Conrad Schnitzler – Minced valves

1 review for Conrad Schnitzler – Minced valves

1. 

   Matt Howarth / Sonic Curiosity – 2022-11-22

   This release from 2010 offers 60 minutes of primordial electronic music recorded in 1977.

   Four of these tracks are Schnitzler alone, and these exemplify his quirky style of electronics: blooping sounds that defy earthly description mixed with sharper punctuations–blips that serve as faux beats. While possessing traces of a flowing nature, the music tends to be eccentric with elusive melodic definition. Swishing oscillations generate an ethereal foundation which functions as a backdrop for electronic weirdness.
   The rest of the pieces are collaborations by the three performers. These display a looser structure with airy tonalities establishing a milieu of haunting clouds that are seasoned with piercing pitches that course through the eerie vapors like rogue laser beams penetrating a murky cellar. A sense of psychedelic dreaminess is conjured and maintained as the tunes pursue their sedate paths. While possessing a basic melodic character, the songs create a moody presence that combines spectral atmospheres with a cosmic environment, more like ambience with a toothy undercurrent.
   A few pieces employ rhythmics in the form of synthesized sounds harnessed to approximate tempos. A variety of these beat tracks blend with each other to establish a bouncy feeling that is then tempered by the emergence of pleasant squeals which serve to contribute a lilting embellishment to the synthetic percussive nucleus.

   During the Seventies synthesizers tended to be cumbersome apparatus requiring extreme presetting to achieve coherent sounds. Thus this music exhibits a primordial demeanor that evokes an extinct flavor that is altogether mesmerizing for electronic aficionados, a glimpse into bygone days that is remarkably entertaining for the mastery shown by the musicians.

   2011. Matt Howarth / Sonic Curiosity