May 15, 2011

Sundaze 1120

Hello, it was eurovision songcontest night, tonight. I have to say it was reasonbly entertaining, hi performing standards in a giant stadium. Right from the start witha great intro that shaped into the abstract beating heart logo that kept on popping up throughout the show. This subliminal emotive message was enhanced by most of the songs that had some empowerment message within them. Collective men and solo women carried the show but the one couple won in the end with their message to turn to eachother and love. All this under what at times looked like a giant UFO beaming light.

Lots of artists got max points from other countries, i didnt count but I guess more than half of the 25 contestants, which is remarkable. The winner by no means scored the most max numbers, instead it was a steady stream of good points, in that sense the win for Azerbeidjan covered the biggest spread by far. Personally i felt a bit said for the most attractive contestant, she was from Spain , nevertheless she could still be a summer hit at the costas. I liked Denmark and Ireland had a sublime lightshow. In the past I wasn't that interested in this contest but the influx of East european countries has clearly done well for the entertainmentvalue of the show.

Today the spotlight is on Ulrich Schnauss, his last album , an album that clearly bares his mark from Daniel Land and The Modern Painters which i would describe as Sigur Ross meets Ulrich Schnauss and a slection he made from his production work.


***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Ulrich Schnauss was born in northern Germany fishing port Kiel in 1977. During his formative years, he grew a love for a broad spectrum of music ranging from My Bloody Valentine to Tangerine Dream, to early bleep & breakbeat tracks. There was not much opportunity to see some of his musical heroes in Kiel, so the inevitable pull of the big city meant a move to Berlin in 1996.

By that time Ulrich's musical output had already become prolific with a variety of pseudonyms (most notably View to the Future and Ethereal 77) veering from ambient to drum and bass via electronica. These earlier works were soon catching the eye of Berlin electronica label CCO (City Centre Offices) who took up the story. Soon these submissions to CCO developed into Ulrich’s first album under his own name entitled Far Away Trains Passing By, which as it slowly seeped into peoples' consciousness became an electronic classic. Listeners were taken with the lush instrumentation and the emotion of the elegant, simple and beautiful music.The album became a critical hit and gained more and more listeners through the next couple years as it seeped into the far East and America.

Place which slowly came together during 2003 into a record that really showed some of Ulrich's youthful indie influences. His debut album under his real name established his pedigree as an outstanding electronic composer, but somehow he managed to take it further by developing his interest in songwriting for electronic music, born of his love for such giants of the independent world as My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields and Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie.From this humble conception, comes forth a record of surprisingly rare emotional power. A Strangely Isolated Place became a genuinely word-of-mouth record slowly growing in stature. The results are an oddly retro-futurist record.
Since the release of both albums Ulrich has been asked to work with and remix a host of artists, he has done occosional live shows and meanwhile his third album, "Goodbye", was released in 2007. Early 2007 he joined Longview as their keyboardist, maybe less surprising considering he's done many remixes of their work allready.

In the spring of 2008, Ulrich remixed two tracks and engineered/produced for the Manchester based shoegaze band Daniel Land and The Modern Painters. On October 27, 2008, the two tracks, 'Within The Boundaries' and 'Benjamin's Room', were released as a double A-side 7" single by the independent record label Sonic Cathedral - the labels 11th release.

In July 2008, the Stars EP was released to support his June/July US tour. A co-produced/co-written track with A Shoreline Dream titled "neverChanger" was released on an EP of the same name. Ulrich traveled out for a short tour with the band in Texas and Colorado to promote this effort, and performed this track with A Shoreline Dream during his performances.
.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****

On Ulrich Schnauss' third album Goodbye, he gently fades away into a shoegaze slumber that drifts gently into an ethereal realm. Breathy keyboard pads are at the forefront and this results in a more sleepy retro vibe derivative of '80s new age, which might be the trouble with this record. On previous albums, Schnauss seemed to be evolving into his own futuristic style of beat-making, but here the excessive layering seems to be a step backward, with less focus on the rhythmic IDM and electronica aspects, and more on the expansive soundscapes. The epic "Medusa" and "Stars" have swelling vocal lines that swirl slowly with a fuzzy sheen as the soothing wall of sound builds to a climactic wash, and the overall result is a much fuller, dreamier sound, with a massive dosage of ambience.


