Klaus Schulze (4 August 1947 - 26 April 2022) was a German electronic music pioneer, composer and musician born in Berlin. Widely regarded as one of the most influential composers and producers of electronic music of all time, he was initially associated with the krautrock scene before helping pioneer and define more electronic-oriented offshoots referred to as "kosmiche musik", "progressive electronic" and "Berlin school". Schulze's music would also have some influence on the development of Ambient and New Age and he has been cited as an inspiration by countless artists throughout the decades ...read more
Klaus Schulze (4 August 1947 - 26 April 2022) was a German electronic music pioneer, composer and musician born in Berlin. Widely regarded as one of the most influential composers and producers of electronic music of all time, he was initially associated with the krautrock scene before helping pioneer and define more electronic-oriented offshoots referred to as "kosmiche musik", "progressive electronic" and "Berlin school". Schulze's music would also have some influence on the development of Ambient and New Age and he has been cited as an inspiration by countless artists throughout the decades. In 1969 Schulze met Edgar Froese at Conrad Schnitzler's Zodiac Club and joined Tangerine Dream as drummer and percussionist, performing alongside the two on the group's debut album Electronic Meditation (released in 1970). He left Tangerine Dream due to creative disagreements and in 1971 founded Ash Ra Tempel together with Manuel Gottsching and Hartmut Enke. Having contributed to the band's legendary self-titled debut as well as 1973's Join Inn, Schulze departed to launch his own solo career. In August 1972 his debut Irrlicht was released on the krautrock label Ohr, featuring a sound not unlike Tangerine Dream's Zeit released the same month (reportedly, the execution of that shared idea was the dispute with Froese over which Schulze had left the group). Irrlicht did not receive much recognition at first, but its droning space ambient sound - created with only a broken electric organ and a manipulated recording of an orchestra - would retroactively become a landmark for ambient and electronic music. 1973's follow-up Cyborg saw the addition of synthesizers (specifically the EMS VCS 3) and further albums would continue to incorporate more and more electronic sounds, occasionally also exploring percussive ideas (often performed by guest artists such as Harald Grosskopf or Michael Shrieve). Some of the more popular highlights of Schulze's career include 1975's Timewind, 1976's Moondawn (his first album featuring a Moog synthesizer), 1977's Mirage and 1979's Dune. Schulze has been known to draw from aspect of German culture and history as inspiration for his compositions, most notably on the 1978 album "X", subtitled "Six Musical Biographies", which makes reference to King Ludwig II of Bavaria, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and composer Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. Similarly, Timewind's track titles are references pertaining to 19th century composer Richard Wagner, and so is Schulze's only known alias Richard Wahnfried. Not only an innovator, Schulze was a very prolific artist, with more than 60 albums released over five decades and with an intensive reissue program of his most notable works beginning in 2005. In the early 70s Schulze played with the aforementioned Göttsching and Grosskopf among others on Walter Wegmuller's Tarot as well as in the group The Cosmic Jokers and in 1976 he would be a part of Stomu Yamashta's short-lived jazz fusion supergroup Go together with Al Di Meola, Michael Shrieve and Steve Winwood. In 1978 he founded the label Innovative Communication and began mentoring and producing electronic musician Robert Schroeder. Schulze has also lent his audio engineering, mixing and production skills to a number of albums, from krautrock obscurities such as Sand's Golem (1974, see: Sand (GER)) and Code III's Planet of Man (1974), to Japanese space rockers Far East Family Band's Parallel Worlds (1976) and even synthpop such as Jyl and Alphaville. In 1984 he helped release Göttsching's second solo album E2-E4 on the label Inteam GmbH. Schulze also had a long-running collaborative project called Dark Side of the Moog with ambient techno producer Pete Namlook releasing a series of 11 albums together between 1994 and 2008 (see: Pete Namlook and Klaus Schulze). Other collaborators have included Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance), Gunter Schickert (of GAM; see Klaus Schulze and Gunter Schickert) and Michael Shrieve (of Santana; see Michael Shrieve with Kevin Shrieve and Klaus Schulze).
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