Klaus Schulze Moondawn CD

Personnel: Klaus Schulze (organ, keyboards, synthesizer); Haraold Grobkopf (drums).
Recorded at Studio P-anne-Paulsen, Frankfurt, Germany.
As one of the original members of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze certainly blazed some important trails on the virgin terrain of early-1970s electronic music--trails that would grow wide enough to accommodate millions of travelers throughout the '80s, '90s, 2000s, and beyond, and encompass everything from New Age and ambient music to drone and chill-out techno. The same commitment to innovation marks Schulze's solo discography, from which 1976's MOONDAWN emerges as one of the highlights.
Comprising two long compositions ("Floating" and "Mindphaser"), MOONDAWN is vintage, ambient space music generated by various analog synthesizers (foremost of which is the Moog, the key instrument Schulze used to sculpt his signature sound). Not only is MOONDAWN an important document in the early chapters of electronica, but it stands up remarkably well beside the countless albums it helped inspire.
Klaus Schulze is one of the most legendary e-musicians of all time. He is also one of the best and most original. Moondawn is one of the true classics of the genre. For many serious listeners, this was the first and/or most important electronic music purchase. There is good reason for such sentiment -- this is a great album. It is definitely hardcore Berlin school electronica and much more. Like his contemporaries, Schulze added some extra flair to his style. This album has loads of ambient atmospheres accompanying the deep sequences. While the original album is an analog creation, it still holds its own with new millennium digitalia and is uniquely old school. This CD bears comparisons only to Schulze's peers of its era: Jean Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Edgar Froese, T.O.N.T.O.'s Expanding Head Band, and Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company. ~ Jim Brenholts