Ulrich Schnauss - Goodbye (Special Edition) ( 416mb)

01 Never Be The Same 5:30
02 Shine 5:49
03 Stars 6:21
04 Einfeld 5:15
05 Here Today, Gone Tomorrow 5:06
06 A Song About Hope 5:55
07 Medusa 6:27
08 Goodbye 7:55
09 For Good 3:42
10 Love Forever 5:58
11 Look At The Sky 4:29
12 In Between The Years 3:52

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Daniel Land and the Modern Painters make music that is slow and stately, soporific and somnolent, like a sonic cathedral moving majestically through the icy fjörds of the frozen north, or something. Yes, folks, we're in shoegazing territory, with a six-piece band signed to Sonic Cathedral, the label that celebrates itself and the era of effects pedals and gorgeously gauzy noise.

Born in Devon but a student in Manchester, Land is a sensitive soul and, shall we say, not your typical Manc lad. Winter walks on deserted beaches, comfortable silences and glamorous one-night-stands". Although it's never going to win any awards on The X Factor, his voice is a subtly powerful instrument, an androgynous device of no fixed sex that merges with the four-guitar wall of noise only to occasionally soar across the ecclesiastically solemn soundscapes.


Daniel Land and The Modern Painters - Love Songs For The Chemical Generation ( 124mb)

01 Within The Boundaries 4:51
02 Codeine 6:58
03 Benjamin's Room 4:01
04 Glitterball 5:32
05 Locust 7:58
07 Love Lies Bleeding 6:01
08 Off Your Face Again 7:43
09 Smiling In Slow Motion 5:10
10 The Magic In My Head 7:04
11 Good Speed, Good Fun 5:15
12 Lighting Out For The Territories 5:52


***** ***** ***** ***** *****


Ulrich Schnauss (Selected Remixes) - Missing Deadlines (now in flac 492mb)

01 Howling Bells – Setting Sun 3:45
02 A Sunny Day In Glasgow – Ghost In The Graveyard 4:20
03 Katharina Franck – Faithful Friend 5:35
04 Madrid – Out To Sea 6:21
05 Asobi Seksu – Strawberries 3:46
06 Dragons – Remembrance 4:35
07 aus – Halo 5:24
08 Mahogany – Supervitesse 5:30
09 Lunz (Roedelius & Tim Story)* – Lunz 5:10
10 Rachel Goswell – Coastline 5:25
11 High Violets* – Chinese Letter 5:42
12 Mark Gardener – Story Of The Eye 4:24
13 I'm Not A Gun – Make Sense And Loose 4:49
14 Mojave 3 – Bluebird Of Happiness 10:02

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Request Ulrich Schnauss Goodbye (special ed.) and Missing Deadlines in lossless. Many thanks. I fear I ask too much, but if A Strangely Isolated Place can be posted, it would be appreciated.

Anonymous said...

Please reup the Ulrich Schnauss albums. Thank you very much.

Jacquard Causeway said...

Can you reup these albums too? Thanks and have a good weekend.

Anonymous said...

Dear Rho

Can you please be so kind to fix the Ulrich Schnauss (Selected Remixes) - Missing Deadlines link?

Thank you

Nuno

Jacquard Causeway said...

Thanks for the reups. I remember listening to Ulrich Schnauss' Goodbye a good amount of years ago. Really enjoyed its vaporous atmospheres.

Rho said...

New link to missing deadlines is entered now...N-Joy

Anonymous said...

Hi Rho,

Would it be possible to re-up these?

Many thanks!