Klaus Schulze
En=Trance

The "digital" decade of Klaus Schulze begins in 1980 with "Dig It" (a rather chilling play on words...) and continues, between neologisms and other wordplays, until "En=Trance" in 1988, which marks the entry into a new phase: the one characterized by the massive use of sampling that defines his music in the following decade, the '90s.

Several features make "En=Trance" a unique album in the German artist's discography: first and foremost the presence of four medium-length tracks (around 17 minutes each); their compactness - in some ways their interchangeability - which makes this work an electronic polyptych that presents almost the same image viewed from four different angles; finally, the emphasis on the concept of trance, made explicit through the play on words in the title (which recalls another similar one, the album "Trancefer" from 1981).

Each of the four tracks in this work has an introduction, ranging from 2 to 6 minutes, which then gives way to a few chords: the harmonic base that changes from time to time and over which meditative melodic lines are overlaid. Schulze's typical style, in short, if not for the fact that the dense musical fabric is intentionally undifferentiated, the timbres are recalled at intervals like a hallucinatory review, the discreet but insistent beat is the backbone of always rather sustained tempos... and all this translates into repetitive music, even though made of micro-variations, that keeps returning to itself.

So it is in the opening title track, and so it is in the other pieces: "a-Numerique", "Fm Delight", "Velvet System". Fascinating titles in themselves, but if "En=Trance" is to be appreciated for its overall solidity, it cannot be ignored that here the genuine emotion is lacking, the engagement that characterized many works of the '70s. Here Schulze seems even more austere and detached, seeming to have gained in the control of expressive means but losing in authenticity and spontaneity.

Can one be spontaneous while making electronic music? The enigmatic figure on the cover does not answer this question. He enters discreetly into the sound dimension offered by this album, as those unfamiliar with this music are invited to do: Schulze not at his highest levels, but still at an interesting crossroads in his long journey.