KLAUS SCHULZE Vinilo y CD

Review: Featuring material recorded 30 years ago, the 12th volume in the late Klaus Schulze's La Vie Electronique series features two full pieces (one split into three movements over two CDs) that first surfaced on the long-serving electronic experimentalist's 10-disc Silver Edition box set in 1993. 'Picasso Geht Spaziren' ("Picasso Goes For a Walk") holds the title of Schulze's longest released composition - a sublimely spacey, two-and-a-half hour synthesizer exploration that was initially intended to be used as the soundtrack to a German movie. The second piece is 'The Music Box', a warmer and more colourful journey through synthesizer-driven ambient which was named in honour of a Laurel and Hardy movie and was later used by one institution as part of music therapy sessions with serious alcoholics.

Review: Back in 1977, former Tangerine Dream member Klaus Schulze wrote, recorded and subsequently released Body Love, the soundtrack to a now notorious German pornographic movie of the same name. He'd recorded too much material though, so this second volume appeared a few months later. As with previous reissues (it is considered one of Schulze's most accessible albums), the edition also contains bonus cut 'Buddy Laugh', though it's the first three cuts - and specifically the near half-hour opener 'Nowhere - Now Here' - that are the most satisfying. Entirely created using his beloved synthesizers, the music mixes rhythmic electronic pulses, mind-altering noises, and some seriously spacey, elongated solos - plus (in the shape of 'Moogetique') some ghostly, otherworldly ambient. If you loved Dark Entries' releases of Patrick Cowley's brilliant porn soundtracks, you'll love this.

Review: Klaus Schulze's side project, Richard Wahnfried, gave rise to its third album Megatone in 1984. It finds the German synth legend work with Michael Garvens, Axel-Glenn Muller, Ulli Schober, Michael Shrieve and Harald Katzsch across a suite of expressive and retro-future kraut rock epics. His kosmische musik sounds are embellished with big guitars and synth strings, driving drum machine sounds and intoxicating percussive that makes it a powerfully propulsive record with a richly evocative sound. The texture, arrangement and synthetics quality of it all make it a stone-cold 80s classic that is well worth revisiting whether you're new to the artist or a die-hard fan.