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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Berlin-based producer Ulrich Schnauss coined a "shoegazing" form of electronic dance music on the double-disc Far Away Trains Passing By (Domino, 2001).
Highlights are
the driving and wavering rhythm of Wherever You Are,
the lively drumbeat and soulful organ melody of Between Us And Them (7:27)
and the
ping-pong beat and orchestral strings of Blumenwiese Neben Autobahn (6:33),
with a melodic peak in the
tinkling carillon of Suddenly The Trees Are Giving Way.
The format runs the gamut from the
serene new-age atmosphere of Nobody's Home (7:34) to the
downtempo elegy Molfsee (8:06),
from the evocative
Sunday Evening In Your Street over a convoluted beat
to the ethereal humming of As If You've Never Been Away (another melodic peak, although more trivial).
A Strangely Isolated Place (Domino, 2004)
contains the catchy On My Own, his signature "song" (with female vocals and locomotive beat). Another captivating combination appears in
Clear Day, which is almost a rocking song.
The tinkling carillon of Blumenthal, instead, is ruineda by excessive arrangement.
The mysterious atmosphere of Gone Forever, with female vocals and lengthy dissolving drones, sets the tone for the other modest electronic poems
over beats that have become very simple.
Another highlight is
A Letter From Home, made of
ethereal electronic waves and a nostalgic male melody,
like a collaboration between
Enya and
Boards Of Canada.
In All The Wrong Places is ethereal, smooth and sleek, a calculated geometry of musical spaces.
There's even a bit of Klaus Schulze's cosmic music inside the symphonic drones and the suspenseful pacing of Monday - Paracetamol.
Schnauss' ambient/dance hybrid achieves here its romantic apex.
It is debatable whether the beats add or detract from the neoclassical beauty
of these melodic fantasias.
Goodbye (Domino, 2007), containing the eight-minute Goodbye,
A Long Way To Fall (2013), containing Broken Homes and A Ritual In Time And Death,
and
No Further Ahead Than Today (2016), containing the eight-minute No Further Ahead Than Today,
were less impressive.
They harked back to the age of early Tangerine Dream and Brian Eno's ambient music.
Epic (Pedigree Cuts, 2010),
Emotion Meets Expression (2013)
Passage (2017),
and
Eight Fragments of an Illusion (2021)
were collaborations with Jonas Munk.
Underrated Silence (2012),
Tomorrow Is Another Day (2013)
and
Destiny Waiving (2021)
were collaborations with Mark Peters.
Improvisation #2 (2018) contains a 68-minute live improvisation.
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