hypersongs

Klaus Schulze

A Berlin synthesizer and sequencer pioneer who drummed with Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, then made more than 60 solo albums from Irrlicht (1972) to Picture Music (1975) and beyond, also as Richard Wahnfried.

From drums to synthesizers

Klaus Schulze was born in Berlin on August 4, 1947. He began as a drummer, in Psy Free with Alex Conti, on Tangerine Dream's Electronic Meditation (dated 1969 by English Wikipedia and 1970 by German), and as a co-founder of Ash Ra Tempel with Manuel Gottsching and Hartmut Enke, which he left after the first album. He also played with Eruption, The Cosmic Jokers and, in 1976 and 1977, Go with Stomu Yamashta. In 1971 he stopped playing in groups to work solo, though he kept collaborating, and gave his first solo concert in 1973.

His solo debut was Irrlicht (1972), followed by Cyborg (1973, made with an EMS VCS 3). He won the French Grand Prix International for Timewind in 1975 and toured Germany and Italy. Moondawn (1976) was his first Moog album. He founded the label Innovative Communication in 1978 and sold it in 1983; Dune followed in 1979, Dig It in 1980, the year he opened Ars Electronica in Linz, and Angst in 1984, with a Fairlight and Linn drums. Under the name Richard Wahnfried, a nod to Wagner, he made seven albums between 1979 and 1997, from Time Actor to Drums 'n' Balls.

Later years

He worked with Alphaville and Snap! between 1988 and 1995, played the Royal Festival Hall, Cologne Cathedral and Dresden, and issued the 25-CD Jubilee Edition in 1997. In 2000 he made millennium music in Beijing. After regaining his rights in 2004 and 2005 he began a reissue program on SPV as Revisited Records. Farscape and Rheingold, with Lisa Gerrard, appeared in 2008, and his first concerts in Japan in 2010 were billed as his last, under the title Big in Japan. Collaborations include the Dark Side of the Moog series with Pete Namlook, eleven volumes.

He died on April 26, 2022, aged 74. His last records include the posthumous Deus Arrakis (July 1, 2022 per English Wikipedia, with The Quietus pre-announcing it on June 10), 101 Milky Way (2024) and Bon Voyage, a 1981 Hamburg live recording (2025). The SF Encyclopedia counts more than 60 solo albums and credits him as an important pioneer to whom techno, house and ambient are indebted. German Wikipedia lists a Grand Prix International in 1975 and a Schallwelle special prize in 2010. He is also cited in the Dune (2021) score by Hans Zimmer, who used one of his pieces, according to the Guardian obituary as summarized by English Wikipedia.

Albums

  • Picture Music 1975 · Brain

    Two side-long pieces, "Totem" and "Mental Door", played by Schulze alone, with the only drum kit on a solo album of his.

Songs

  • Totem Picture Music · 1975

    The first side of Picture Music, a 23-minute piece over a bongo and drum rhythm.

Sources

  1. Klaus Schulze, Wikipedia
  2. Klaus Schulze, German Wikipedia
  3. Klaus Schulze, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
  4. Picture Music, Wikipedia