Conrad Schnitzler / Pyrolator - Con-Struct (2015)

"Con-Struct" is a series of albums whereby Conrad Schnitzler's archive of sounds was opened up to contemporary German musicians, with releases beginning in 2011 (the year Schnitzler died).  This one I probably picked up around the same time as those two early Pyrolator albums featured at the start of this blog (links below), and it's Kurt Dahlke's latter-day sound that takes the Schnitzler building blocks here and gives them a sleek techno sheen.

After a tantalising ambient drift of an introduction, Pyrolator's Con-Struct album takes a few tracks to warm up into something genuinely special, but then hits cruising altitude with a series of winning con-structions.  Some of these could almost sit comfortably on a contemporary Ostgut Ton album (now my absolute favourite label for new electronic releases).  All the tracks have numerical titles, as per late-period Schnitzler's general practice, and my personal picks are the minimalism of 316-2, the pleasantly bouncy 287-13, and the club-ready sequences of 316-16.

link
pw: sgtg

Conrad Schnitzler at SGTG:
Grün
Con
Consequenz
Contempora
Con 3
Congratulacion
Pyrolator at SGTG:
Inland
Pyrolator's Wunderland

Pyrolator - Pyrolator's Wunderland (1984)

Four years on from making Inland, Kurt 'Pyrolator' Dahlke found himself in New York, taking inspiration not from the hip hop and electro sounds that were exploding overground, but from old mambo rhythms and vintage sheet music.  Grafting this on to the latest Emulator technology with a splash of bird/animal noises captured at the local zoo, the result was an album's-worth of pure joy, which couldn't possibly be more of a contrast to Pyrolator's debut.

I've been repeatedly using Wunderland as a winter blues-tonic for dark mornings in recent months - it's impossible not to be cheered by squawking birds and zany melodies that sound like they've come straight off a cartoon or video game.  As a Scottish blogger, I'm obviously going to be intrigued by a track whose title translates as 'A master bedroom in Scotland' - can't really hear what the connection is though, if anything the track in question sounds vaguely Indian in its percussion and sitar-like sounds, not a million miles away from my favourite Tangerine Dream, Hyperborea.

link

Pyrolator - Inland (1979)

Kurt Dahlke, member of Der Plan and early member of D.A.F., and sometime collaborator with a great many others, has released a handful of great electronic records under his solo monkier Pyrolator.  This is his debut from 1979.

As far as post-punk minimal electronics go, Inland is an absolute classic that deserves to be much better known.  It might also be described as part of the early industrial canon, if it were a bit more lo-fi. Dahlke's command of synth texture and programming holds its own with Chris Carter's best work in Throbbing Gristle, and in fact, Inland might be exactly what 'The Space Between' collection of Carter's demos could've been had it been buffed and shined up into a fully-fledged solo album.  Elsewhere, the numbered title tracks nudge into Maurizio Bianchi territory in their sonic assault, albeit nowhere near as rough and decayed.  In fact, this album really just sounds great - grab it.

link