Klaus Schulze - Shadowlands (Synthetic Symphony)

Having grown up listening to Klaus Schulze as a child in my father’s apartment, it’s nice to hear my dad’s favorite electronic composer, who subsequently became one of mine, hasn’t lost his touch over his 45 year career.

Though known primarily as a solo artist, Schulze drummed on Tangerine Dream‘s debut, Electronic Meditation, as well as Ash Ra Tempel‘s eponymous first album before striking out on his own to develop his unique style of ambient electronic space music, paralleling the likes of Brian Eno and mid-‘70s Tangerine Dream. Even when he went digital in 1980 with Dig It, Schulze retained his integrity as a composer.

Now in 2013, Schulze has released his 41st volume of music as a solo artist. Shadowlands is consists of five tracks, ranging from 17+ to 55 and a half minutes, spanning two discs. Here, he creates an atmosphere of mystery, a world where beings lurk in the shadows and nothing is quite opaque. Slow synthesizer melodies ebb and flow, wafting over Schulze’s Hy Brasil-like world, building to arpeggiated electronic pulsing. Voices appear as instruments, haunting operatic devices that blend with the shadows and move with the mists. The sporadic use of violin nods to one of his finer moments, 1983’s Audentity, where a cello entwined with the electronic patterns. Oddly, the combination of ambient electronics, voices, violin and flute recall Steve Henifin‘s incredible soundtrack for the video game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem.

Shadowlands is classic Schulze, a perfect synthesis of his early subtle compositions and his later driving sequenced works. Turn it up and melt into an engaging musical journey through time and space.