The one-hour suite Deus Ex Machina (Extreme, 1989) for floating electronics, samples (of both voices and instruments) and percussions, originally a soundtrack for a multimedia performance, fully introduced the high-brow and sophisticated persona of Schutze. Haunted by a sinister and obscure vision of the technological era, the album was his philosophical as well as artistic manifesto. and melodic fragments, After an eerie overture, it indulges in gothic overtones (bells, ghostly electronic winds, distorted voices, desolate trumpet notes) until it explodes into a Morton Subotnick-ian dissonant bacchanal. A duet for pipe organ and jet planes leads to relaxed jazz-rock jamming. The mood keeps changing rapidly, via an exotic ballet and a joyful trumpet fanfare and countless other events (more voices, more planes). It ends on a note that is both magniloquent and desolate. This collage did for ambient music what Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells had done for progressive-rock.

The neo-ambient strategy of this piece straddled the border between Brian Eno's ambient music, Miles Davis's jazz-rock and Pierre Henry's musique concrete.

That program continued with the subtle futuristic jazz of The Annihilating Angel (Extreme, 1990), that recast Jon Hassell's pan-ethnic and urban spirit into a graver, emphatic and even apocalyptic context.
Cities Of The Plain collects ethnic references to evoke the vision of imaginary lands. Schütze is not particularly original in mixing ethnic instruments and electronic sounds, but a more intense and dramatic take on the same idea, The Falls, yields far more rewarding results: the ethnic sources are wild and chaotic, the electronic sounds are ominous. The Torture Garden further dilutes the ethnic sounds, selecting the timbres that best resonate with the collective primitive, and then spreads a layer of drones over the landscape.
Reign Of Ashes ups the ante by mixing natural sounds and by introducing a funky rhythm. A thick orchestral texture and undulating dissonances add a tragic tone to the dance. The theme of the "futuristic cafe`" continues with Dead Roads, a nocturnal trumpet exhaling lazy jazzy melodies.
The idea gets completely abstracted in Cities Of The Red Night, an elegant and lugubrious fanfare in which exoticism, funk, jazz and electronics coexist without either prevailing, as if Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Soft Machine and Klaus Schulze jammed together.
Unfortunately, too many of these vignettes are short and predictable. Schütze is still in his formative stage.

The Laughing Hands later released Nights (Rash, 1991) and The Welders Bible (Adhesive, 1991).

The Luxury Of Horns (Rash, 1991) was credited to Invisible College.

La suite di un'ora Deus Ex Machina (Extreme, 1989), composta di electronica, campionamenti e frammenti melodici, originariamente a corredo di una performance multimediale, mise in luce l'individualità colta e forbita di Schütze , che a quel punto iniziò a disegnare una strategia al confine fra Miles Davis, Brian Eno e Jon Hassell. Il disco e` anche offuscato da una torbida e sinistra visione dell'evo tecnologico. E` il suo manifesto sia artistico sia filosofico.

Un risultato temporaneo di questo programma fu il subdolo jazz futurista di The Annihilating Angel (Extreme, 1990), che lascia intravedere lo spirito panetnico e urbano del tardo Jon Hassell in un contesto più enfatico, e talvolta addirittura apocalittico.

I Laughing Hands hanno poi pubblicato Nights (Rash, 1991) e The Welders Bible (Adhesive, 1991).

A nome Invisible College e` uscito The Luxury Of Horns (Rash, 1991).

Schütze perviene a una formulazione matura del suo "minimalismo caotico" con New Maps Of Hell (Extreme, 1992 - Big Cat, 1996), ispirato al senso di claustrofobia generato dal caos urbano. La suite Topology Of A Phantom City, in particolare, si trascina all'insegna di frasi jazz d'organo, di chitarra e di trombone distese con nonchalanche su un violento e sincopato incalzare delle percussioni. Doubts About Waking, è scossa da turbolenze tribali, con gli interventi degli strumenti che si fanno sempre più dissonanti fino all'infernale baraonda finale. Su un versante più sereno si snoda invece la trance leggera e dinoccolata di Velvet Horizon, più raga-psichedelica che ambientale. Vertice drammatico dell'opera è A Soul Reports, la cui pasta timbrica, priva di ritmo, sembra aver raffinato tutte le tragedie dell'umanità, attraverso foschi sibili e rimbombi, pause tracolme di suspance e battiti irregolari di un vicino oltretomba.

The Rapture Of Metals (SDV, 1993), also known as New Maps Of Hell II (Big Cat, 1997), was the natural continuation of the chaotic-minimalist program of New Maps Of Hell. It exudes the same subterranean tension, that reverberates with urban neurosis, athough this time it originates from structures that are much colder and sinister, almost gothic. The Rapture Of Concealment is all about subliminal beats and noises, like a blurred version of industrial music. The percussions test a vast primitive soundscape scoured by agonizing winds. Rapture Of The Drowning is even more lugubrious: the beats have liquefied into anemic and colorless reverbs, that can't find enough strength to become full-fledged drones. This "rapture" resembles a paralysis due to fear. The calmer and warmer ambience of The Rapture Of Ornament lulls the listener into the rarified jungle of The Rapture Of Metals, a tinkling gamelan-like piece. The quiet, hypnotic loop of Rapture Of The Skin, reminiscent of both ragas and psychedelic music. The longest track, Sites Of Rapture On The Lungs Of God (21 minutes), is a solemn stasis of cosmic breaths, a sequence of muted drones that evoke tiny signs of life within eternal silence.
This new map of hell is one of the most subtle works of musique concrete of all times.

