwoven to shape extended aural vistas. It's about invocing stories with sound without the use of traditional forms.
At some point I discovered that - in a way - the music I create gets closest to Klaus' music when I improvise. I think this partly is because Klaus always has been a great improviser, too. But it also has to do with a certain limitation of skills that makes it more likely to do things in a certain way. For one thing, Klaus was self-taught, and never an accomplished keyboard player. But he put his limitation to good use, because it opened doors to sonic possibilities for him that other, better trained musicians tend to ignore. So, while musically drawing from a rather reduced pallette, at the same time he discovered a whole new world of sonic ways of expression.
It's not like I would be pioneering the world of sound as much as he did (of course), but I find that my own restrictions (being myself not a virtuoso at all) yield results - especially when I'm improvising - which go into similar directions...
I hope You are enjoying this music as much as I did creating it! :-)
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released February 5, 2021
Michael Brückner plays Waldorf, Korg, Behringer & Elka (hardware) synthesizers and Native Instruments, UHE, Propellerhead and Waldorf (software) synthesizers - and then some...
All music conceived, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered by Michael Brückner 2019 - 2021.
Cover design and digital artwork by Michael Brückner, too... ;-)
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I'd like to thank Olaf Lux for his enduring friendship and the opportunity to originally release this album in the context of his excellent Book "VIOLINS DON'T GROW ON TREES - The Life and Work of Klaus Schulze".
And I'd like to dedicate the music to the man who inspired it -
the master: Klaus Schulze!
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