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Conrad Schnitzler

00/821–00/830

Released 2011 on Self Produced CDR’s
Reviewed by Diston, Sep 2011ce

And so the career of the greatest, most prolific and underground of the original “Krautrockers” has finally come to a close…and the machines bow down and worship him…a supreme artist and a master technician…
These recordings were completed in the days before Con’s recent death and reveal that the man left the planet at the top of his game…always the artist’s artist…even serious students and practitioners of “electronica” will struggle to place more than a few of his sound sources…they are timeless…and could have been recorded at any time in the last half century. It is the concept and manipulation of sound at which Herr Schnitzler excels, throwing a spanner in the sequencer.…then plucking the pearls from the wreckage and polishing them into rare gems…
These ten CDRs include 00/828 ‘piano drobs’ a few intimate doodles on the Joanna resembling Satie playing “Klavierstücke”.…the nine others consist of a familiar palette of infinite possibilities and micro universes which Schnitzler disorganizes and dissembles…no-one can coax such warmth and humour from switches and boxes…you never know where you are heading, nothing is ever quite what it seems…There is Dub with no beats…never rock, forever Kraut…This is the music they should be playing at CERN whilst waiting for Hadrons to collide…The ultimate soundtrack for Doctor Who if they ever really want to put the shits back up the little kiddies…like they did in our day. Electronic solos that sound like mixes and mixes that sound solo…Con left his affairs in such order (see farewell notice from his website), you keep listening for subliminal messages, but there are none…at least no more the usual, constant…otherwordly (Is thats him gargling oscillators in a Cassette Concert from the afterlife?) Con’s music is his immortality, I have to confess I don’t fully understand his catalogue system…but the consistency, quality and variety of his work is never less than astounding.…as far as I can ascertain…the 830 private catalogue numbers does not include collaborations or works completed before 1990…so a thousand CD length works may not be an underestimate! If not now, at least when all of his solos have been mixed and all his mixes dissected…it’s going to be a futile, but most enjoyable task trying to listen to Con’s complete works..the perfect soundtrack to this most impossible of lives…

http://www.fancymoon.com/con_s/conjin2/00–821.shtml