Con ~ Conrad Schnitzler

'Con’ aka ‘Ballet Statique’ is a totally classic peak in the singular canon of Conrad Schnitzler, the godfather of kosmiche and legendary pioneer of independent DIY electronics.
Resurfacing for the first time in a decade, 1978’s evergreen ‘Con’ is still future-proofed by its steely minimalism and spacey mind-drift pull. It stands out as a definitive number in the near endless reels of pulsating proto-techno that Schnitzler specialized in and brought to the likes of Tangerine Dream and Kluster from the late ‘60s, and its really not hard here to register how his music would pave the way for everyone from Mika Vainio to Plastikman and Buttechno.
While there was certainly no shortage of artists making pulsing electronic music in the ‘70s, as proved by the groundswell of reissues in the past 10 years, the crisp lines and sleek melodies of ‘Con’ stand out from the crowd thanks to Schnitzler’s crisply minimalist and eloquent articulation of electronic music which betrayed a familiarity with his machines that most artists can only aspire to. In interplanetary steps the album takes us from gyrating deep space to the eternal Kraftwerkian elegance of ‘Ballet Statique’, and the celestial tracking of ‘Zug’ to the kind of scorched earth atmospheres in ‘Black Nails’ that would also make this work, and the likes of 1988’s ‘Conditions of A Gas Giant’ a key touchstone for black metal, techno, noise and all sorts of music we all hold dear.

Track list:

00:00 Electric Garden
12:50 Ballet Statique
17:53 Zug
23:37 Metall I
28:36 Black Nails