Vie Electronique, Vol. 11

Liner Note Author: Klaus D. Mueller.
Photographer: Klaus D. Mueller.
The material for this volume of electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze's ongoing La Vie Electronique series was originally included as part of his ambitious 1993 limited-edition box set, Silver Edition. That immediately out of print ten-disc set gathered together new-at-the-time studio recordings as well as live recordings from Schulze's early solo concerts, circa 1976. The three-disc repackaging on La Vie Electronique, Vol. 11 includes only 1992-1993 studio material culled from the Silver Edition sessions, including the extensive film music suite of disc one. Schulze's cosmic synthesizer tapestries stretch out into infinity on much of discs one and two, sometimes leaning more toward the ambient drone that characterized his early solo albums and other times changing into musique concrète-style electronic sound collage. When joined by the occasional woodwind or (possibly programmed) drum sounds, these elongated compositions wander somewhat into new age waters, and the early-'90s hyper-digital production sounds especially dated and brittle. This doesn't take away from the entire package, however, as much as it just highlights the complexities of Schulze's extraterrestrial soundtracks and their multiple layers of bizarre details. Disc three breaks up the extended song cycles into shorter pieces, with eerie repeated themes flowing throughout haunting tracks like "Thy Eternal Summer Shall Not Fade" and "Fools of Time." ~ Fred Thomas