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Rating:
The production of Klaus Schulze in the 1980s is as dense as, if not more than, that of the previous decade: two live albums, six soundtracks and collaborations with other musicians, a compilation, plus six studio albums: it is logical, therefore, to talk about "Inter*Face", released in 1985, right in the middle of the period under consideration.
An album of good quality that lives the tension, from the title itself, between the cosmic Schulze asserted in the '70s and the search for new paths. The first three tracks are emblematic in this sense: of almost equal duration (8, 9, and 7 minutes), they are characterized by very marked percussion, yet assume a different meaning in each of the three episodes. Upbeat rhythm and "disco" tone in the lively "On The Edge" at the opening (here, the ascetic electronic master of early works is almost unrecognizable), asymmetric and nervous rhythm in "Colours In The Darkness", which almost recalls certain new wave sounds typical of those years, and finally lounge atmosphere in "The Beat Planante", with a discreet but full-bodied percussion to which the snare drum is added, at 6 minutes from the start, for a brief appearance.
Rhythm, then! Schulze seems not to be exempt from the hedonistic and disengaged climate that dominated the period. But his music is never superficial nor gratuitous, and "Inter*Face" certainly does not contradict this assumption. It can be considered an album of transition, for someone who had accustomed us to exquisite courses.
The title track, a long piece of almost 25 minutes, offers us a reminder. The piece, in fact, is the one that most closely recalls the German's peculiar style: in the timbres of the keyboards that produce relaxed and meditative solos, in the slow evolution of music that evokes cosmic upheavals, in the solemn and somewhat anguished atmospheres, as well as in its very length. The track, however, is not a sterile déjà vu, just think of the very particular tone of the timpani that runs throughout this long electronic cavalcade (in the studio the guest musician Ulli Schober on percussion) and again to the relaxed rhythmic beat that runs through the whole piece from the sixth minute, periodically emerging.
"Inter*Face": in name and in fact. With this album, Schulze does not remain imprisoned by the past, yet at the same time, does not deny it.
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