Klaus Schulze (Wahnfried) Trance Appeal (Reissue) CD / 12 tracks / 75.53 mins Please go to the Store to buy this item.

With the CD playing and my biro at the ready l am poised to do some real damage, but hold on a minute this first track 'Suspense'(3.40) is rather disappointingly good!!! It's one for the subwoofers and has synth effects firing off like screaming fireworks in all directions. 'Bizarre'(5.43) breaks the mood in an instant with all manner of sampled and percussive effects played over some really edgy suspense filled strings. This is all very cinematic reminding me of a kind of updated excerpt from 'Sebastian im Traum'. The industrial sounding 'Rubbish'(4.06) follows up smartly, again changing the mood completely sounding almost identical to the kind of heavy electro pop dished out by bands such as the 'Severed Heads' or 'Bio-Tek', with it's electronic percussion hammering away. It's certainly a track of two halves as the piece winds up very differently with an epic set of strings that are almost pure Vangelis!!!

Already I find that l'm really beginning to like this album alot with it's ever changing variety, 'Angel Heart'(8.50) just building on the success of the opening tracks. This is a superbly proportioned piece of modern day electronica, a wistful flute over heart beat percussion introduces the piece as again those wide cinematic strings build to a mid section of tabla and fretless bass. A phased synth pad sound making space enough for some delicate sequencing in the last few minutes, a wonderful track. 'So What?'(3.43) is another short uptempo number which seems alittle weak after the previous number. The bridging section see's more muscle added to the bare bones of the piece as it moves swiftly by. At this point l feel the need to point out that l know what techno sounds like and this ain't it; not that that's a bad thing in this case. In fact to apply the term techno to the album at all is rather misleading. Onto the next piece, 'Towarisch'(4.06) which kicks to life with a drum n' bass slant which soon evaporates into a steady sea of sampled effects and electronics never really finding a direction and again sounding rather like 'Bio-Tek'. Don't skip over this track though as the finale is a real choral treat.

Tracks seven thru ten now go on to form one long composition based around a similar string theme which runs throughout. Once more there is great variety here,(hence the titled sections). Klaus did a similar thing with large portions of his live show material,(see 'Are You Sequenced' and 'Dosburg Online' reviews). 'Das Madchen mag es'(2.20) mysteriously shifts into play and suspense is once again high on the agenda as staccato strings introduce,'A Chilly Fiesta'(9.34). With a trumpet lead and fretless bass we really are performing music very similar to the live show recording's that would follow. It all seems abit laid back after the other styles presented here and is cut short at just the right moment as the hard sequencing of,'Esprit sans fronti res'(8.37) arrives. A change of key soon has us in regular Schulze mode only to go on to switch to heavy duty sequencing modus with a pounding kick drum sound. The light and heavy sequencing patterns cycle around for the entirety of this section and surprisingly it all works rather well. 'Psychedelic Clubbing'(9.00) see's things break down abit as we go mad with just the percussion and off-the-wall sampled effects, great!!! Briefly the sequencing of the previous section appears prior to a short section of track eight returning, the set going full circle when an augmented track seven re-emerges for the closing few minutes. This my friends is not musical economy but composition.

'Le Sleep des Animaux'(3.02) brings the original album to a close and like the earlier tracks its roots are firmly set in the world of percussion. Again this is a wonderfully moody cinematic piece sounding not unlike Paul Haslinger's more contemporary soundtrack work. Now the real surprise of the whole album, the single bonus track entitled 'Marooned'. At just over thirteen minutes this really is the killer punch for the album, it is simply superb!!! Recorded around the year 2000 with Schaaf again sharing the duties the four minute introduction is completely bizarre, but absolutely brilliant; remaining completely focused, it's impossible to describe really - just total synth madness!!! Those huge epic Vangelisy strings are back in action playing a subdued and mournful theme, alittle like an over the top version of something Jan Hammer may have cobbled together for the Miami Vice TV show back in the eighties. It's sublimely grandiose and l love it as synths swoop and twitter overhead. The rest of the album is good, but this is something else - very unSchulzelike but receives top marks easily.