47: Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht

Klaus Schulze presumably left Tangerine Dream because they were not going in the direction he was interested in. So he made this record, released in 1972 (the same time as Zeit) which sounds not far off Zeit's younger sibling. I never bought these at the time - they seemed to be a bit throwaway. The follow up record wasn't even pictured in the picture section of the book, though the odd one out record, Cyborg, was. Outside of the established groups these records felt less essential.

But Irrlicht, which Wikipedia says is the german for Will-o-the-wisp, so expect dodgy cartoon tvs and bad jokes? Three tracks, two 20 minutes and one about 5. Considering Klaus was a drummer there's not much drums here. The first track bimbles along for 10 minutes or so, before being overtaken by a huge church organ (c.f. Zeit) drone. The middle short track is a break between the two longer pieces and to be honest is mostly synth and processed drones throughout. It's really good though, doesn't quite have the commitment of Zeit but has the sound to some extent. It's a beautiful record and hangs outside of music in it's own assured way. It's big but it's not huge.

One of the problems I find with drone records is that they need loads of listens (way more than a week allows) in order to really get into them. I think this was the first time I really fully appreciated Zeit for what it is. They also need to be given the space to really listen to them - you can't get away with  having it on whilst watching Masterchef or similar. My house is starting to feel quite empty - I'm going to fill it with synth drones :-)