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Great album, "In Blue" by Klaus Schulze, but what an effort to listen to it all! It is a double CD: the first contains a single track lasting 78 minutes; the second contains two tracks, but even in this case, the silver disc is completely filled: 44 + 34 minutes. In short, over two and a half hours of music. Not exactly a walk in the park for the listener.
Let’s start with "Into The Blue", the first long sonic ride of this work: soft keyboards in the background, snippets of melody overlapping (not real solos, just some phrasing); almost nothing happens until after 12 minutes (!) with the entry of sampled choir sounds followed by a more pronounced rhythmic impulse that entertains us for 20 minutes: in the meantime, differentiated synth timbres take turns during the solos.
A new episode with an insistent bass and prominent electronic percussion (we’ve passed the halfway point and are heading back...), a solo reminiscent of "Miditerranean Pads" or "Beyond Recall" past, and then, after a brief transition, the sprint resumes almost to the end, in a sort of coda that recaps the atmospheres and sounds already encountered before. "Into The Blue" finally has a soft and relaxed conclusion.
I wanted to describe the structure of this track because it leaves a notable impression on the listener: it's like venturing into a continent of sounds whose boundaries are not visible. In this umpteenth stage of his long career, Schulze is very far from the eclectic style of some albums of the '80s like "Inter*Face" or "En=Trance". Here, on the contrary, echoes of cosmic Schulze are felt, only we’re in 1995 and you can tell! There's no pointless nostalgia for the beginnings, the parade of acoustic ghosts that hits us during the listening is a bit disorienting and a bit seductive.
CD 2: the first track is titled "Return Of The Tempel" because in it we find Manuel Göttsching, the guitarist of one of the most famous kraut-rock bands of the early '70s, the Ash Ra Tempel, a group Schulze himself had been part of in their first and third albums. In this case, during the introduction and the epilogue, Schulze's sampled guitar timbre and Göttsching's real one make an appearance in a playful attempt to confuse each other. But in the central section of the piece, an almost half-hour sustained by a fast tempo, it's Göttsching who unleashes all the virulence of his electric guitar solos: as always piercing and acidic, even though more than twenty years have passed.
"Serenade In Blue" is the third and final track, but you have to labor for another half hour to get to the end. Suffice it to say that only in the last part, past 24 minutes, the piece acquires a certain rhythmic consistency, while previously it had evoked the atmospheres of the first CD (especially with the use of sampled choir sounds), thus suggesting the idea of a gigantic sound loop virtually endless.
For those who love the most sophisticated and creative electronic music, this double CD is a safe haven. The lord of synths does not disappoint, indeed shows that his creative vein, 23 years after his solo debut, is far from exhausted. It’s a great album, "In Blue" by Klaus Schulze. But try listening to it all yourself.
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