Red Dream
by Conrad Schnitzler
“If you are not European or an expert in electronic music history, you’ll be surprised to find another German musician in our series of articles dedicated to the tracks of Electronic Dance Music history.”
We discussed Cluster and Tangerine Dream in previous articles as two of the most influential bands of the 70s German electronic music scene.
German experimental musician Conrad Schnitzler played with both bands. He was a member of Tangerine Dream, playing on their first album Electronic Meditation, and in 1971 he founded his own band Cluster with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius.
Like Klaus Schultze, he started a solo career after leaving both bands to focus on his personal musical journey through the infinite landscapes offered by the new electronic gears available to experiment with at that time.
This incredible mix of artists and musicians happened because of the Zodiak Free Arts Lab, a theatre by day and live music venue by night founded by Schnitzler and Roedelius with Boris Schaak in the West Berlin district of Kreuzberg.
From 1962 until 1981, the building was the first home of the Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer, a politically inspired and motivated theatre company. It's so easy to imagine this group of artists meeting and performing in this highly influential experimental venue, filled with various instruments, amplifiers, and speakers for people to use.
Conventional forms of music were banned because members considered them uninteresting. The will to experiment with music was immense. Unfortunately, Zodiak lasted only a few months, closing in early 1969.
No one knows why, exactly. It could have been due to the Schaubühne's management calling for things to be toned down or the restlessness of the West Berlin scene simply seeking other outlets for expression.
“Of all the artists mentioned, Schnitzler was one of the most experimental and challenging to listen to. If you start digging into his vast discography, especially in his 1973 album Rot (Red in English), it’s apparent.”
Rot was his first solo album, and it begins with the track Meditation, in which a super high-pitched feedback slowly mutates into a dissonant keyboard chord, not the easiest way to start an album. Cut-up, filtered stereo glitches, then cross the background chord.
The challenge continues with the second track, ironically titled Krautrock, a word that describes, even if a bit too generically, a music scene way too complex to be explained in just one word.
“The third and final track Red Dream is, in my opinion, the most important song on the album! A true masterpiece, almost industrial sounding. ”
After 5 minutes, a delayed, reverberated bass drum beat is revealed, possibly introducing us to one of the first IDM tracks ever made.
The beat increases its speed constantly until the droned middle section of the song. An obscure arpeggiator leads us to the final part of the composition.
Schnitzler's approach reminds me of one of my favorite bands, Matmos, for the high-pitched glitched sounds combined with the deep low ends of beats and bass, feedback, and delays.
