Christian Wittman – for Klaus Schulze

Christian Wittman (Lightwave) wrote on August 1: “It is with great sorrow and disbelief that I learnt of the death of Klaus Schulze on April 27. More than others, he is one of the musicians who accompanied my life, inspired me, made me dream… His albums belong to the history of electronic music and the Berlin School, of which he was one of the founders, with Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, the Cosmic Jokers… His concerts were as many milestones in my trajectory as a musician, and I had the chance to meet him several times, for interviews, in Paris as well as in his studio lost in the German Forest…Klaus Schulze has introduced into electronic music a typically German romanticism, and sometimes Wagnerian (X, Mirage, Dune…), the hypnotic power of repetitive music, the modal inflections of orientalizing solos, the powerful underpinnings of the polymoog layers overflown by the crystalline sequences of his modular synthesizers…From the VCS3, the Farfisa organ and the ARP 2600 to today virtual instruments, Klaus Schulze is forever a landmark in the history of electronic lutherie, from the heavy modular synthesizers to the samplers, the MIDI, the digital equipment…The day I heard about his death , I couldn’t find the words to express what I felt.

So I started to create a track for him, in his memory, as a testimony of immense admiration and gratitude. It is not an imitation of the style in which he excelled so well. It is my music, my sensitivity, my sound, my aesthetics. This track of almost 15 minutes is full of melancholy and charged with a thousand luminous memories, inspired by the White Angel mastering his black machines. A mirage will never die…Klaus Schulze is alive for ever…

This special tribute track can be found on Christian’s Bandcamp page, it is also available for streaming from other platforms.