Ulrich Schnauss

[solipsistnation]

A link on a particular news network pointed me to this, Ulrich Schnauss, "On My Own."

The posting described it as something like "the good things about My Bloody Valentine extracted and piped back through Boards of Canada by way of Kraftwerk."

So I downloaded it. It's worth listening to-- it's 5 minutes of textured rhythm and etherial vocals. It's very very pretty. And it's _almost_ an amazing song. As it is, it's very good, but it doesn't quite reach the pinnacles of MBV or Kraftwerk or even Boards of Canada at their highest point. My Bloody Valentine's strength is the incredible control over the ebb and flow of the songs. There's almost nothing else to Loveless-- by reducing the song to walls of roaring guitar static (reducing by enlarging, for the ironicists among us), Loveless becomes almost nothing BUT structure. Here, the song is not so distilled, and the dross that otherwise would boil away to vapor remains and is accentuated by its very presence.

There are certainly high points to the track-- the chorus and its rising vocals and chords, the way the drums suddenly emerge from behind a curtain of low-pass filter, the held drones, the pounding bass and the rock'n'roll drums during the outro groove. The way the song itself fades into an extended atmospheric segment is pure MBV, though. Think "Touched" from Loveless or the extended guitar noise at the end of "To Here Knows When." It can work, although I think it's more appropriate for an album track than for a single, where the atmosphere can provide a sweet but transitory sherbet to clear the palate between the richness of the main courses.

For all this, and all that he does so well, it's still like he's reaching for the ceiling and just barely brushing the tips of the textured plaster with his fingertips. It's closer than almost anyone else has gotten. M83 have touched that ceiling, giving us a few brief moments of beauty, Boards of Canada have left a couple of handprints but never quite gotten enough of a hold to pull themselves up through the joists into the crawlspace between ceiling and roof, and Eno has set up housekeeping somewhere up in the rafters, where he lives surrounded by lizards and trees and ships and gleaming shards of crystal that hold suspended single perfect moments, time and emotion forever refracted into eternity.

I liked it enough to order the album. I guess I'll find out if this one song was a fluke, good or bad.

Comments

[faceninja.livejournal.com]

Yes yes, A Strangely Isolated Place is a great album (and your young lady friend was pretty big on it a few years ago). He also provided one of the better covers on Uneven Morr Tribute #408, Blue Skied an' Clear.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Huh, neat. I have asked said young lady friend about it, and she said, "Oh, I thought it sounded familiar."

I then sat down with Live and messed around for 15 or 20 minutes with beats and my guitar and made a snippet that she said sounded more focussed. Guess I'll continue to work on that some and see if I can't magically turn into Kevin Shields.

[donnerjack.livejournal.com]

Huh, I thought the name of the track sounded familiar. It's on a Sasha album I have, Involver, which is, generally, quite good. I can't say it's honestly my favorite track off the album, the Spooky and Unkle tracks are more along the lines of my favorites, but it's a good song. Of course, I have no idea how much of a remix the version I have is. If the album's any good I'll have to check it out.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

That sounds neat... I'll have to check it out...

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Eek. From the snippet example on the iTunes Music Store, it sounds very very different.

But I think I'll grab it and see how the whole thing sounds. It sure has a nice grooooove.

[donnerjack.livejournal.com]

Um. Hrm. *quirks an eyebrow at iTMS* Okay, I don't know what's weird with my copy of this album? But it sounds next to nothing like the versions in iTMS. For one thing, the version on there is about four minutes longer and just from the snippet, anyway, it sounds a lot more minimal. Same with the Spooky track, which is absolutely one of my favorite tracks. Hit me up on IRC or IM or something, and I'll drop a copy of the album somewhere you can get to it so you can check it out. I think our taste in music is a little divergent, but we seem to be into roughly the same kind of thing, you may like it.

[gambl0r.livejournal.com]

Yay for music! I gotta check this out when I get home from work. By Eno, you mean Brian Eno, right? I know I have heard the name, but there is nothing by him on my iPod, which means I probably don't have anything by him at all. And by the way you are him, I should probably check out his music right away.

I love M83, and I loooove Boards of Canada... so I should loooooooove Eno ;)

[gambl0r.livejournal.com]

(At first I was really confused because I thought you meant Enon. I thought, "One of these things is not like the others!"

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

What???????? Never?????????????????

Hie thee unto a record store and acquire the following:

Mostly ambient:
Another Green World (I can't believe you haven't heard this!)
Before and After Science (or this!)
Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks
Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror (with Harold Budd)
Ambient 4: On Land
The Pearl (also with Harold Budd)
After The Heat (Eno, Moebius, & Roedelius-- basically, Eno and Cluster)

Eno's first two solo albums, weird pop music and very entertaining:
Here Come The Warm Jets
Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)

David Bowie and Brian Eno:
Low
'Heroes'
Lodger

Fripp and Eno:
No Pussyfooting
Evening Star