Regard (Multimood, 1991) collects film music.

The Surgery Of Touch (Extreme, 1994) contains three colossal tracks that deliver some of the most violent music of his career. The 24-minute electronic nightmare of Tears is cosmic music filled with angst and terror. Klaus Schulze's was cosmic music of the psychedelic age, when humans looked to the skies, whereas Tears is cosmic music in the age of information science, when computers dialogue with the skies. Towards the end, percussions and vocal samples bring back the vision to Earth in an emotional way, linking the universe and the human condition, a link which finally gives meaning to the unbearable tension.
Distorted electronics and deformed voices seem tear apart the fabric of the universe in Sweat, but the "concrete" collage slowly fades away in a long looping coda.
The 26-minute Blood brings the nightmare to its emotional apex, as chaotic waves of music and noise follow each other, feeding on each other and continuously rearranging themselves. After about ten minutes, they begin a disintegration process that feels like a descent into a black hole.

More Beautiful Human Life (Apollo, 1994), released under the moniker Uzect Plaush, was Schütze 's foray into ambient techno.

Apart (Virgin, 1995) is a double album that provides a temporary summary of his career. Its centerpiece, the three-movement suite Sleep, is a much darker, sinister, cryptic work. It sounds like the soundtrack for a descent into hell, not just a survey of the urban landscape.

The kinematics of Vertical Memory (Beyond, 1995), credited to Seed, attempts to replace images with sounds.

Fell (7 Degree, 1995) is a collaboration with Andrew Hulme (O Yuki Conjugate). The Ulm Concert (7 Degrees, 1997) is a collaboration with Simon Hopkins. Narratives (Manifold, 1996) is a collaboration with Voice Of Eye and Robert Rich, each of which pens a piece inspired by a literary work. Driftworks (Big Cat, 1997) is a four-CD collaboration with Pauline Oliveros and others: Stateless is Schütze 's disc and sounds indulgent at best.

Site Anubis (Big Cat, 1996) inaugurated a new trilogy, dedicated to architectural wonders. The suite was composed by Schutze but played by a "virtual" ensemble, named Phantom City: Bill Laswell on bass, Lol Coxhill on saxophone, Julian Priester on trumpet and Alex Blues on clarinet, Dirk Wachtelaer on percussion, Raoul Bjorkenheim on guitar. They never met, but simply improvised over Schutze's electronic score. The result was a solemn form of cosmic jazz. Raoul Bjorkenheim's guitar and Dirk Wachtelaer's drums steal the show in the twelve-minute jazz-rock workout Future Nights, molding a form of dreamy jazz reminiscent of Peter Green's instrumental album. The rhythmic foundation is disproportionate for the duel of deformed horns in The Big God Blows In, but the aim is similar. There is no instrument that stands out in Blue Like Petrol, just a convoluted sense of restlessness. The standout is probably the feverish twelve-minute orgy Eight Legs Out Of Limbo, with Lol Coxhill's saxophone and Julian Priester's trombone submerged by a volley of dissonant sounds. But mostly this is a disappointing "supergroup" that is not cohesive enough to deliver a unified aesthetics, or any aesthetics at all.

Eventually, Phantom City became a real band, as documented by the live Shiva Recoil (Virgin, 1997), with Toshinori Kondo's trumpet replacing Coxhill.

Following solo albums refined his avantgarde music by introducing subtle destabilizing elements, such as ethnic instruments, jazz and spoken texts.

Abysmal Evenings (Virgin, 1996) concocted a mixture of ambient world-music a` la Jon Hassell, cosmic jazz a` la Site Anubis and his own old urban ambience (Bob Neil on trumpet, Robert Hampson (Main) on guitar, and Andrew Hulme),

Nine Songs From The Garden Of Welcome Lies (Tone Casualties, 1997) employed organs instead of synthesizers to improvise soundscapes halfway between Monet's abstract impressionism and Tibetan mantras.

Green Evil (Tone Casualties, 1998) collects rarities and unreleased material of the last 14 years.

Second Site (Virgin, 1997) is a colossal undertaking for electronics, spoken-word and percussion, that stands as a most daring testament to his sonic research.

With Third Site (Rykodisc, 1999) Schütze achieved a form of very quiet chamber world-music, with narrating voice, dedicated to architectural works.

He started scoring film soundtracks with The Sealer and continued on Isabelle Eberhardt - The Oblivion Seeker (SDV, 1994), Assault on Firebase Gloria, Driving Force, Earth Bound, The Valley.

The Gazing Engine (1999) Plasma Falls (2002) Partial Site (2002) Writing On Water (Gasometer Oberhausen, 2002)

The six-CD box-set Sound Paintings (Tone Casualties, 1998) includes Deus Ex Machina, Regard, Isabelle Eberhardt, The Annihilating Angel, The Surgery Of Touch and Green Evil.

Se sei interessato a tradurre questo testo, contattami