December 24, 2010

Conrad Schnitzler

Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1937, Conrad Schnitzler is an essential name in the history of electronic music music during the 60′s and 70′s.

Having been pupil of composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and being inspired by the likes of Pierre Schaeffer and John Cage, Schnitzler was co-founder of the Zodiak Club in Berlin in 1968, where the pioneering psychedelic band Agitation Free used to play. Conrad Schnitzler became a member of Tangerine Dream in 1969 recording their first and legendary album “Electronic Meditation”.
Conrad Schnitzler left the band in 1970 to form the project that would became a master key of the krautrock and experimental vanguard in Germany: the band Kluster, which was formed along with the early electronica masters Hans-Jaochim Roedelius Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. Schnitzler left the band after a couple of albums to develop a solo career oriented to the electronic and analogue synthesis experimentation.
In 1971, Schnitzler started a trilogy of albums (“Schwartz”, “Blau”, and “Rot”) in an almost extreme attitude of melodic, tonal, rhythmic, and structural minimalismism, setting the foundations of modern electronic minimalism music.

During the first half of the 70′s, Schnitzler produced numerous experiments, but this hardly saw the light until 1978 when Peter Baumann from Tangerine Dream instigated the release of his works.
By the early 80′s, Conrad Schnitzler started series of numerous releases, most of them synth pop oriented, and he finally moved back to his most experimental side in the 90′s with a series of releases in the Plate Lunch label.




Electrocon (1980/CD2006) Recorded at Paragon Studio, Berlin in 1980-81. Digital remastered at Peace Music, Tokyo, Japan 2006.