Blau / Rot

It can’t be a mistake that Red = Rot since this is electronic music rotted one note at a time. As a debut solo album – its actually more complicated than that*– it’s a singular attempt to define a new genre of bubbling, messy, electronic music… Rot is propulsive/compulsive; as dark and shiny as a Scribing Mirror. You can hear the tangles that he gets in and he leaves them there, testing the boundaries, daring the listener to accept these notches and whirls as actual music…

  *I've decided not to add anything here, after all

Today, I’m sure it makes way more sense than it did when it was originally released. I’d imagine this came of a sudden shock to the floppy haired 70s and it’s clearly more aligned with Throbbing Gristle than the Ambient/pure Kosmische angles to which, ostensibly, he belongs (he doesn't belong anywhere, this is the genius of Schnitzler). Rot is music of the earth, not at all spacey… It’s pure electronica but it could be made of amplified loam. It could be close-miked bracken (smoked round these parts by dead-eyed shark boys – the Vauxhall Nova Convention, held at Ham Hill, full of cider-stewed minds, braindeath in apple green...), it could be the stirrings of growth at the first signs of rain. 

Tubers... stirring... lilacs...

Everything feels organic, imperfect, full of possibilities.

Blau is a slightly gentler cousin, as if he’d broken the traditions with Rot and recognised the need to slightly reassure again. This isn’t quite as spaced out as Klaus Schulze et al but it’s a recognisable kin and heads back into space again, albeit a harsher, colder space than we’re used to seeing… This isn't The Orb. These clouds aren't Fluffy.  Blau feels more composed, less accidental than Rot (I’d imagine in reality that both have been very carefully controlled and organised, just because he was relatively prolific I'd still imagine that he's very...considered in his approach; the spontaneity is planned to the arse) and, as such, works for different reasons. Rot attacks and then retreats; Blau just simmers and pulses… There’s still a lot going on, but the notes are held for slightly longer and the awkward knotting is largely untangled. This might work fine for the Tangerine Dreamer needing a quick blow back into the Kosmos....

K-holes, though... Beware. They'll suck you in if you listen too closely. There's little vortices of sound in there, just below the surface... Don't think that just because the note seems continuous that it is... there's inside and outside here, this really isn't all surface...

Someone reminds me of the joke: Did you know that the "B" in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stands for 'Benoit B. Mandelbrot'?

a slightly different version of this was previously on Freq