SCHNITZLER CONRAD – SLOW MOTION CD

Description

In Asmus Tietchens’ liner-notes for ‘Slow Motion’, he writes that although Schnitzler was never a film composer, his treatment for the film worked so well because he saw eye-to-eye with Hödicke on a philosophical level. Both artists were eager to step across established boundaries, both working in various disciplines to express their freewheeling commentaries on the era’s buttoned-up culture. Hödicke’s film was a patchwork of 14 sequences, each of which Schnitzler accompanies with a specific track, interpreting the visuals with his array of analog sequencers, synths, rhythm machines and signature clanging foley percussion. Hödicke let Schnitzler run wild with his imagination, and ‘Slow Motion’ might be one of the most intriguing archival discoveries we’ve heard in a minute. It only appeared back in 2010 as a limited vinyl edition on the Italian Sagittarius A-Star imprint, so this fresh reissue from Bureau B is absolutely necessary.

Musically, there’s a lot going on: the most generous track, ‘Slow Motion 4’, weighs in at close to eight minutes and Schnitzler balances ominous, low-end synth snarls with stargazing oscillations and, most crucially, the kind of pots-and-pans clangs that made those early Kluster LPs so breathtakingly unique. On the other end of the spectrum, ‘Slow Motion 6’ is over in under a minute, just a pacy acidic sequenced squelch that cycles minically into the void. Elsewhere, Schnitzler foregrounds his rudimentary drum machines, improvising in curled strokes over chilly, echoed-out beats on ‘Slow Motion 1’ and sculpting the rhythm into an industrial chug on ‘Slow Motion 9’, using his synths to accompany it with celestial, stargazing wails. The tracks are interconnected, but Schnitzler seems to approach each with a fresh set of concepts, dissolving the disco-lite arpeggios into dubby traces on ‘Slow Motion 10’ and veering into ominous dark ambience on closing track ‘Slow Motion 14’. A keeper, for sure.